Glossary: Psychedelic Medicine

The marketing or sale of medicines, ceremonies, or traditional knowledge for financial gain. Ethical concerns include exploitation, inequitable access, and loss of cultural integrity.

A profound sense of equality, connection, and shared humanity that often emerges during rituals, ceremonies, or transformative experiences.

The emotional, relational, ethical, and physical structure established by clinicians or facilitators to provide safety, predictability, and support throughout therapeutic or ceremonial work.

A condition or circumstance in which a treatment or intervention should not be used because the potential risks outweigh the benefits.

A culture's understanding of the origin, structure, and relationships among the universe, humanity, nature, ancestors, and the sacred.

Respectful engagement with another culture through learning, collaboration, acknowledgment, permission when appropriate, and recognition of the community's authority over its traditions.

The adoption or use of cultural knowledge, symbols, ceremonies, or practices without permission, understanding, attribution, or respect for their original cultural context.

A lifelong commitment to self-reflection, openness, and respectful engagement with individuals and communities from different cultural backgrounds. Cultural humility emphasizes learning, collaboration, and recognition of power imbalances rather than mastery of another culture.

An approach to health care in which patients determine whether care is experienced as respectful and free from racism, discrimination, or power imbalances, requiring ongoing critical self-reflection by practitioners and institutions.

A traditional healer in Mexico Central and Soth America who integrates herbal medicine, prayer, ritual, massage, spiritual cleansing, and community knowledge to promote health and healing. Practices vary across regions and cultural traditions.

The ongoing process of identifying and dismantling colonial structures, assumptions, and power relations while restoring Indigenous self-determination, knowledge systems, governance, and cultural authority.

A large-scale brain network involved in self-referential thinking, autobiographical memory, mind wandering, and maintenance of the sense of self. Classic psychedelics temporarily reduce the functional integrity of the DMN.

An acute disturbance in attention, awareness, and cognition that develops over a short period and fluctuates in severity. Delirium is usually caused by an underlying medical condition, medication, or substance.

A fixed false belief that persists despite clear contradictory evidence and is not explained by cultural or religious beliefs.

A form of dissociation characterized by feeling detached from one's body, thoughts, emotions, or sense of self while reality testing remains intact.