Jason Luoma

Dr. Jason Luoma is CEO of Portland Psychotherapy Clinic, Research, & Training Center and Director of Research at the Portland Institute for Psychedelic Science (pipsinstitute.com). He also serves as Associate Scientist at Oregon Research Institute and affiliate faculty at Oregon Health & Science University. His research focuses on shame, self-stigma, and human connection, particularly using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and psychedelic-assisted therapy to foster greater self-compassion and belonging. Dr. Luoma just completed up a clinical trial on MDMA-assisted therapy for social anxiety disorder and is starting a trial of psilocybin-assisted therapy for chronic pelvic pain. He co-founded the Oregon Psychedelic Evaluation Nexus (OPEN; openpsychedelicscience.org) to study Oregon's psilocybin services. An internationally recognized ACT trainer and past president of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science, he has authored over 80 scientific publications and co-written two books: Learning Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Values in Therapy.

From pilot to protocol: Psychotherapy in MDMA-AT for social anxiety disorder

MDMA-assisted therapy (MDMA-AT) shows promise for Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD), yet until recently no psychotherapy approach has been systematically adapted for this context. This paper reports on the results of an open-label, wait-list–controlled trial (N = 20) that served as a “living laboratory” for protocol refinement. Sessions began with the MAPS/Lykos nondirective model, but participants often avoided therapeutically-relevant material and withdrew from in-session social contact. Guided by a framework focusing on MDMA-enhanced effects on memory reconsolidation, self-transcendence, and social reward, we iteratively added four components: (1) scripted reprocessing of shame-laden memories and in-session social experiments; (2) overt therapist warmth to violate negative interpersonal expectancies; (3) integration assignments that expand real-world social activity; and (4) an imagery-based “empathic re-imagining” exercises to reconsolidate autobiographical narratives. Primary and mechanistic outcomes—including Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale change, functional disability, and self-transcendent emotions—will be presented alongside an analysis of change over time as the manual progressed. These findings suggest that iterative, theory-driven integration of evidence-based principles of change into psychedelic-assisted therapy may serve to maximize clinical effectiveness.