Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy (MCP) has shown significant promise in reducing existential distress and improving wellbeing in people with advanced cancer. Research is yet to explore the applicability and translation of MCP into an Indigenous Aotearoa New Zealand cultural context.

This research sought to explore the applicability of MCP within Aotearoa New Zealand. The objectives of this study were to investigate Indigenous patients’ experiences of an MCP trial and Indigenous therapists’ experiences of recruitment and MCP delivery within the trial.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 2 Indigenous patients with advanced cancer receiving MCP, 1 Indigenous support person, and 4 Indigenous health psychologists delivering MCP about their experience in the research trial. Participants were also asked their views on recruiting Indigenous populations into research trials, and on the applicability of MCP in Aotearoa New Zealand. Reflective thematic analysis was utilized to analyze interview transcripts.

This study showed that trust is central to recruiting Indigenous populations into research trials and contributed to the overall success of MCP delivery. Participants highlighted community trust and organizational mistrust as potential contributors toward recruitment challenges. Trust in the self, in others, and in culture was central to finding meaning through MCP. When conducted in a safe patient-centered therapeutic space, MCP concepts and meaning-making can integrate effectively into Te Ao Māori and an Indigenous context.

MCP concepts and delivery may integrate well into a Te Ao Māori framework. Care should be taken in future delivery of MCP within Aotearoa New Zealand, ensuring the patient-focused nature of the therapeutic modality is maintained, and the patient’s own connection with culture is the highest priority.

Psychedelic therapies are gaining attention as a novel therapy for existential distress in cancer patients. However, such treatments are often stigmatized and the views of support networks are unknown. Caregivers play an essential role in supporting the wellbeing and decision-making of people with cancer. In the context of a trial investigating psychedelic therapy for cancer patients, understanding the experience of the caregiver is important.

The objectives of this research were to investigate the hopes, beliefs, perceptions, and experience of caregivers for advanced cancer patients undergoing a trial investigating a psychedelic-assisted therapy.

Semi-structured interviews asked 15 caregivers about their experience at baseline and 1 month after their close associate had completed treatment in a feasibility trial where participants were randomized to receive either lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) microdoses or placebo alongside meaning-centered psychotherapy (MCP). Blinded to condition, reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyze interview transcripts.

This study demonstrates the importance of bidirectional influences between caregiver and patient; the experience of one influences the experience of both. Caregivers were generally supportive of their close associate participating in a psychedelic-assisted trial, although some admitted hesitancy in them taking part. Caregivers described a desire to make the most of now, referring to the role of LSD microdose-assisted MCP as a means of accessing hope, improving the dyad relationship, and reducing existential distress.

Participation in trials investigating psychedelic-assisted MCP may offer hope for patients and their caregivers. Given the bidirectional relationship in wellbeing between cancer dyads, caregivers should be included alongside patients in such trials.

A resurgence of research investigating the administration of psychedelic compounds alongside psychotherapy suggests that this treatment is a promising intervention for anxiety, depression, and existential distress in people with cancer. However, psychedelic treatment that induces a mind-altering experience potentially poses barriers to vulnerable cancer patients, and health-care practitioners may have concerns about referring their patients to trials investigating this approach. The aim of the current study was to investigate the perceptions of cancer health-care practitioners based in New Zealand and the USA related to psychedelic-assisted therapy.

This study utilized a cross-sectional survey of cancer health-care practitioners in New Zealand and the USA via convenience sampling to identify their perceptions about the concept of conducting psychedelic-assisted therapy with cancer patients.

Participants perceived that (1) psychedelic-assisted therapy has the potential to provide benefit for cancer patients, (2) research in this area across a variety of domains is important, (3) work should consider spiritual and indigenous perspectives of health, and (4) there was willingness to refer patients to trials in this area, especially patients with advanced disease who were no longer going through curative treatment. Participants in the USA had greater awareness of psychedelics than the New Zealand sample; however, New Zealand participants more strongly believed that spiritual/indigenous factors should be considered in psychedelic-assisted therapy.

Cancer health-care practitioners in our sample considered research investigating the potential for psychedelic-assisted therapies to be important and may be more open to studies that start in palliative and end-of-life contexts.