Peter Gasser, M.D.
Psychiatrist; Conducted First Legal Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Session in Decades
Swiss psychiatrist who conducted the first legal LSD-assisted psychotherapy research since the 1970s, establishing proof-of-concept for psychedelic-assisted therapy in terminally ill patients with life-threatening illness anxiety.
Biography
Peter Gasser is a Swiss psychiatrist in private practice in Solothurn who made history by conducting the first legally sanctioned LSD-assisted psychotherapy research in decades. In the early 2000s, Gasser obtained approval from Swiss authorities and the FDA to conduct a pilot study of LSD-assisted psychotherapy for anxiety associated with life-threatening illness — a study that ran from 2008 to 2011.
The Swiss regulatory environment, more permissive than the US in certain research contexts, allowed Gasser to receive a special exception for this research at a time when such work was considered essentially impossible in most jurisdictions. His 2014 published results in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease demonstrated significant reductions in anxiety in patients with life-threatening illness — the first controlled human LSD trial in four decades.
Gasser is a member of the Swiss Medical Society for Psycholytic Therapy (SAEP) and a longtime advocate for the therapeutic use of psychedelics. His work opened the door for the subsequent wave of LSD and psilocybin research that followed in Switzerland and internationally. He has consulted on MAPS clinical trial protocols and provided expertise on psycholytic therapy methodology to research teams worldwide.
Organizations
Why They Matter to the LearnShrooms Community
Gasser's research represents a critical historical bridge between the first wave of psychedelic research that ended in the early 1970s and the current renaissance. His successful negotiation of Swiss regulatory approval for LSD research proved that psychedelic-assisted therapy could re-enter the medical mainstream — and his 2014 results provided clinical data that helped justify the subsequent wave of psilocybin trials.
