Rick Strassman

Rick J. Strassman is a psychiatrist and clinical researcher whose work has focused on controlled human-subject research with classical and dissociative psychedelics. He led seminal dose–response investigations of DMT in humans, including development and preliminary validation of symptom rating approaches to characterise DMT’s subjective effects. Beyond DMT, his contributions extend to clinical and proof‑of‑concept studies of psychedelic‑assisted treatments and dissociative agents, including investigations of ketamine psychotherapy for heroin addiction (with immediate outcomes and multi‑year follow‑up), studies of ketamine’s psychedelic effects in healthy volunteers in relation to plasma concentrations, and early clinical work exploring psilocybin‑assisted treatment for alcohol dependence.

Strassman has also been involved in neuropsychological and psychological assessments of recurrent ayahuasca/hoasca users, reflecting an interest in the longer‑term cognitive and psychological sequelae of ritualised psychedelic use. Across these projects he has combined clinical trial methods, psychometric development, and close phenomenological characterisation of altered states to inform therapeutic hypotheses and future clinical trial design in psychedelic medicine.