How Do We Fix The Placebo Problem? With Dr. Balázs Szigeti

One of the most pressing challenges in psychedelic science is the placebo problem: the intense subjective effects of psychedelics cause functional unblinding and amplify expectancy effects, undermining the integrity of gold-standard randomized controlled trials. In this episode of The Integration Session, we are joined by Dr. Balázs Szigeti, clinical data scientist at the UCSF Translational Psychedelic Research Program and leading voice on the role of placebo in psychedelic science. Drawing from his work on pioneering self-blinding citizen science and landmark studies comparing psilocybin and antidepressants, Balázs provides a critical evidence-based perspective on how placebo (and nocebo) effects shape therapeutic outcomes, why traditional study designs may not be best suited for the study of psychedelics, and the potential of pragmatic, patient-centered approaches. About Balázs: Balázs studied physics at Imperial College and then earned a PhD in data science from the University of Edinburgh. After graduating, he worked as a biomedical software engineer before starting to research psychedelics. His way into psychedelic research was the invention of 'self-blinding': a novel method to enable self-experimenters to implement their own placebo control without clinical supervision. Using this methodology he led the largest placebo-controlled study on psychedelic microdosing to-date. Since his microdosing study, Balázs has been involved with the analysis of several high-profile psychedelic trials, such as the escitalopram vs. psilocybin and the psilocybin for Parkinson’s disease trial. His interests are centered on how expectancy and placebo effects shape response to psychedelic and other drugs. He is an expert in clinical trial design and analysis. Currently, he is an honorary researcher at Imperial College’s Center for Psychedelic Research and works as a clinical data scientist at UCSF’s Translational Psychedelic Research Program.