Six months after Mad in America published a report calling for the retraction of an article on psychedelic therapy, the Journal of Humanistic Psychology (JHP) has published an “Expression of Concern,” which tells of an ongoing investigation into the reliability of the paper.

The JHP published “A Qualitative Exploration of Relational Ethical Challenges and Practices in Psychedelic Healing” by William Brennan with co-authors Jackson, M., MacLean, K., & Ponterotto, J., in 2021. On Sept. 13, 2025, Mad in America released a Report detailing the ethical questions around the paper, “The Case for Retraction: Psychedelic Therapy Study Omitted Interviews that Told of Sexual Abuse.”

The JHP paper first came under scrutiny after Mad in America published my 2021 article describing abuse of clients and students by two psychedelic therapists, Aharon Grossbard and Francoise Bourzat. Following that MIA publication, it was revealed that the lead author of the paper, William Brennan, had been a student of Grossbard (who works closely with his wife Bourzat), and that the JHP paper’s research subjects may have been drawn from among Grossbard/Bourzat students. Grossbard and Bourzat are prominent psychedelic therapy trainers worldwide who have been accused by multiple students and clients of sexual misconduct normalized as part of their training school. Critics have pointed to the two as part of broader issues of misconduct in the semi-underground world of psychedelic therapy, including recent and historical cases.

As discussed in the Mad in America Report, the Brennan et al. paper faces retraction on grounds that:

• Conflicts of interest were improperly disclosed (Brennan’s ties to Cybin, now Helus Pharma)
• Data describing sexual abuse of clients was withheld
• Boundary- and sexual-transgressive conduct was recast as therapeutic and “healing”
• Therapist self-policing was promoted as sufficient oversight
• Brennan himself stated that the study was no longer reliable

In publishing the Brennan paper, JHP appeared to be vouching for the authors’ “psychedelic exceptionalism.” The paper positioned psychedelics as having extraordinary healing properties, properties that required revising ethical standards for client protection and dispensing with established mechanisms for therapist accountability when violations occur.

Fordham University, where Brennan conducted the research for his doctoral dissertation, conducted its own investigation and determined last year that it “considers the matter to be closed.” However, Fordham’s investigation focused on Brennan’s compliance with the research protocol approved by the university’s Institutional Review Board (IRB), and whether there was research misconduct defined by the University as “fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism.” The retraction case against Brennan is based on issues that fall outside Fordham’s limited review.

On March 12, 2026, JHP published an Expression of Concern on its website, stating that it would remain “until a final conclusion has been made” in an ongoing investigation. An Expression of Concern is often a precursor to retraction, and it is used to alert readers that questions about the paper’s integrity or reliability have been raised and are being investigated. Expressions of Concern serve as a “warning label” to protect from uncritically reading potentially unreliable data while an investigation into a paper’s reliability is underway.

I recently contacted Sarah Kamens, JHP’s Editor-In-Chief, about the Expression of Concern.  “We continue to investigate and address the case,” she replied in an email. “I am working in close collaboration with the Sage Research Integrity team. Sage and JHP take all publication ethics concerns very seriously; we aim to resolve these concerns by taking actions in line with COPE guidelines, industry best practice, and the American Psychological Association ethical principles and code . . . We have issued an Expression of Concern on the manuscript. We have been following up with the relevant parties in order to resolve this matter and we will inform you as soon as we can when a final decision has been made.”

The Expression of Concern

While JHP‘s publication of the Expression of Concern does inform readers of an ongoing investigation, according to guidelines by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) it should also specifically “state the reasons for the concern,” which the JHP’s Expression of Concern lacks. And although the Expression of Concern is linked to the published article, the published article itself does not provide a clear notice that an Expression of Concern now exists, which COPE guidelines advise should be “easy to recognize” and discoverable. Instead, the published article has a menu heading titled “View correction/original article/reply article,” and you have to click on that menu item to see the link to the Expression of Concern.

Without an Expression of Concern that follows COPE guidelines, it isn’t possible for downstream services (e.g., search engines, indexing services, AIs, or bibliometric databases) to correctly discover and categorize that the study may be unreliable. In the interest of serving its readers and making it clear that the article is under an investigation that could lead to its retraction, JHP should remedy these deficiencies in its Expression of Concern.

The publication of the Expression of Concern is the latest development in what can best be described as the tortuous history of Brennan’s paper. Here is a timeline of this history:

September 16, 2021 ​

Journal of Humanistic Psychology (JHP) publishes the Brennan et al. paper “Brennan, W., Jackson, M. A., MacLean, K., & Ponterotto, J. G. (2021). A Qualitative Exploration of Relational Ethical Challenges and Practices in Psychedelic Healing. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 0(0).”

September 25, 2021

Mad in America publishes my blog, “Ending the Silence on Psychedelic Therapy Abuse,” alleging abuse by teachers Aharon Grossbard and Francoise Bourzat.

October 4, 2021

Brennan and his co-authors publish a Disclosure of Positionality on ResearchGate, in which Brennan acknowledges that Grossbard was his mentor, and that some or even a majority of those interviewed for the article may have been Grossbard students. He states that the contextual information is relevant to assessing the merits of his research. “Careful readers should attend to any bias in the analysis or presentation of the results that may reflect Dr. Grossbard’s influence on my thinking and update their inferences accordingly,” he writes.

November, 2021

Inverse (Nov. 16) and New York Magazine (Nov. 30) publish additional Grossbard and Bourzat abuse allegations involving students and clients.

December 6, 2021

Brennan and his co-authors publish their Disclosure of Positionality as an Addendum to their JHP article. However, the Addendum omits the sentence urging “careful readers” to be on the alert for bias in the presentation of results in the article.

May 2022

In a post on ResearchGate, Brennan disavows his research as not “inherently valid,” and removes his Fordham dissertation from public view to prevent data from “serving as supportive literature for dubious or abusive practices.” The research was also not made available when requested.

February 27, 2025

I and others contact JHP Editor Sarah Kamens and Sage Publications detailing reasons for Brennan’s paper to be retracted.

May 27, 2025

Kamens responds in an email to our call for a retraction, stating that she had consulted with independent experts on ethics and psychedelics research, as well as the Sage Research Integrity Team, and that she would publish an editorial statement that some practices described in the article were “explicitly disallowed by ethical guidelines in the mental health professions.” That Editor’s Note was added to the published article shortly after she wrote that email.

September 13, 2025

Mad in America publishes “The Case for Retraction: Psychedelic Therapy Study Omitted Interviews that Told of Sexual Abuse.”

September 15, 2025

In an email, Kamens informs me that the Fordham University IRB, which had overseen Brennan’s study, had completed its review of the complaint by myself and others. Kamens wrote: “The determination is that the allegations do not fall within the definition of research misconduct as stated in Fordham’s policies around research misconduct. In addition, there have been no findings of deviation from the approved IRB protocol. Therefore, Fordham considers the matter to be closed.”

January 5, 2026

Cybin Inc. changes name to Helus Pharma and replaces “psychedelic” with “novel serotonergic agonists” in its marketing; Mad in America previously reported Brennan et al. improperly disclosed ties to Cybin.

The publication of the Expression of Concern on March 12 is the latest turn in this case. While Fordham University considered the matter closed, the Expression of Concern published by JHP serves to inform the public that the matter is not closed, and retraction of the article is now under consideration. It isn’t clear whether JHP did so in response to new information about the merits of the paper, or whether Kamens pushed the journal to continue its own investigation.

The post Psychedelic Therapy Paper Linked to Sexual Abuse Faces Possible Retraction appeared first on Mad In America.

 

IPAK-EDU is grateful to Mad In America as this piece was originally published there and is included in this news feed with mutual agreement. Read More