What Is Psychedelic Therapy? A Comprehensive Guide
Hallucinogens have long been known as psychedelics, mind-altering drugs that can induce everything from hallucinations to blissful euphoria. While they rose to popularity during the1960s as recreational drugs, psychedelics have a wide range of potential benefits for mental health and emotional healing.
Psychedelic therapy, or psychedelic-assisted therapy, can help people break through mental and emotional barriers by suppressing the brain’s default mode network (DMN) and increasing neural activity. In the right setting, psychedelic therapy can alter one’s perception of time, space, and self, allowing for greater opportunity to overcome trauma and heal from within.
In this guide, we’ll focus specifically on psilocybin therapy, which uses the core compound of magic mushrooms to guide you on an emotional journey of healing, self-discovery, and rejuvenation.
Psychedelic Therapy Defined
Psychedelic therapy uses psychedelic drugs to open new channels in the brain. Follow-up therapy called integration helps you emotionally process your experience.
Taking psychedelics on your own is not the same as undergoing psychedelic therapy. For one, professional therapy is guided by experts who can tailor your session to suit your individual needs — whether you’re addressing grief, trauma, depression, anxiety, or something else. Their role is to serve as a guide and support system, offering you an anchor during your experience that helps avoid the possibly negative side effects you can experience when you trip on your own.
Another key component of psychedelic therapy is the integration portion that follows taking the substance. Rather than let the effects wear off and go on with your day, you return to therapy to discuss your trip. You will learn to draw conclusions and make peace with different parts of yourself and life story.
How does psychedelic therapy work?
Patients first meet with a therapist to discuss their struggles. Why are you exploring psychedelic therapy in the first place? Your therapist ensures that you are a good candidate for treatment before proceeding with trip planning. While psychedelic therapy, and psilocybin in particular, can be effective for treating trauma and depression, it isn’t the right option for people who have or may have a risk of developing disorders with psychotic symptoms, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Once you and your therapist decide psychedelic therapy is a good option for you, it’s time to plan your trip. This involves deep drive therapeutic sessions where you build a trusting relationship with your therapist, explore your life story, and develop an intention for your trip. The planning stage should take place over a number of sessions to ensure that you are fully ready for the transformative potential of psilocybin.
After your trip, your therapist will help you incorporate things you’ve learned or would like to explore more deeply after taking psilocybin. These integration sessions allow you to connect your psychedelic experience with your consciousness, promoting a pathway to healing, hope, and inner peace.
Exploring Psilocybin: Origins andEffects
Psilocybin is a compound found in over 200 species of fungi most commonly known as shrooms or magic mushrooms. Taking psilocybin can be healing for many, but it must be done under the support of an experienced mental health counsellor or psychiatrist to ensure your safety.
Taking psilocybin induces an altered state of consciousness where you may see, hear, and feel things that are not really there. These can be visual or auditory hallucinations that may induce fear, anxiety, or paranoia — all collectively known as a “bad trip.”
We want to help you avoid a bad trip at all costs. The intent of psilocybin therapy is to harness the brain-altering powers of the compound to help you rise above internal struggles and see beyond traumatic memories and experiences that have you “stuck” in a cycle of painful symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, and PTSD.
By adopting a harm-reduction approach, we focus on planning, guiding, education, and awareness as foundational tools to support a meaningful experience.
Who Discovered Psilocybin?
Chemist Albert Hofmann isolated psilocybin and psilocin from the mushroom P. mexicana in 1958. Hoffman was the same man who became known as the “father of LSD” due to his extensive research on the substance, which included ingesting it himself to test its effects.
Until recently, the nature and biological underpinnings of psilocybin were unknown and understudied. However, modern researchers are actively exploring the potential healing benefits of the prodrug, including theJohns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research.
How Psilocybin Affects the Brain
The neural mechanisms of psilocybin are still not fully known, but current research suggests that psilocybin affects the brain inseveral ways, including desynchronizing brain networks.
Suppresses the Default ModeNetwork
The default mode network (DMN) is one part of the brain most heavily impacted by psilocybin. It is connected to the anterior hippocampus — the region of the brain linked to memory, learning, and spatial perception. The DMN activates when you think about yourself. It is part of a group of brain regions called resting-state networks (RSN), which are most active when you are doing something idle or not using any higher brain power(such as problem-solving).
The default mode network includes the frontal, parietal, and temporal cortex; while it’s highly active during rest periods, its activity decreases when you concentrate on performing tasks.
Psilocybin has been linked with reduced hyper connectivity in the default mode network in alcohol-dependent lab rats. In people, more research is needed to clearly highlight the connection and impact of the psychedelic on the DMN. What we do know is that psilocybin, along with other psychedelics, dramatically alters a person’s perception of self and social cognition(how you think about others).
Because psilocybin can suppress certain activity in the DMN, it can also help you overcome a sense of self that is stopping you from moving forward. This can lead to what many describe as the“ego death” while under the influence of psychedelics.
Accelerates NeurotransmitterActivity
Psilocybin enhances the way networks in your brain communicate, mostly by activating serotonin 2A receptors (5-HT2ARs)through its metabolized form, psilocin. By altering serotonin levels and increasing brain activity, psilocybin may be able to reduce symptoms of treatment-resistant depression.
Enhanced neural communication can also play a role in overcoming trauma. Because the brain can be more influenced under the impression of psilocybin, this can lead to what is known as psychedelic-induced neuroplastic changes. Simplified, this means that your brain may be able to create new pathways and connections to help you heal from trauma by using networks typically inaccessible to your conscious mind.
Trigger Emotional Release
Some trauma theories posit that emotions we are unable to process become trapped in the brain’s emotional centres. Psychedelics may induce a hyperconnected state that allow the body to finally let go of what it’s been clinging to. By opening space for you to process trapped emotions, you can move toward healing from traumatic events and memories.
Psilocybin and Trauma Processing
Trauma processing is a deeply personal experience. However, psychedelic therapy may be able to help you in several ways. First, decreasing the activity of the default mode network can reduce thoughts about the self and rumination. By extension, this can also alter the way you see yourself in relation to traumatic experiences from your past.
By helping dissolve the barrier between yourself and the trauma you went through, you can begin to move forward. The use of psilocybin to heal trauma could be used in a wide range of settings, including those with post-traumatic stress disorder and complex post-traumatic stress disorder.
Applications of PsychedelicTherapy
Although psychedelic therapy is still a new field, there has already been significant clinical and anecdotal evidence tosupport its efficacy as a treatment for a variety of mental health disorders.
Treatment-Resistant Depression and Anxiety
Psilocybin has repeatedly shown effectiveness in managing treatment-resistant depression and major depressive disorder. There is also new evidence emerging that suggests psilocybin could help lower anxiety symptoms. Once again referring back to the default mode network, the psychedelics ability to reduce the ego may also in turn reduce threats we perceive to ourselves. This could help us gain a bigger picture about our own fears and come to realize what they really represent and what we need to conquer them.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Psilocybin can help individuals with post traumatic stress disorder by altering the way they perceive themselves in relation to the events that occurred. Additionally, psilocybin can trigger a process called neurogenesis, in which the brain creates and repairs brain cells in the hippocampus — the brain’s control centre for emotions and memories.
Researchers from the University of South Florida conducted a study in 2013 to explore the relationship between psilocybin and conditioned fear responses. They conditioned a fear response into two groups of mice, then gave one group psilocybin and the other a placebo. The mice that were given psilocybin showed reduced fear and a greater ability to overcome their conditioned response.
The study highlights the potential for psilocybin to help disrupt trauma cycles that force people to relive traumatic events and may fuel self-destructive behaviours. While every person’s situation is unique, the overarching literature shows that psilocybin may be able to help people find freedom from traumatic memories and emotions.
Substance Use Disorders
Psilocybin may also have applications intreating substance use disorders. We know that addiction is a combination of neurological, behavioural and psychological elements. Psychedelic therapy may be able to help people who struggle with addiction to any substance break the cycle that affects their emotions and actions. Although psychedelic treatment will not be able to completely eliminate an addiction, it could play a key role in helping people heal from difficult emotions and thoughts that fuel their substance abuse.
Clinical Research and Evidence
Researchers at Johns Hopkins Center forPsychedelic and Consciousness Research found that psychedelic therapy with psilocybin dramatically and quickly reduced major depression symptoms with most participants showing improvement and 50% still experiencing benefits four weeks after treatment.
Supporting their findings, another research study by the Center found that two doses of psilocybin with supportive psychotherapy helped patients with major depressive disorder for at least one month.
A 2018 review article by Albert Garcia-Romeuand William A. Richards from the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioural Sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine reveals that psychedelics have demonstrated a long history of improving mental illness; though they have been prized for their healing powers in many forms of traditional medicine for centuries, they have only just begun to be explored through the scientific lens of Western medicine.
Who is psychedelic therapy for?
Psychedelic therapy is suitable for a wide range of patients, including adults of all ages. Individual candidacy is determined based on a variety of factors, such as your unique life story, medical history, risk of psychiatric side effects from psilocybin, and your reason for seeking treatment.
Psychedelics are generally not recommended for anyone with a personal or family history of psychosis. It is also not supported as a therapy for people who are currently pregnant or some people who struggle with substance abuse.
What happens during a psychedelic therapy session?
Psychedelic therapy is a group of therapeutic sessions. You take initial sessions with a counsellor who gets to understand you more, educates you on psychedelic therapy and helps you set an intention for your trip. These are followed up deep dive sessions to build trust and rapport, ensuring you have the education and resources you need for your upcoming journey.
Then, there are integration sessions to help you learn from your experience and apply what you discovered into your life.
Please note that many therapists, including our own, do not personally provide or prescribe psychedelics. Instead, we take a harm-reduction approach and help you to integrate any changes that come up during your trip.
Are there any negatives of psychedelic-assisted therapy?
Potential negative effects of psychedelic assisted therapy include distressing hallucinations, paranoia, and confusion. There are risks to be aware of and to further discuss with your therapist.
Discover Psilocybin IntegrationTherapy in Canada
At P.A.T.H., we are committed to helping you on your journey to healing and self-discovery. Learn more about our psychedelic therapy program and how it may help you. If you have any questions, reach out to us when you’re ready. We’re here for you.
