Psilocybin therapy uses the psychoactive compound found in certain mushrooms to facilitate profound changes in the brain. This approach is gaining attention for its potential to treat conditions like depression and anxiety by opening new neural pathways. Learn how this therapy works and its recent advancements.
Understanding Psilocybin Therapy
Psilocybin mushrooms are colloquially known as “magic mushrooms” or “shrooms,” and have been used for thousands of years as a spiritual and medicinal tool among Indigenous populations.1
This approach is based on the effects psilocybin has on the central nervous system and on how it breaks down the “ego” and opens up new neural paths in the brain that can lead to change.2
What a Psilocybin Therapy Session Looks Like
In psilocybin therapy, a patient takes psilocybin under the supervision of a therapist. This occurs in a safe, controlled setting where the patient embarks on a psychedelic journey. The therapist supports the experience by staying in contact and asking guiding questions throughout the session.
The History of Psilocybin Therapy
For many people, the notion of using a psychedelic drug for therapy might sound like something counterculture or fringe. That’s not the case at all!
Psilocybin therapy is both studied and used by highly legitimate medical establishments such as Johns Hopkins.3 In fact, it was John Hopkins University that first received regulatory approval for psychedelic research in the year 2000, decades after the research and therapy were banned by the U.S. government in 1970.4
In 2006, the first research paper by Johns Hopkins was published on the positive long-term impact of using psilocybin in a therapeutic study.5 Since then, dozens of studies and academic papers6 have been published, with the overarching theme that the therapy offers solid, long-term positive impact for patients with a variety of conditions.
In 2021, Hopkins received a federal grant7 for psychedelic treatment research, which was within a similar timeframe of some states beginning to decriminalize it. Currently, legislation has been passed in over a dozen states to make psilocybin legal.8
Psilocybin Alpha. Psychedelics legalization & decriminalization tracker.
Who Can Psilocybin Therapy Help?
Psilocybin therapy is generally used for people with issues that may be treatment-resistant to conventional therapies.
Below are some of the populations who have been shown to benefit from psilocybin therapy.
Chronic Illness Patients
For people with life-threatening cancer, a single dose of psilocybin was shown to dramatically reduce their depression and anxiety.9 The effects were long-lasting, with 60% to 80% of the group continuing to experience improvement in those symptoms over six months later.
Another study of cancer patients performed showed that over 80% continued to feel better over six months after the single-dose therapy.10 They reported improvements in their attitudes about life, their moods, and their sense of spirituality, as well as a reduction in their depression, anxiety, and feelings of dread or hopelessness about their illness.
People With Depression and Anxiety
Both depression and anxiety can be serious, debilitating conditions that make people unable to go about their normal day-to-day lives.
For patients whose depression had previously been resistant to treatment, the results of studies have been no less profound. One study showed that 13 out of 20 patients experienced improvement, and for four of them, the depression went into remission.11
In regards to patients with anxiety, a meta-analysis of two dozen studies stated that overall, 65% of patients experienced less anxiety after psilocybin therapy treatment.12
PTSD Patients
The symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder can persist for years after a traumatic event, and it can disrupt all facets of life. Psilocybin has been studied for usage with PTSD patients with positive results.13
It is thought that psilocybin might help with symptoms of PTSD because of the way it interacts with the brain. It changes neural networks to increase feelings of connection and openness and affects perception, changes the way fear is processed in the brain, and facilitates “emotional breakthrough experiences” that challenge PTSD symptoms. It also decreases activity in the brain’s fear center (the amygdala) during emotional responses, which may also help with PTSD.14
Other psychedelics such as MDMA and ketamine have also been studied as treatment options for PTSD.
Benefits of Psilocybin Therapy
Specifically, studies have shown that “psilocybin is reported to result in significant changes in brain dynamics and functional connectivity (FC) between areas of the brain.”15 Basically, psilocybin is thought to be able to help you change the way you think and react to emotions and stressors. This may help to explain why the results of its usage have been so dramatic, and why they have been more long-lasting than other forms of therapy.
Based on the various studies included in this article, the benefits of psilocybin therapy include the following:
- Reduced rates of depression
- Chronic depression moving into remission
- Lowered levels of anxiety
- Improved mood
- Less fear of the future
- Increased sense of spirituality and connection
- Enhanced quality of life
Effectiveness
No form of therapy is a panacea, and there will always be some people who react differently to a specific treatment than others do.
Based on the studies reviewed in this article, it’s common for about two-thirds of people who try psilocybin therapy to note marked positive results that last.
This includes populations that have conditions that have resisted treatment in the past.