Psychedelic Therapy

If you’re into learning about mental health and the marijuana industry, there is a chance you may have heard of psychedelic therapy. While this type of therapy does not use marijuana at all, they are typically mentioned in the same circles. Psychedelic therapy is, according to the National Library of Medicine (NLM), a re-emerging type of assisted therapy that is typically used for “ treating illnesses such as addiction, depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder.” The original research that was done on this concept was conducted in the 1950s to its termination in the 1970s, when drugs like LSD, psilocybin, ayahuasca, mescaline, and MDMA, were classified as “drugs of abuse” with no medical value. But, there have been recent clinical studies that have shown positive results.

NLM explains that the recent 2014 studies in Switzerland were conducted for anxiety treatment. They used LSD-assisted therapy and had twelve participants, of those people nine, showed to have

“a sustained therapeutic benefit with no acute orchronic drug-related severe adverse events, andthere were no adverse effects lasting more thanone day after an LSD-assisted session.”

An additional study from a different group was done on psilocybin, their “findings showed that psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy lowered anxiety and improved mood, without clinically significant adverse effects.” There have also been studies on MDMA-assisted therapy for the treatment of “social anxiety in adults with autism, although findings have yet to be published.”

As for addiction treatment, a study in New Mexico was done on participants dealing with alcoholism. They used psilocybinassisted therapy and “among the participants who completed the study, the self-reported mean percent drinking days and percent heavy drinking days were reduced by more than half of what had been reported at baseline.6 Acute adverse effects such as nausea and mild headaches were reported by some participants, but no clinically significant or lasting harms resulted from the administration of psilocybin.” The study was also done as participants dealing with nicotine abuse, they also saw a drop in usage in the majority of participants.

Treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder was done with MDMAassisted therapy. Of the group of 20 participants, “83% of participants showed a reduction in symptom severity of more than 30%.” Some of them even showed sustained reductions in their symptoms three and a half years later. “In 2015, researchers in Vancouver began a similar pilot study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for patients with PTSD, the first clinical study involving psychedelic drugs in Canada in more than 40 years.”

We are slowly getting back into studying these drugs even though many people still feel that there could be no medical benefits. If you are into trying out a psychedelic therapy session there are a few different types you can choose from. There may be a place near you who are doing sessions, depending on the state you live in. In some areas, this practice may still be illegal or frowned upon.

Spiritual Retreats: A spiritual retreat does not have to be assisted by any type of medicine, and those typically focus on being a safe space where you can experience complete renewal and gain a high level of self-knowledge. For those who believe in God or in any other higher power, it’s also the perfect setting for a profound meeting with it,” according to Tripaneer. However when you add in an assistive drug, you might want to Google additional words like “plant-based medicine” to your search inquiry.

Spiritual plant-based medicine retreats are typically referring to the use of ayahuasca but be sure to check on the website and reviews. One of the top places when searching for an assisted retreat is a place called APOTHEOSIS. APOTHEOSIS describes itself as “A spiritual-psychedelic retreat that brings together students of life from all over the world to catalyze breakthroughs and accelerate growth. A carefully curated series of peak experiences designed to show you what is truly possible as a human being. A one-of-a-kind transformational event integrating plant medicine with myriad other philosophical and spiritual practices. It is one of the first retreats in the world to incorporate a truly diverse array of spiritual, shamanic, and philosophical modalities to create a uniquely enlightening oasis.” The APOTHEOSIS team created this retreat in 2018 and has since helped people from over 30 countries, so it isn’t just in the US where people want to visit natural medicine-assisted retreats.

Wellness Retreats:

A wellness retreat without assistance from natural medicines are typically described as a “guided, intentiondriven, a multi-day program with a set or semi-set schedule, and hosted by one or more facilitators.

The program may include learning and lifestyle workshops such as meditation and healthy eating, as well as fitness activities such as yoga, nature walks, and hiking,” according to Loding Magazine. These retreat searches also need to be refined in the same way as a spiritual retreat. A few plant-based wellness retreats that are available to participate in are Behold Retreats, Soltara Healing Center, Synthesis, Niwe Rao Xobo, and Rythmia. Each of these retreats is stationed all over the world from Costa Rica to Amsterdam to Hong Kong. They also use treatments based on ayahuasca, psilocybin, or the San Pedro cactus which contains mescaline (SanPedro cactus is also called Huachuma and is typically considered a more sustainable version of peyote.)

Psilocybin Retreats:

If you search this you don’t need to refine the search at all. A psilocybin retreat is an area where you are given doses of psilocybin and given therapy in order to have a true and full healing experience. A place called MycoMeditations was the first retreat to pop up and they are highly rated and well known by many different new publications, The Washington Post, VICE, CNBC, Thrillist, and The Sunday Times. Their retreat can include, depending on the tier you choose, “three psilocybin (magic mushroom) sessions over the course of seven nights, daily group and one-on-one therapy (approx. 15 hours by the end of your retreat), licensed therapists, psychiatrists, and nurses, and follow-up therapeutic group integration sessions.” They treat depressive symptoms, psychological well-being, and social connectedness, all areas of the mind that have been seen in research to actually work better with psilocybin treatments.

Jamaica and Mexico have tons of psilocybin-based retreats. If I were to go out and try these I would make a vacation of it since a vacation is already healing and might as well add some medicine to it.

Over the new course of study on psychedelics, there has become a new large following of people who swear by this type of therapy. There are even people who took these drugs recreationally that can attest to the psychedelics changing their feelings or state of mind on certain things. While I am weary of psychedelics myself, I know a few people personally that would do this in a heartbeat as they already felt more in tune with themselves and the universe after trying some “magic mushrooms.” See for yourself and make sure to do these things safely.