How Psychiatrists Got Serious About Psychedelics to Treat Mental Health Alyson Krueger - Robb Report
go to original July 25, 2022

Psychedelics Are Fueling a Mental Health Revolution (Bloomberg)

Last summer, Gaetano, a 35-year-old financial adviser from New Jersey, traveled with his wife to the rainforest outside Sayulita, Mexico, near Puerto Vallarta, where they stayed in a well-appointed villa overlooking the Pacific Ocean. For five days they did what any couple might do on a wellness retreat. They practiced yoga with the handful of other guests and tried a sound bath, lying on the floor and feeling vibrations produced by a local healer. They watched the sunset from their balcony every evening and dined on five-star cuisine.

But twice on their trip they also consumed something else: psilocybin, the hallucinogen more commonly known as magic mushrooms. No longer just a recreational drug favored by club kids and Grateful Dead fans, psilocybin and similar psychedelics are increasingly gaining acceptance by psychiatrists and other mental-health professionals as genuine treatments for all manner of ills. Any skeptics need only consider the spate of respected academic institutions that have recently founded research centers to study their efficacy, including Johns Hopkins University, New York University and Harvard University’s Massachusetts General Hospital.

“Human beings, for thousands of years, have intentionally changed their brain chemistry to think about things a little differently,” reasons Gaetano, who asked Robb Report not to publish his last name to protect his privacy.

He was on a mission for self-improvement. Specifically, he wasn’t happy with his tendency to anger quickly. “I could be combative, and I kind of recognized myself as an angry person. I never really ran from confrontation, and in my mid-30s this started not serving me.”

In 2019 he had picked up the No. 1 New York Times best seller How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan. He couldn’t put it down and after finishing it read another half dozen books on psychedelics. “Some of them were mainstream books like Terence McKenna,” Gaetano says, referring to the late ethnobotanist who advocated the use of plant-based hallucinogens. “Others were more under the radar. I was fascinated by it.”

In May 2021 he and his wife were celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary. She had been suffering from anxiety and depression, brought on partly by unsuccessful efforts to have a baby. “It was a very emotional time, so we were thinking about doing something different that wasn’t going to be the normal go away and just drink,” he says. “It was actually my wife’s idea to go on a retreat, but it was sort of a long time coming, because we had both been fascinated by this.”

On the second day of the retreat, at 8 pm, just as the sun was setting, Gaetano and his wife lay on mattresses on the ground next to the infinity pool with eye masks on to block out any distractions. Retreat leaders—people trained in yoga, hypnotherapy, nutrition and spirituality—stationed themselves close by in case anyone needed help. As Gaetano listened to native Spanish songs and the shruti box, an Indian instrument that makes a droning sound, the mushrooms kicked in, setting off a series of visions.

He observed himself revisiting events from his childhood. Some were bright moments spent with his family, times he felt really loved. Others, however, were dark. “I saw kids bullying me in school, being embarrassed by rejection as a child,” he says.

During a trip, some hallucinate and see themselves flying through the universe, swimming the ocean’s depths or riding a shooting star. Others revisit actual memories that they’ve buried.

To get something particular out of a journey—in Gaetano’s case, pinpointing the sources of his anger—it’s possible to guide the mind by setting intentions or asking clear questions ahead of time. Gaetano had journaled before leaving for Mexico and discussed his goals with some of the retreat leaders once he arrived. His work led him to uncover memories, such as the ones of being bullied, that shed light on the root of his feelings.

When the drugs wore off, he found himself crying hysterically before finally being able to articulate what had happened to him. “That changed everything for me,” he says. He felt closer to his wife after sharing the humiliating experiences he’d had as a kid. Immediately after he returned home, he started seeing a traditional therapist, at first weekly and now monthly. His blood pressure dropped so much his doctor reduced his medicine’s dosage. “I had this feeling of tightness in my chest that used to be so worrying,” he says. “I haven’t felt it since the retreat.”

“The thing about these mushrooms is, they get rid of your ego,” he explains. “Sometimes you have to push that aside and let your guard down so you can really evaluate what is going on.”

And the experience he had on the retreat is not the same as doing drugs at a party, he adds. “If your eyes are open, and you are living outside your body, you might have a fun time and experience cool things,” he says. “But that is not the same as doing work within yourself.”

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