You’ve probably heard about the benefits of psilocybin on mental health conditions. But did you know there’s an official treatment method that involves magic mushrooms?
Read on to learn about psilocybin therapy and how it can help you.
What Is Psilocybin Therapy?
Psilocybin therapy is a form of treatment that uses magic mushrooms to help the patient recover from adverse mental health conditions.
The exact method of the treatment depends on the professional who carries it out. But it generally involves the therapist guiding the patient through a heightened level of experience.
How Does Psilocybin Therapy Work?
The therapist makes a professional assessment of the patient before any actual therapy takes place. Just like medical doctors won’t prescribe some medicines to certain patients, a psilocybin therapist needs to assess whether or not the patient will be able to benefit from the treatment.
During the assessment stage, the therapist will ask the patient about their specific issues. Together, they’ll explore the patient’s goals and expectations of the treatment. That helps the therapist frame the treatment so the patient is mentally prepared.
Once the assessment is complete, the treatment session can begin.
The environment has to be relaxed and yet be able to provide the patient with enough mental stimulation to provoke thoughts in their mind. The therapist will ask the patient to wear comfortable clothes, and then either sit in a chair or lie on a couch.
The patient then takes the appropriate dose of psilocybin and waits for it to take effect.
During the session, the therapist can engage in conversation about the patient’s issues. The idea is to encourage free thought and deep reflection.
As the effects of the psilocybin wear off, the therapy session comes to a natural end.
What Does Psilocybin Therapy Treat?
Magic mushrooms can help people who suffer from depression, addiction, anxiety, and OCD.
Stimulation of the neural networks is among the many benefits of psilocybin, and this form of therapy capitalizes on that fact.
The History of Psilocybin Therapy
The first experiments with the treatment were conducted all the way back in 1799 by Dr. Everdad Brande in London.
The Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann was the first person to extract pure psilocybin from mushrooms in 1959. He worked for a company called Sandoz, which is a well-known pharmaceutical company today, and they sold the extract on to physicians around the world.
Shortly after, in the ’60s and ’70s, the FDA officially approved psilocybin research on humans. The research has continued up until now, and the results have all pointed in the same direction.
What Evidence Is There for the Effectiveness of Psilocybin Therapy?
A study from 2011 at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine showed that psilocybin helped 60% of the participants with anxiety and depression. It also stimulated their imagination and made them more open-minded.
One of the more recent studies that have supported the effectiveness of psilocybin therapy was conducted in 2017. It employed MRI scans that showed a decrease in depressive symptoms in 100% of the participants.
Ready to Try Psilocybin Therapy?
Unfortunately, treatment is still illegal in many countries. But it has been decriminalized in countries like the Netherlands, and you can find psilocybin therapy retreats there.
If you’re not based in Europe and can’t afford to travel, then you can head over to our shop and find psilocybin capsules and magic mushrooms.
