Tripping With Your Therapist

Prologue for the readers.

Sure, we’ve all heard about psilocybin having positive, beneficial affects on our psyche. It’s 2024 and most people are micro-dosing just so they can have a good day at work. I wrote this about six years ago, when taking psychedelics for emotional and mental health was being talked about, but wasn’t as widespread as it is now.I had a ton of fun writing this piece, and I still get a kick out of reading it.

Eddie Marritz stands in a circle with two therapists. The trio clutch hands while Marritz cites his intentions for the therapy session. One of the counselors hands Marritz his “medicine,” a white pill that has been crushed up and mixed into a cup of water for easy consumption. Marritz swallows the mixture before putting in ear plugs and slipping an eye mask on, shutting the world out. He lies on a couch and the blanket that is placed over him seems to represent a barrier between his altered reality and the reality of the therapists who kneel beside him, checking his blood pressure every half hour.

Marritz is a participant of N.Y.U.’s Psilocybin Cancer Anxiety study. In a short video titled Magic Mushrooms and the Healing Trip made by the New Yorker, Marritz describes his purpose and experience in the study. He was diagnosed with small-cell carcinoma, and like most cancer patients, faced a kind of psychological despair that many doctors don’t know how to treat.

Psilocybin, the active ingredient in psychoactive mushrooms, has been used and celebrated for its properties for decades. Only recently, however, has Western culture given psilocbin a new reputation for its support in psycotherapy.

For hundreds of years, indigenous peoples of Central America used the psychedelic drug in religious ceremonies, the Aztecs referring to mushrooms as teonanácatl, or “flesh of the gods.” Yet psilocybin remains a Schedule 1 substance, meaning that “there is currently no accepted medical use in treatment in the United States and there is a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision.” Recent studies have researchers turning their heads in reconsideration.

“I’m better equipped to appreciate the good things,” says Marritz. “That’s another thing the medicine has taught me. I’m grateful for my life. I’m grateful to be alive in a way I didn’t know I could grateful for. It’s the kind of gratitude that is ineffable.”

“There are various theories on how psilocybin helps depression, but nothing is considered solid at this point,” says George Greer, MD President at Heffter Research Institute. “One theory is that by decreasing the activity in the default mode network in the brain, repetitive ruminative thoughts are interrupted. There is also a peak mystical experience that gives people a different perspective on their lives.”

Psilocybin is non-additive and could be more effective in treating psychiatric diseases than the pharmecuetical treatments in use today, according to The Heffter Institute. It’s not the only establishment that believes psychedelics can contribute to a better understanding of the human mind, however.

Michael A. Carducci, MD, a professor at John Hopkins, contributed towards a double-blind study, Psilocybin produces substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer: A randomized double-blind trial, that showed psilocybin produced a decrease in depression in patients with life-threatening cancer. Carducci worked on the study by providing patients with psilocybin and ensured the setting was safe enough to administer the drug to the patient with cancer.

“I had a number of patients on the trial. Uniformly, my patients had a positive experience and the results have been long-lasting,” Carducci says. “Patients were calmer and more satisfied with life.”

The N.Y.U. study randomly assigned and treated 29 patients with single-dose psilocybin in conjunction to psychotherapy. The double-blind test, meaning that both the researchers and the participants were unaware of whether the pill was a placebo or psilocybin, maintained decreased levels of anxiety and depression in cancer patients.

“The objective was to go [inside yourself],” says Estalyn Walcoff, another participant of the N.Y.U. study who also explained her experience in a testimonial video titled A Patient Speaks. Walcoff was diagnosed with a type of lymphoma that was untreatable. She says that not only was the lymphoma aggressive, but anyone who had it died from it. For her, it was a lot of handle.

“Psilocybin is the psycho-active component in 180 species of psychedelic mushrooms,” says Stephen Ross, MD, principle investigator of the N.Y.U. study, in Magic Mushrooms. “It’s made a comeback within science as a research tool to treat various disorders such as distress with terminal cancer, addiction, depression and other clinical targets being explored.”

Going into the session, Walcoff expected to “see God,” or touch a level of spirituality that would change her life. Instead, she was met with a level of great anxiety which lasted for much of the day. “I experienced it as physical and I began to see that it was actually a level of my mind. Underneath that I also began experiencing great emotional pain and it seemed to me that it was the pain of suffering people on the earth and it was the pain of the earth itself,” she says in the video.

Walcoff said the experience brought her to tears. Being able to sob while held by her mentors, however, greatly relieved her. She says the fear, pain and anxiety turned into the most precious thing she has ever known: a sense of connectedness that runs through all of us.

The study that Carducci assisted in randomized 56 participants with life-threatening cancer diagnosis to receive a low- or high-dose of psilocybin between two sessions. Researchers found that psilocybin produced significant decreases in depression and anxiety, both self- and clinician-rated. There was an increase in quality of life, life meaning, optimism and death acceptance.

Carducci says that many patients seemed uptight and tense before the trial, but after, they were complacent. “They described [the experience] as mystical. The higher dose was more intense, yet many felt calm even if they got the low dose,” Carducci says.

The results of the John Hopkins study showed that psilocybin had a sustained effect, lasting for six months after the initial session. The parts of the brain in charge of regulating thought analysis, mood and perception is most effected by psilocybin. With more research, there is good reason to believe that psilocybin could provide sustained benefits past the six-month mark.

Upon reflecting his experiences taking the medicine, Marritz says he is more prepared to face his cancer. He isn’t cured from his despair, however.

“I’m better equipped to appreciate the good things,” says Marritz. “That’s another thing the medicine has taught me. I’m grateful for my life. I’m grateful to be alive in a way I didn’t know I could grateful for. It’s the kind of gratitude that is ineffable.”