Psychedelic therapy: The challenging truth about how mind-altering experiences, and the careful theory that follows, can transform people’s lives
. “There’s a huge unmet need, and psychedelics do have radical potential,” says Watts.
Now, some scientists are creating new drugs that remove the psychedelic experience, or “trip”, while still offering therapeutic benefits. But Watts and others are warning that this approach misunderstands how psychedelic therapy works – and that if we try to squeeze it into a pill-popping industrial healthcare model, its vast promise may never be realised.
They aren’t just dishing out warnings, though. Some of the pioneers of the field are moving beyond the simple story thatby carefully investigating the role of the psychedelic experience, and the therapy that accompanies it. The aim is to establish exactly what we can’t lose if we are to make good on the hopes raised by psychedelic medicine’s recent successes.Subscribe now for unlimited access