Shrooms in the News Vol. 10: All the Guided Psilocybin Therapy Headlines Fit to Print

Just like a Norman Rockwell paperboy pedaling through anytown USA, here I am with the latest edition of your psilocybin therapy newspaper. Behold, your 10th installment of Shrooms in the News, a bimonthly roundup of what’s happening in the world of legal mushroom therapy.

An Anecdotal Study Reveals Oregon’s Psilocybin Therapeutic Model is Helping Alleviate Anxiety & Depression

88 qualified participants took part in this voluntary study to assess their levels of depression and anxiety post-psilocybin treatment here in Oregon. While the sample size is small, the results are very very very encouraging.

Researchers at Cornell Find Neurological Basis for Psilocybin’s Efficacy Against Depression

Here’s a quotation from professor Alex Kwan. “Rumination is one of the main points for depression, where people have this unhealthy focus and they keep dwelling on the same negative thoughts,” Kwan said. “By reducing some of these feedback loops, our findings are consistent with the interpretation that psilocybin may rewire the brain to break, or at least weaken, that cycle.”

Comprehensive Review Finds Psilocybin is a Viable Treatment for OCD

The article cites preliminary findings from a trial directed by Terrence Ching, a clinical psychologist at Yale. During the trial, Ching saw patients recognize their own resistance to the drug and gain deeper insight into their need for control, saying things like: “I really realize that this is how I’ve approached unknowable things in my life, but that’s what life is. Life is full of unknowable things.”

A Low Dose (10mg) Trial Gives us More Good News about Psilocybin and OCD

This is a pretty interesting experiment out of the University of Hertfordshire and Imperial College London. Wary of an overwhelming mystical experience for their participants at the standard clinical dose, they tested a mini-dose. This is not a micro dose; it’s enough to provide a mild psychedelic experience.