Psilocybin Mushroom Psychotherapy

Psilocybin Assisted Therapy (PAT) is a psychedelic treatment modality in which dried psilocybin mushrooms are ingested to enter a non-ordinary state of consciousness for the length of ~6 hours, that shows us unconscious material that we resist or repress in everyday life, to avoid pain.

Clinical trials have shown that just one psilocybin session can have transformative effects for

  • Major Depressive Disorder - Severe and Treatment Resistant

  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, breaks old patterns of thinking

  • PTSD/ Social Anxiety/ Generalized Anxiety Disorder

  • Substance abuse disorders and more

Research from Imperial College London suggests that psilocybin relaxes rigid predictive thought patterns through what they call the REBUS model (“Relaxed Beliefs Under Psychedelics”). Under psilocybin:

  • Activity at the 5-HT2A receptor wakes up the brain and shakes up new patterns

  • Beliefs about our identity, trauma, self-worth, fears, etc. lose their truth

  • Previously suppressed or avoided material can surface

  • The brain becomes temporarily more flexible and open to new learning

Psilocybin mushroom reduces functional integrity of the default mode network, a system associated with:

  • Beliefs about who we are and what our life experiences meant

  • Over-thinking or dwelling on the negative

Disrupting the DMN may reduce rigid self-models — a key feature in depression, OCD, and trauma.