A Philosophical Investigation of Healing with Psychedelic Medicine

After a dormant period of over 30 years, research into the use of traditional as well as some non-traditional psychedelics has enjoyed a resurgence around the world. This paper investigates the biological and psychological operations of psychedelics, comparing its, merits relative to other mental health care approaches. This form of therapy is unique in that it aims to heal, rather than merely to treat, such syndromes as depression, PTSD, addiction, anorexia nervosa, and end-of-life existential anxiety. This paper aims to outline the multi-level effects of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, from molecular to neural, to neural systems, to phenomenological levels, in order to illuminate the unique quality of this approach to re-establishing mental health. By influencing gene expression, individual receptor molecules, neural networks, and brain plasticity, psychedelics work, not by addressing directly symptoms , but by helping patients to re-orient themselves relative to their world so that the symptoms diminish or disappear.