Medical breakthrough for mental disorder sufferers

MYCOMEDITATIONS, A company that organises legal therapy retreats using psilocybin-containing mushrooms, has shared the results from two years of surveys. These surveys looked at how their retreats helped people with major depressive disorder (MDD), generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), and social anxiety disorder (SAD).

They found that people with these conditions experienced significant and lasting improvements in their mental health after attending the retreats. The company used specific questionnaires to measure how severe the symptoms of each condition were before and after the retreats, showing positive results that lasted for a whole year.

The surveys showed that the benefits from MycoMeditations’ retreats were as good as, or even better than, the outcomes from clinical studies, including those by COMPASSPathways, which is researching a synthetic version of psilocybin.

Importantly, these improvements in mental health conditions like depression and anxiety lasted for a full year after the retreat. The findings suggest that taking psilocybin in several doses over a short period might be effective, and that personalised dosing could be more beneficial than the same dose for everyone based on their body weight.

MycoMeditations has been operating in Jamaica since 2014 and uses a modern approach to psychotherapy with psilocybin. They make sure that people who want to attend their retreats are a good fit by evaluating their medical and mental health beforehand.

The company aims to show the positive effects of psilocybin therapy through their work, encouraging more research in this area. The company’s recent report not only supports the idea that psilocybin can help with mental health issues outside of strict clinical research, but also emphasises the success of their retreat model. This model includes group therapy and private psilocybin sessions in nature.

Chief Executive Officer and Head Facilitator Justin Townsend said that as the global acceptance of psilocybin therapy broadens, they were pleased to have hard evidence that favourably compared the results of their retreats to leading clinical research in the field.

“MycoMeditations stands out in the field of psychedelic retreats by operating on a Western contemporary therapeutic model based on evidence, science, and research. We pursue measurable mental health outcomes, rather than broadly defined wellness,” Townsend said.

“We have served over 2,000 guests more than 6,000 doses of psilocybin. We also have a high ratio of team members to guests, with the majority of them being licensed clinicians, ensuring personalised and effective support throughout our guests’ journeys with us. That ratio also allows us to provide guests with private, individual psilocybin sessions, unlike the majority of retreats, in which guests share a room throughout the experience,” Townsend added.

MycoMeditations offers psilocybin retreats for depression, generalised anxiety, social anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction, insomnia, obsessive compulsive disorder, chronic pain, concussions, body dysmorphia, fibromyalgia, cluster headaches, end-of-life distress and grief. All prospective MycoMeditations guests go through a thorough medical screening to ensure they are a good fit for a psilocybin retreat.

MycoMeditations administers a three-dose protocol in a retreat setting over a one-week period, with three doses escalating in potency, culminating in a final dose of approximately 10-15g, depending on the individual guests.

“This is not for the sake of getting high. For particularly serious cases of depression or anxiety, MycoMeditations has found that higher doses are more likely to contribute to the best therapeutic outcomes, which have been well documented by academically verified client survey data and compare favourably to leading psychedelic clinical trials,” Townsend said.

While MycoMeditations is a group retreat, sessions and dosing spaces for guests are private, unlike many other retreat centres. Retreat groups engage in approximately 20 hours of therapeutic discussion during the course of the week, receiving comprehensive preparation and therapeutic integration.

“Guests also have the option for one-on-one therapy with staff clinicians outside of group sessions. While the emphasis is on healing, MycoMeditations retreats follow a very structured therapeutic model, guests do have down time throughout the week to hike, swim, journal, and spend time with the team and fellow retreat guests,” Townsend said.

MycoMeditations’ team of professional therapists has also uncovered several specialised insights about working with people using high doses of psilocybin including the emotional composure of a therapist or facilitator and their ability to self-regulate is critically important when working with people in altered states.

“A nervous facilitator could snowball a person into an unnecessary loop of worry and paranoia. Showing up with a grounded, calm presence helps guide the person’s interpretation of the experience,” Townsend said.

Townsend was recently appointed to the country’s first official Psilocybin Industry Working Group by the Ministry of Industry, Investment, and Commerce, which was established to study and understand the production and distribution arrangements, recommend suitable methods to facilitate and enable and encourage the standardisation of practices and the growth of the psilocybin industry in the country.

“Keeping communication short and simple when in psychedelic states is important.

“There is often very little a therapist can offer that the mushrooms cannot,” Townsend said.

“Individuals must integrate psychedelic experiences within a framework of understanding that resonates with their own personal beliefs about self, spirituality, and religion. An effective psychedelic facilitator should have some understanding of major religions, mythology, philosophical schools of thought, and metaphysics,” he added.

For more information on MycoMeditations and the benefits of psilocybin, contact justin@mymeditations.com.

keisha.hill@gleanerjm.com