The Trip Treatment

Once the poison of the counterculture, psychedelic drugs are gaining credibility as a powerful, viable mental health tool that could transform the way we understand ourselves. Are you ready to turn on, tune in and dose up?

- Richard Godwin

The future of psychedelic medicine could play out in a number of ways. A network of spas might open up in picturesque locations – a converted stately home in Somerset, say, or an eco-retreat in Andalusia, complete with yoga and organic dinners – where you can book yourself in for a week of magic-mushroom therapy, all under the watchful eyes of certified psychotropic therapists. The NHS might even invest in psychedelic facilities for those suffering from treatment-resistant depression, or any of the conditions listed in the phone book of mental health problems (anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, addiction, and so on) that have responded well to these medicines in early-stage trials.

“Set and setting” are important: these drugs are unique in that it isn’t just the chemical that transforms the patient. They seem to work on the serotonin system, but we can’t precisely say how this can make one’s abusive father appear in the form of a winged horse, as a patient reported in an Imperial College London study. Rather, it is the experience and the insights it provides that effect change.

No one wants to trip on an NHS stretcher while overworked junior doctors change shifts. So, treatment will probably take place in specifically designed rooms with low lighting, soft furnishings and sympathetic clinicians on hand. Psychedelics can be administered intravenously or in pill form, and they typically last between four and six hours. In previous medical trials, patients have been encouraged to put on an eye mask and confront their visions: “What are you doing in my mind?… What can I learn from you?”