Page 74 - Women’s Health - Australia (February 2020)

The curtains are closed against the afternoon sun and
pink salt lamps bathe the room in a warm glow. Pictures

of trees cover every wall, as if to emulate a forest. In
the middle of the room there’s a bed covered in crisp,

white sheets, with an eye mask atop the pillow. It has
the ambience of a luxe wellness retreat, but beneath the

sheets is a standard-issue hospital bed belonging to
the Imperial Centre for Psychedelic Research in London.

It’s in this space that researchers are trying to prove the
efficacy of a treatment that could revolutionise psychiatry.

They’re exploring the potential of magic mushrooms’
psychoactive component – psilocybin – as an aid
for depression. Back in 2017, the same team showed
that psilocybin could ‘reset’ the brains of those with
treatment-resistant depression. In this trial, they’re
comparing the effects of psilocybin with those of a
conventional selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor
(SSRI) antidepressant. “Psychedelics work completely E x pand
differently to SSRIs,” says psychologist Dr Rosalind yo u r
Watts, the team’s clinical lead. “Where SSRIs are mind
designed to flatten emotions to help you cope,
psychedelics heighten emotional responses so that
you can look into the source of your issues and find new
ways of dealing with them. You don’t avoid anything –
rather, you embrace it, and that can be transformative.”
Watts and her team aren’t alone in their research into
taboo substances as treatments for mental health. The
US Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies
(MAPS) supports research into various psychedelics,
and Australia’s first clinical trial of psilocybin for mental
illness began last year at St Vincent’s Hospital in
Melbourne. Previous studies have shown psychedelics’
efficacy in treating addiction and PTSD, but it’s the focus
on depression that feels most pertinent. Antidepressant
use is on the rise around the world – in Australia, the
rate has doubled since 2000. And while SSRIs, and their
related serotonin and noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors
(SNRIs), are lifesavers for some, they’re far from perfect.
Side effects can include anxiety, a flattened libido and
withdrawal symptoms if they are stopped abruptly.
Then there are those for whom SSRIs simply don’t work.
With no breakthroughs in psychiatric medicine since
the late ’80s, could psilocybin be that magic bullet?

Global trip

To understand why psychologists are frothing on the idea
of a psychedelic future, you have to look to the past. The
healing potential of psychedelics has been well known
for millennia, and evidence of their use has been found

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