The mental health segment of the medical industry is currently going through a paradigm shift that is shedding light on psychedelics and their potential to deliver therapeutic relief against mental health conditions.
Dr. Craig Heacock, a Colorado-based addiction specialist and psychiatrist acknowledges the fact that existing therapeutic approaches to mental health conditions are highly inefficient. He has practiced his craft for 15 years and has observed that many trauma patients never make significant recovery especially those that have gone through extreme child abuse and other types of psychological distress. Dr. Heacock also noted that such patients easily gravitate towards substance abuse, self-harm, suicidal thoughts and depression.
Current psychiatric approaches focus on interventions, medications and talk therapy which unfortunately have very little or no positive impact on patients. These factors encouraged Dr. Heacock to explore other alternatives, particularly psychedelics which he started researching in 2017. His findings so far indicate that patients have been experiencing better results when treated with psychedelics than traditional therapies for mental health conditions.
A growing body of research on mental health and psychedelics
Scientists from different parts of the world have for been conducting research on the medical benefits of psychedelics. Dr. Heacock noted that one of the reasons why medical research has not made significant progress in the past when it comes to mental health treatments is the lack of understanding of how mental illnesses work.
Dr. Heacock’s research led him to believe that mental illnesses such as PTSD not only affect the body but also the consciousness which might also be described as the spirit. In other words, mental health disorders affect the way brain cells communicate with each other. Psychedelics undo the wrong neural pathways that lead to the mental disorders such as trauma and facilitate the correct neural communications.
The findings coincide with previous research on psychedelics which suggests that they change the way different parts of the brain communicate with each other. They enable neural connections that would have otherwise not been possible. So far researchers have been exploring with psychedelics such as MDMA, LSD, DMT, and ketamine among others. So far the research is still ongoing and the budding psychedelics industry is currently attracting investors.
