Paper Topic Ideas

Psilocybin Therapy

One of my favorite things about working at a community college is that I get to learn so much from students, every day. The therapeutic use of psilocybin started coming up in classes as a research topic of interest, well ahead of legalization in Oregon. Recently, I was contacted by a relative who has suffered from treatment resistant depression for decades and is looking to visit Oregon to seek psilocybin therapy. I’ve also heard coverage of psilocybin in more mainstream media in the last few years, such as Michael Pollan’s documentary based on his book How to change your mind (available on Netflix) and more recently and regularly mentioned in the news. These are all signs that this topic is likely a rich avenue of research and learning!

Background information

A good starting point could be to establish a baseline understanding of how psilocybin works and what’s already known about the therapeutic potentials and limitations of psilocybin. Here are some starting points: I sometimes listen to the Huberman Lab podcast and there’s an episode on How psilocybin can rewire our brain: its therapeutic benefits and its risks. This could be a good place to start because it:

• Summarizes current research studies on therapeutic use of psilocybin
• Explains the science of brain neuroplasticity
• Includes links to additional sources

Another starting point could be the overview provided by Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research that has a timeline of their Psychedelic Research and Psilocybin Therapy. A book search in the PCC Library results in many books on the topic of psilocybin for therapeutic use, including an entry in the Encyclopedia of Alternative Medicine (2022) on Psilocybin with a good short history and overview. If you’re looking for coverage of psilocybin in the news, you can try:

• OPB (Oregon Public Broadcasting) article from August 2023 when psilocybin first became available for therapeutic use in Oregon.
• U.S. Major Dailies database through PCC Library because it includes a good representation of mainstream news coverage of psilocybin use, including current research and state level legislation.

If you’re interested in government information, try Oregon Health Authority’s page on Access to Psilocybin Services that include a starting point for anyone in Oregon who wants to learn more about therapeutic use.

Perspectives, first-hand experiences, and research

It can be helpful to ask yourself who you’re interested in learning from when going about research. For this topic, here are some starting points to consider:

• Indigenous knowledge: This recent review in Science magazine covers current research on how indigenous peoples have utilized psychedelics as a vehicle for personal knowledge for centuries. Remember that mainstream avenues for research might not include indigenous knowledge.
• Personal or community experience: Individuals have been seeking psilocybin for therapeutic use long before its legalization in Oregon and information from community and individual experiences may be more challenging to access. Interviews with people you know, or less formal communication platforms for information sharing such as Reddit or other social media sites could be useful for providing the perspectives from this community.
• Therapists: Training needed to administer and guide psilocybin therapy, licensing for the organizations or clinics offering the therapy, methods and approaches for effective therapeutic use, cost and insurance.
• Policy makers, legislators and laws: Assessing whether the new law is effective, monitoring the social impact and who has access to the therapy and who doesn’t and why.
• Psychiatrists, researchers and medical practitioners: Neuroplasticity, brain scans, and monitoring the health of the brain and body of patients undergoing treatment, measuring the effectiveness of psilocybin therapy with particular populations over time.
• Patients, individuals seeking treatment: The physical and emotional experience of psilocybin therapy, effect on mental health and relationships with self and others. Consider the drawbacks or side effects to psilocybin treatment and what populations (age groups, diagnoses) it’s recommended for or not.