Show 1084: Psilocybin, Cancer & Spiritual Awakening
The People's Pharmacy
Joe and Terry Graedon
4.6 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 22 June 2017
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
People facing a life-threatening cancer diagnosis may struggle with more than the medical treatment. They sometimes experience an existential crisis, in which life loses its meaning. In such situations, anxiety and depression may overwhelm and paralyze them. To address this problem, some psychiatrists decided to see whether the hallucinogenic compound psilocybin could make a difference.
How Psilocybin Helps:
We speak with a psychiatrist who has studied the effect of this hallucinogenic drug in a therapeutic setting. He and his colleagues had noted that a strong spiritual foundation seems to protect people from existential despair. They found that a dose of psilocybin under carefully controlled circumstances could help people find new meaning in life.
Psilocybin as Entheogen:
Under these conditions, the psychedelic experience (which was often arduous rather than pleasant) seemed to help people discover or re-discover their spiritual bearings. Sometimes experts describe psilocybin as an entheogen-a means to discover the divine spark within.
This Week’s Guest:
Jeffrey Guss, MD, is a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine and is a Senior Faculty member of the Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse in NYU’s Department of Psychiatry. He is the Director of Psychedelic Psychotherapy Training for the NYU Psilocybin and Cancer Anxiety Study and also served as an Investigator and therapist with the study. Dr. Guss maintains a full time practice of psychotherapy and psychiatry in New York City.
He and his colleagues published their findings in December, 2016, in the Journal of Psychopharmacology: “Rapid and sustained symptom reduction following psilocybin treatment for anxiety and depression in patients with life-threatening cancer: a randomized controlled trial.” The Johns Hopkins researchers published their research in the same journal: “Psilocybin produces substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer: A randomized double-blind trial.”
Listen to the Podcast:
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Joe Graydon. |
| 0:02.3 | I'm Terry Graydon. |
| 0:03.8 | Welcome to this podcast of the People's Pharmacy, where we bring you the stories behind the health headlines. |
| 0:10.2 | This podcast is brought to you by Redux Industries, makers of utterly smooth body cream. |
| 0:16.0 | 800-345-7339 on the web at utter cream.com. |
| 0:31.6 | Cilocybin is a hallucinogenic compound for mushrooms. |
| 0:35.5 | Does it have any potential for helping to treat psychological distress? |
| 0:39.7 | This is the People's Pharmacy with Terry and Joe Graydon. |
| 0:50.3 | Today we're talking with the psychiatrist who treats patients with life-threatening cancer. |
| 0:55.8 | Sometimes their diagnoses are so demoralizing that they lose sight of the meaning of their lives. |
| 1:01.5 | Could their depression and existential anxiety be eased with psilocybin? |
| 1:06.4 | Dr. Jeffrey Gus, a psychiatrist at New York University, was one of a group of investigators |
| 1:12.3 | that conducted a controlled trial of psilocybin for just such patients. |
| 1:17.0 | The results of their study were remarkable. |
| 1:19.8 | Coming up on the People's Pharmacy, you'll learn about the surprising results of the |
| 1:24.1 | psilocybin and cancer anxiety study. |
| 1:27.0 | First, this news. |
| 1:30.3 | In the people's pharmacy health headlines, indulging in a sardine sandwich or tuna salad for lunch |
| 1:36.5 | might be a way to keep your joints from complaining if you have rheumatoid arthritis. |
| 1:41.4 | In a recent study, people with rheumatoid arthritis who ate fish at least twice a week |
| 1:46.5 | had lower levels of inflammation than those who ate it less than once a month. The lead researcher |
| 1:52.3 | told the New York Times that the magnitude of the effect is large, about one-third of the |
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