From Magic Mushrooms to Mental Remedy

 Clayton Yun

Professor Horgan

HST 401

25 February 2026

From Magic Mushrooms to Mental Remedy: 

How Psychedelics are Changing the Way We View Mental Health

When I first took psychedelics, it wasn’t for therapy. It was about curiosity, from the visual distortions to the introspective nature that psychedelics bring; I was intrigued. I had heard many stories from people who became enlightened and changed their lives, to those who went crazy, to say the least. After getting over the 30 or so minutes that followed eating the mushrooms, with their weird aftertaste and anticipation, I started to relax and embraced the feelings. Patterns on the walls started appearing, and my worries and self-deprecating thoughts turned into giggles and constructive criticism. I was seeing my problems at a new angle, which is exactly why psychedelic therapy is seemingly on the rise again.

Psychedelics have been around for a very long time; they were used in Ceromonial ways by indigenous people all around the world before medicine was even a thing. In the 1950s to 1960s, many clinical research studies were going on with psychedelic substances, both naturally occurring and chemically synthesized. They investigated their potential treatment for alcoholism, anxiety, and depression. Then, as soon as it became more common, it was associated with anti-war protests and the growing counterculture movement, and the perception of psychedelics shifted. Mainly due to the media coverage of increasing extreme cases of psychotic breaks, dangerous behavior, and widespread recreational use rather than clinical research. Then, by the early 1970s, political leaders and those backed by them started to frame psychedelics as not a therapeutic device but a threat to society, and the war on drugs began. Soon after, most, if not all, research on psychedelics for treatment was canceled.

Recently, we have seen a resurgence of psychedelics in clinical research studies. Notably, Peter Thiel has invested millions, if not more, into companies and corporations that are specializing research into them. Is this a ploy to reignite programs like MK Ultra and Project BLUEBIRD? Who knows. 

What we do know now is how psychedelics affect our brains. Classical psychedelics like LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline act as agonists at the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor, which is concentrated in the prefrontal cortex and associated with higher-order cognition and self-referential thinking (Nichols 2016). Unlike SSRIs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which simply gradually increase serotonin levels, the compounds in psychedelics structurally mimic serotonin and bind at the receptors and temporarily disrupt the rigid patterns of neural connections that are already in place. Brain imaging studies suggest that this temporary destabilization of the neural connections can increase neural plasticity and cognitive flexibility, allowing patients to break out of those depressive and negative loops that have been ingrained in their minds and brains. Early trials at institutionssuch as Johns Hopkins have reported significant reduction in treatment resistant depression and anxiety when psilocybin is administered in a structured therapeutic setting (Griffiths 2023, Stringer 2025). 

You may be thinking wow that seems promising what about the widespread notion that psychedelics cause psychosis? Data in the past made it seem like psychedelics cause people to go into psychosis. Even when I first took it, people told me about the risk, and I’ve also heard that if you do it too much, you’ll go into psychosis as well. A recent meta-analysis review of human studies found that while individuals with a predisposition to psychotic disorders, like family members having them, may face an elevated risk of psychosis or psychotic disorders, population-level evidence does not support the notion that large-scale psychosis causation in a controlled setting (Sabe. 2024). In addition, longitudinal data also suggests no strong association between psychedelics use and persistent psychotic symptoms in the general population (Honk 2024). 

With these findings, research and studies are being performed to test psychedelics’ potential to revolutionize mental health therapy and see it in a completely new way. The traditional model that is commonly used is the biochemical model, where there is a chemical imbalance in your brain that leads to depression, anxiety, and other mental health-related disorders. We equate depression to be a serotonin deficiency, so many people are treated with medication such as SSRIs that act as a way to correct those chemical imbalances. This treatment is a daily medication and very gradual, and once you stop taking the medication, you are likely to revert to that stage of depression. With psychedelic therapy, however, there would be a few sessions where your neural connections are temporarily destabilized, and you’re restructuring the way you think and improving your cognitive flexibility to get out of those negative mental loops. 

In conclusion, there are currently many studies being done on psychedelics for therapeutic reasons that can completely change how we view mental health. From correcting chemistry to breaking away from those rigid, destructive thought loops, psychedelic therapy can help people move away from taking pills every day to be “happy”. I am not trying to say that psychedelics are the cure to mental health and the drug that will fix everything, but that the resurgence of psychedelics has brought a new way of thinking about mental health and can point us in the direction of understanding our brains more. 

Works Cited

George, Daniel R., et al. “Ancient Roots of Today’s Emerging Renaissance in Psychedelic Medicine.” Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, vol. 46, no. 4, 2 Sept. 2021, pp. 890–903, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8412860/, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-021-09749-y.

Griffiths, Roland. “Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research.” Www.hopkinsmedicine.org, 2023, www.hopkinsmedicine.org/psychiatry/research/psychedelics-research. Accessed 22 Feb. 2026.

Ludwig Honk, et al. “Longitudinal Associations between Psychedelic Use and Psychotic Symptoms in the United States and United Kingdom.” Journal of Affective Disorders, vol. 351, 1 Apr. 2024, pp. 194–201, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2024.01.197.

Nichols, David E. “Psychedelics.” Pharmacological Reviews, vol. 68, no. 2, 3 Feb. 2016, pp. 264–355, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4813425/, https://doi.org/10.1124/pr.115.011478.

Research, Center for Drug Evaluation and. “Psychedelic Drugs: Considerations for Clinical Investigations.” U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 26 June 2023, www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidance-documents/psychedelic-drugs-considerations-clinical-investigations.

Sabé, Michel, et al. “Reconsidering Evidence for Psychedelic-Induced Psychosis: An Overview of Reviews, a Systematic Review, and Meta-Analysis of Human Studies.” Molecular Psychiatry, 27 Nov. 2024, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-024-02800-5.

Stringer, Heather. “Psychedelic Treatment and Mental Health: Navigating a Longer Trip with Optimism.” Https://Www.apa.org, 2025, www.apa.org/monitor/2025/01/trends-psychedelic-treatments. Accessed 22 Feb. 2026.

Tupper, Kenneth W., et al. “Psychedelic Medicine: A Re-Emerging Therapeutic Paradigm.” Canadian Medical Association Journal, vol. 187, no. 14, 8 Sept. 2015, pp. 1054–1059, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4592297/, https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.141124.