The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently gave “breakthrough therapy” designation to a psilocybin-based drug being tested by COMPASS Pathways for treatment resistant depression. This designation is given to a drug that shows strong preliminary evidence that it would be a substantial improvement over currently available therapies. The Heffter Research Institute funded the first research into using psilocybin to treat depression at Johns Hopkins University, New York University, and the University of California Los Angeles.
Here Dr. Carhart-Harris, who is conducting similar research in the UK, explains how psychedelics can temporarily disable our ingrained mental models allowing us to become aware of them and offering the opportunity to break down negative models that no longer serve us.
