“There is no magic pill or plant that allows you to bypass the healing 0f childhood trauma, symptoms of anxiety or depression,” Novick said. “This sacred medicine, when used with intention, respect, and care, can powerfully support us on our paths of healing and evolution.”
Can micro dosing help new moms face depression and anxiety? One therapist, Melissa Whippo, thinks the answer is yes.
“As a therapist specializing in psychedelics for perinatal mental health, I’ve worked with numerous women who hope to treat their depression, anxiety and trauma with therapeutic psychedelic medicine. Many of them feel more comfortable taking something they feel is more “natural” such as psilocybin, which they don’t have to take daily, rather than a daily pill like Prozac, which is one in a class of drugs called a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI),” she wrote in a Washington Post opinion piece.
In the piece, Whippo talks about a new mother who hopes that micro-dosing will help her with her anxiety and intrusive thoughts plaguing her since the birth of her first child.
“While many people microdose for recreation, my patient thought it could amplify her psychotherapy. After her first child was born, she was plagued with crippling anxiety,” she wrote. “At times, intrusive thoughts such as her baby falling down the stairs haunted her, making it hard for her to sleep and causing her to believe she was not cut out for motherhood.”
Given the tragic potential of many post-partum situations, Whippo believes that psychedelics have some therapeutic value.
According to another practitioner, Brooke Novick of Axis Mundi, mushrooms definitely have a future as helpmates.