[funkjunky]

It's amazing how strongly people can have an opinion about something they have clue what they're talking about.

https://www.pnas.org/content/113/17/4853

Synopsis: no, actually the drug has a pretty powerful impact on your brain and is the main driver of the effect

[carapace]

First, thank you! That paper is awesome, actual Scottish science. Cheers!

Second, I would never begin to deny that "the drug has a pretty powerful impact on your brain", because that would be stupid.

Third which "effect"? Your linked study "sought to investigate the acute brain effects of LSD in healthy volunteers", we're discussing psilocybin for major depression. So... what's up doc?

What I'm saying is that getting high is not the best available therapy for depression.

[funkjunky]

First of all, whether "getting high", as you put it, is or is not the best "available" therapy for depression is debatable, and not known at this time. Ketamine has definitely shown to be much more effective against certain kinds of depression than therapy, and much quicker acting, and I wouldn't doubt that psilocybin might also be.

But more to the point, you were asserting that the effects of the drugs were secondary to the therapy associated with them, to which I strongly disagree with. The action of the drug itself is main driver of its therapeutic potential, specifically that of "breaking" normal heuristic patterns of activity, suppressing others, and allowing more inter-region connections and plasticity to flourish where non existed before. Most people can't do that very easily, if at all , with just therapy, meditation, diet, and exercise or whatever. However, I -CAN- do that, quite easily and without effort, without the guidance of a therapist or anything else, by simply eating some mushrooms and letting them do their thing.