Health care providers learn to guide dying patients through a psychedelic trip

Psychiatrist Cheryl Willsie spent nearlya week in Hamilton learning how to walk a patient through an experience on psychedelic drugs.

She andtwo otherhealthcare professionalslearned how to prepare a patient for a therapy session where they take psilocybin the psychedelic compound in so-called magic mushrooms.

Willsiealso learned how to support the patientthrough the experience and how tohelp process what came up in a later session.

The five-day training session at Energy Tap, a psychotherapy office on York Boulevard, was offered by TheraPsil, a national organization that advocates for expanded access to psilocybin.

The group learned how to guide patients through an experience on psilocybin with the goal of helping them to better understand their inner world and ideally, to feel better.

Many of the patients who can legally access this kind of treatment are facing death from a terminal illness, noted Willsie.

"Around end-of-life care, it's been really remarkable to see the benefits people have had with only two or three dosing sessions," she told CBC Hamilton on Monday.

"People have had a lot of relief around their mental and emotional suffering around having a terminal diagnosis."

Willsie, who is from Sarnia, Ont., was drawn to include psychedelics into her practice after seeing promising research into its mental health uses.

"I realized that with medication and with talk therapy alone, most people just weren't getting better," she said.

"That's really driven my excitement about psychedelic-assisted therapy."

'Deepening and expanding the therapeutic process'

Willsie already offers therapy using ketamine, a dissociative drug that can also have psychedelic and anesthetic effects. Itcan be legally prescribed by a physician.

"I am seeing that [ketamine] allows people deeper access to their subconscious in reprocessing past trauma," she said. "It's sort of deepening and expanding the therapeutic process."

Research is showing psilocybin can have positive outcomes for patients as well.

A Johns Hopkins University study published last year found two treatments of psilocybin, when paired with psychotherapy, can produce "substantial antidepressant effects" in patients with major depressive disorder for more than a year.

According to the American Microbiology Association, psilocybin has shown promise in managing various psychiatric conditions, including obsessive-compulsive disorder, alcohol use disorder and substance use disorders.

In late June, the federal government announced nearly $3 million in funding for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to support three clinical trials examining psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy to treat alcohol use disorder, treatment-resistant depression and end-of-life psychological distress in advanced-stage cancer patients.

"While clinical trials with psilocybin have shown promising results, at this time, there are no approved therapeutic products containing psilocybin in Canada or elsewhere," states Health Canada's website, suggesting interested patients seek out clinical trials.

Patients with some conditions can apply for legal access

But while psilocybin remains illegal, patients with end-of-life distress, treatment-resistant depression and major depressive disorder can apply to Health Canada to access it.

In 2021, just over 60 Canadians weregranted an exemption, according toHealth Canada data obtained by CBC London. In 2022, 97 exemptions were granted. This year, only threepatients had beenapproved to use psilocybinas of June.

Those are the patients TheraPsil is training healthcare professionals to support.

The organization is also pushing the government to simplify the program and expand access, says Yasmeen deRosenroll, the organization's director of training and operations.

"Right now there are people who are dying because they aren't getting a quick enough response and it is a bureaucratic process," she said Tuesday. "People are either dying without access or going to the underground."

A recent petition, created by University of Alberta ethicist Brendan Leier and supported by Conservative Member of Parliament from Alberta Garnett Genuis, is also asking the federal government to make it easier to prescribe psilocybin.

The petition, signed by 3,932 people as ofAug. 2, notes psilocybin's "low potential for harm It is paradoxical and unethical to allow physicians to provide [Medical Assistance in Dying] for their patients while preventing the same physicians from treating their end of life distress with psilocybin."

Some dying patients 'completely transformed' by treatment :advocate

TheraPsil's deRosenroll says that while there is risk in the treatment it's not a panacea, and can leave some patients disappointed and dejected if it doesn't work for them the risk is higher for people who don't use trained professionals to guide their experience.

"We advocate for legal use and with trained healthcare professionals because professionals belong to a professional college with a code of ethics and a disciplinary body," she said, noting TheraPsil has trained more than 500 people so far, and offers a directory where patients can search for a care provider who has been trained.

The organization has seen numerous success stories, which is what propels the organization's work, says deRosenroll.

"We've had patients share stories about how their lives have been completely transformed and perhaps instead of choosing [Medical Assistance in Dying], they will then continue on with their life after the psilocybin session," she said.

"We've also heard the opposite of people being like, 'You know what? I had my psilocybin experience, I'm content, and I am now ready to die.'"