Mona Sharma argues that anxiety and depression treatment shouldn't rely on repeated prescriptions or psychedelic doses alone. Real healing requires personal work to recognize your own worth and integrate the experience afterward, drawing on how indigenous practices view psychedelics as tools for self-relationship, not escape.
Chapters
Anxiety related disorders are on the rise. Depression is on the rise. I've worked with people who've gone doctor hopping for the sake of getting more and more prescription drugs, for the sake of that disassociating feeling, because we are living at one of the most stressful times in history. And so the urge is real and it's there. And this is where I think that, like education, going out with psychedelics right now needs to be equally as important as the discussion of the treatment in and of itself. And this is where I think, think that if we're going to use the medicine, psychedelics synergistically, it's about also recognizing and awakening them to be able to experience like how magnificent you are, to not forget you've got to continue on to doing the work afterwards, not about going back in.
I think that's exactly it. And I think the practice is to be able to be in that space and hold as much of that experience as possible without the substance. And I think, you know, if you look at traditional or indigenous cultures who've used these substances, it's been about the relationship with these things and the relationship to self. And I think what you said around you being the healer.