I've been reading up on psychedelics for about a year now
It's one of those strange areas.
There are over one thousand peer reviewed papers published in mainstream academic journals, reporting uses of psychedelics in therapy.
An important thing to note at this point is that positive results in an academic literature does not necessarily imply a real phenomenon.
Necessarily, is the key word.
There is no journal of negative results. Only the positive results get published, resulting in a strong positive bias, that is present through out science.
That bias was eloquently exposed in Roman times by Marcus Tullius Cicero (one of my heroes!). He was shown a painting of people whose ship was in trouble in a storm, they'd prayed and "were saved"
Cicero asked "where are the paintings of all those who prayed and still drowned?"
You'll never here their stories, they're the silent evidence that gets ignored.
There's an added mystique to psychedelics; Black's and hippies were two identifiable groups of people who tended to be opposed to the Nixon regime. Extending drugs prohibition to include psychedelics (the dupont interests had already had dope outlawed, on the back of the ridiculously race baiting film reefer madness ) allowed the regime to discredit and attack those groups as criminals (a senior guy in the Nixon regime came out with that a few years ago ). Any research into medical uses for those substances was ended.
The uses in therapy that I've read about, have been to facilitate the rest experiencing of events, and to enhance transference, where the client is able to see the therapist as another person, for example their mother or their abuser. ..
I've not followed it up recently, but there was a controversial therapist in Ireland who was using ketamine in a similar way.
These are things that are going to take a great deal of skill on the part of the T to facilitate. They're also going to take longer in sessions, how long does a trip last? Five or six hours? Assuming that you can find someone who'll do it (and you'll probably have to travel to somewhere like Mexico to find them ) that's a lot of time to pay for each session. And it's stuff that you can't really do alone.
Searching Wikipedia will get you a bibliography of the academic literature.
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OK, on the shrooms
Psyllicybin, weight for weight is about 50% less toxic than caffeine (Ld50 is about 50% higher ).
The dangers depend on correct identification of mushrooms. Not getting poisonous varieties. With the correct Psyllicybin only mushrooms, I gather that there is a big safety margin.
Some mushroom have other chemicals. Fly agaric, the red mushroom with white blotches in fairytales has at least five psycho active chemicals including the active ingredient in toad venom, that also screws with your heart, and another that is used medically to kill nerve cells...
Be extremely careful. Never assume that someone else knows what they are doing!
Somewhere I've got a thread on micro dosing on psychedelicsale
Hope this is of help
Oh, I forgot to mention,
Psychedelics aren't addictive, people who try to trip often report that they just stop working for a week or so
