Colorado Family’s First Psilocybin Experience Results in Healing

Last November, Colorado decriminalized certain psychedelics including psilocybin for use in medical treatments and one family recently tried the fairly new therapy together.

A Colorado Family Bonds Over Psychedelic Therapy

23-year-old Delaney Sanchez has suffered from serious bouts of anxiety and panic attacks since her teenage years and has received little relief from prescription medication.

However, her mother, 59-year-old Dana Sanchez offered to try a kind of therapy that up until last November, had been illegal in the United States since 1970 - psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.

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Delaney, her mother Dana, her 25-year-old sister Danielle, and the sisters' grandmother Donna Strong all went to the retreat as a family and received the therapy together.

The women all drank some mushroom tea provided by therapist Heather Lee and retreated to separate isolated rooms with blindfolds and headphones for close to four hours.

Each woman had a different experience with both positive and negative aspects, but all four reported a feeling of ease and healing following the experience.

How Does Colorado Mushroom Therapy Work?

Following these types of psychedelics becoming outlawed in 1970, research regarding their healing effects came to what can only be compared to a grinding halt.

However, the 21st Century has seen an influx of research regarding the healing properties of these psychedelics to treat things like PTSD, depression, addiction, and anxiety and panic attacks like those that Delaney has experienced, especially when prescription medications known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) either don't work or have a negative effect on the patient.

In some instances, it's said that the psychedelics bring unprocessed trauma to the forefront for the individual to address and heal from, while others credit the healing effects to the breaking down of neurological loops which cause the individuals to fall into a pattern of taking substances to combat the depression with a reward such as alcohol and/or addictive drugs.

While the science continues to progress, at the very least it would appear that the Sanchez/Strong family's experience is a perfect example of how psychedelics can be beneficial rather than just something hippies take at Widespread Panic concerts.