Psychedelics and the 'inner healer': Myth or mechanism?

The “inner healer” concept in psychedelic use claims that psilocybin, plants, or preparations have an intrinsic, regenerative action on mind and brain. A team tested this idea by creating a single subjective “inner healing” rating item and administering it to 59 patients in a double blind randomized controlled trial for depression. Participants received either a high psilocybin dose (25 mg) or a “placebo” dose (1 mg), and inner healer scores were higher after the high dose. In the 25 mg subgroup only, higher inner healer scores predicted improved depressive symptoms two weeks after dosing. The findings suggest the inner healer mechanism is still scientifically nascent, but that measuring it may be a useful step toward evaluating whether it has mechanistic and predictive validity beyond expectancy and priming.