Why Healing and Why Psychedelics

This article examines the impact of trauma on our lives and the importance of healing from it, as well as providing an overview of psychedelics as a tool for healing.

“If we do not resolve it [past trauma wounds], our lives can be severely diminished by its effects. Some people have even described this situation as a ‘living death.’” – Dr. Peter Levine (in his book, Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body)

“Whether we realize it or not, it is our woundedness, or how we cope with it, that dictates much of our behavior, shapes our social habits, and informs our ways of thinking about the world.” – Dr. Gabor Maté (in his book, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture)

Trauma. It’s a big word that is loaded with lots of emotions. But ignoring our trauma, ignoring our past, solves nothing, as the wounds do not disappear with time, but with the work of intentional healing.

Trauma has two elements, and both strongly affect our emotions. One element relates to the negative experiences that we witnessed, or that happened to us; think abuse, accidents, surgery, crime, natural disasters. The second element is the withholding of something we expected, such as a child not receiving love and comfort from a parent.

Trauma’s impact on people ranges from an emotional and psychic injury to nervous system dysregulation and the wound being held in our bodies.

Have you experienced trauma? It’s highly likely, and in fact, many people are carrying multiple trauma wounds from the past. Studies confirm that about two-thirds of adults report experiencing at least one traumatic incident in childhood.

Here’s a good test. Do you find yourself in situations in which you have had an unexplainable, intense, and negative reaction to a person, place, thing, or statement? We call this being triggered. These experiences can manifest in all sorts of ways, from sleep issues, high blood pressure, inflammation, and depression to anger, frustration, shame, fear, guilt, sadness, pain, and even feeling numb.

Other examples of unprocessed trauma include feelings and thoughts, such as: I am broken; there’s something wrong; my life seems off; I am tired of living this life; everyone but me seems happy.

Not dealing with our past trauma wounds – letting them fester and simmer within us – restricts our ability to lead the life we envisioned for ourselves. Not dealing with our past trauma wounds causes a separation within ourselves that often results in wearing masks to hide the hurt from the wound(s).

Are you people-pleasing, working nonstop (workaholic), walking on eggshells, or using questionable coping mechanisms (self-harm, substances, porn, gambling, shopping, food, etc.) to deal with things from your past you either can’t remember or don’t want to face?

The key here is to remember this… self-medicating is a symptom of mental health struggles, often from unaddressed trauma wounds. Research from 2025 shows that a quarter of the population aged 12 and older (about 70.5 million) used illegal drugs or misused prescription drugs in the past year, often as a form of self-medication. Furthermore, another 29.5 million people aged 12 and older (about 10 percent of the population) had an alcohol use disorder.

Also, self-harm is often a signal of deep emotional pain and unresolved trauma that deserves compassionate attention and support – and the realization that trauma wounds must be healed before serious injury or death occurs.

When we take a hard look around us, it is easy to see we are in crisis. We have a mental health crisis, a suicide crisis, a substance abuse and addiction crisis, and a healing crisis.

Even with so much unresolved past trauma, there is good news. None of these patterns mean you are broken. They may simply be signs that parts of you still need healing. (Not fixing, but true and complete healing.)

Tools for Healing From Our Past

Talk therapy, including the emerging field of psychedelic-assisted therapy, has traditionally been the model many people use for trying to understand why they are struggling, but the biggest problem with traditional talk therapy is there are often limitations in getting to the true root cause, including not consciously remembering what happened and/or choosing not to discuss or avoid certain topics. (There is also a widespread shortage of therapists and limitations on how much therapy health insurance covers.)

In my book, HEAL!, I introduced the Healing Wheel, a set of six holistic modalities people can use on their own or with assistance on their healing journey. The Healing Wheel recognizes that trauma affects the whole person. Healing must therefore address the physical, emotional, mental, relational, and spiritual aspects of our lives.

True healing, freeing yourself of old trauma and pain, requires a multidimensional approach — partly because not all therapies work for all people. The key is finding the therapies that resonate with you.

This concept is not new; all we need to do is look at our ancestors in the Indigenous populations of the world, who typically focus on community and healing the whole — not individual parts. These healing experiences included all aspects of the person: physical, mental, and spiritual.

The Healing Wheel consists of these six holistic practices:

1. Spirituality, including prayer, meditation, and mindfulness

2. Nature, which has multiple paths to healing

3. Somatic, dealing with releasing the wounds from the body

4. Food, because our diets can directly impact our mental health

5. Breathwork, which deals with taking control of our breathing

6. Psychedelics, helping people find understanding the root and find healing

To learn more about the Healing Wheel, see the resources at the end of the article.

The Power of Psychedelics in Healing

Over the years, people have sought healing through countless approaches. Some turn to therapy. Others find help through spirituality, support groups, meditation, breathwork, movement, or time in nature. Increasingly, researchers and clinicians are also revisiting a category of substances that have been used for healing: psychedelics.

Psychedelic substances -- mainly fungi and plants -- have been used time immemorial... as far back in the history of humans as we can go. Psychedelics were used by Indigenous medicine men and women to help heal their communities, as well as lead spiritual quests and transformational experiences.

Current research with psychedelics (which is happening at major research universities around the world, including Johns Hopkins, Yale, Washington University, Stanford in the U.S., as well as in Canada, England, Switzerland, Egypt, France, and South Korea) is showing amazing -- truly amazing -- results in several areas of mental and physical health.

It’s important to note that psychedelics are not a cure-all, and they are not appropriate for everyone. Like any powerful healing tool, they require education, preparation, support, and careful consideration.

The most commonly studied and used psychedelic is psilocybin, also known as Magic Mushrooms. Psilocybin has been found in more than 100 species of mushrooms.

Emerging research and decades of lived experience show that psilocybin-assisted healing can support emotional release, nervous system regulation, and reconnection with the self. When combined with careful preparation, integration, and safe environments, psilocybin can help transform trauma into profound healing and growth.

Psilocybin can help people dealing with depression, anxiety, addictions, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and eating disorders. It can help with PTSD, although MDMA has more research supporting its use for PTSD.

The Healing Benefits of Psilocybin

Research has shown these benefits from psilocybin journeys:

• Insights into healing through deep self-awareness

• In some cases, healing from depression, anxiety, addiction

• Emotional and spiritual growth

• Brain growth (neuroplasticity)

• Brain disconnections (ending, slowing OCD)

• Deeper connection to world/others

• Deeply profound and one-of-a-kind experience

Final Thoughts About Healing and Psychedelics

If you take nothing else from this article, please leave knowing that healing is not only possible, but healing will result in a profoundly positive change in your life.

And healing is certainly possible without psychedelics, but these substances open a powerful window into healing and transformation that most other healing modalities cannot achieve.

Psilocybin is both the most widely available and gentlest psychedelic substance. But it is not for everyone, and there must be much time spent beforehand (what we call preparation) and much time afterward (what we call integration, or “doing the work”).

Critical Articles on Healing and on Psychedelics

• Are You Affected By Past Trauma? A Self-Assessment

• Discover the Methods for True, Wholeistic, Healing (The Healing Wheel)

• Healing Journey: Just One Small Step Every Day... It's a Journey

• The Hidden Lifelong Impact of Childhood Trauma

• Make Room for Healing

• The Many Faces of Trauma: Are You Ready to See Yourself?

• What is a Healing Journey? How Do I Start One?

• Are You Ready to Find Healing Using Psychedelics?

• Five Things to Consider Before Jumping into Healing Through Plant Medicines

• Frequently Asked Questions About Psychedelic Medicines: 1-10

• Frequently Asked Questions About Psychedelic Medicines: 11-20

• Not Sure About Psychedelics? Try Microdosing

• What Are Psychedelics? A Primer for the Curious

• What's the Connection Between Healing and Psychedelics?