Public Story
End-of-Life Psilocybin Therapy
Summary
End-of-life cancer patients in a therapy group in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada used psilocybin to reduce their fears. It helped some find peace.
Brian Meyer, who was diagnosed with Stage 4 prostate cancer in 2020, and Cat Parlee, who lives with Stage 4 melanoma that has spread to her lungs and throat, became friends as they were part of a small cohort who had shared their anxieties about their terminal diagnoses. After weeks of Zoom group therapy sessions, the cohort gathered in-person in August 2023 to meet each other, their spouses, and to take part in a six-hour group psilocybin-assisted therapy session.
While psychedelics do not alter the course of a disease, Roots to Thrive is one program that may offer insight into how psychedelic-assisted therapy may offer meaningful improvements to psychological and spiritual well-being for terminal patients.
As Meryl Davids Landau reports: Brian Meyer died in December 2023, surrounded by more than a dozen family members in the hospital. But in the month before, he reported an enhanced sense of calmness.
"I don't want to say I'm excited, but I'm very curious now," he said.
He realized the mushrooms had taken him to an unknown, altered world; death would do the same.
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