A promising field of study, long fallow

The demand for psychedelics as tools for healing has exploded in recent years, fueled by promising clinical studies, loosening drug laws and a growing number of celebrities who have come out as psychonauts. NFL star Aaron Rodgers described ayahuasca ceremonies as a catalyst for “deeper selflove.” In her new autobiography, actor Jada Pinkett Smith credited ayahuasca sessions with putting an end to her suicidal ideation. And ketamine, an anesthetic that induces a dissociative, psychedeliclike state, has become an increasingly popular treatment for depression among people who get it at clinics or self-medicate.

This cultural shift was turbocharged by author Michael Pollan’s 2018 book “How to Change Your Mind,” which was adapted into a Netflix series. Psychedelics also have been at the center of popular recent novels and streaming dramas, including the Hulu series “Nine Perfect Strangers,” in which Nicole Kidman plays an underhanded healer at a retreat center called Tranquillum House.

As the stigma of psychedelic use recedes, hundreds of clinicians are seeking formal training to help resurrect a field of medicine that was eagerly pursued in the 1950s and ’60s, but was hastily abandoned after President Richard Nixon announced the war on drugs.

Mental health experts say that traditional interventions to treat depression, trauma and addiction are failing many patients in the United States, which is grappling with a high suicide rate and an opioid addiction epidemic that killed about 75,000 people in 2022.

“In psychiatry and psychology, we’ve hit a brick wall,” said Janis Phelps, the director of the Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research at the California Institute of Integral