How Psychedelics Work

From the premier expert on psychedelic research, a groundbreaking exploration of how psychedelics may unlock long-held mysteries of the mind, and how these revelations can be used to treat the most crippling of mental illnesses

We are living through a psychedelic renaissance, a moment when scientists are uncovering the true transformative power of these once-marginalized drugs. From depression and anxiety to chronic pain and eating disorders, psychedelics are providing people with relief from suffering in cases where all other treatments have fallen short. But what exactly are these substances doing to our brains? And what can they teach us about how the brain works and how mental illness takes hold? Written by a scientist at the forefront of this research, How Psychedelics Work weaves together stories from the lab, cutting-edge neuroscience, and patient accounts to illuminate what these substances do and why they can be so life-changing. Drawing on decades of research, including his own landmark clinical trials, Robin Carhart-Harris explains how psychedelics act on the brain to liberate it from rigid and repetitive patterns of thought and perception—patterns that could underlie mental illness. At the heart of the book is a new model of mental health that reframes illness not simply as a chemical imbalance, but as a state of excessive mental rigidity, where ingrained beliefs and habitual narratives become resistant to change. During a trip, Carhart-Harris argues, psychedelics free us to see new perspectives, creating major opportunities for healing and insight. Beyond their therapeutic potential, psychedelics—named after the ancient Greek for “soul-revealing”—may hold the answer to some of the most profound, vexing questions we have about consciousness, the self, and subjective experience. By illuminating how the mind constructs our sense of reality, How Psychedelics Work invites readers to reconsider what suffering is, how healing occurs, and the meaning of consciousness.