How Many Psychedelic Sessions Are Needed to Heal?

One thing that confused me when I began my healing journey was how many psychedelic sessions I would need to feel better. I would read that someone had cured their PTSD in three MDMA sessions or that their life had changed forever after a single psilocybin session.

That was not my experience at all with these compounds (I have done over 20 sessions). For a time, I felt like I was somehow failing because my life was not being completely transformed after a session.

I have since learned that childhood trauma often creates rigidity in the brain. Like a rubber band or a muscle, the tighter the ego, the less it can stretch at one time.

In the immediate aftermath of a session, I would often feel calmer, more empathetic, and more at peace. But after a couple of weeks, as my brain reset back to its default patterns, I would find myself falling back into many of my same issues around anger, vigilance, poor self-esteem, etc.

Over time, though, I started to notice subtle and, later, more noticeable changes in myself.

For me, healing with psychedelics was like most skill-building. I saw signs of progress early, but deeper change took time and effort.

Another thing is that, for me, the first session was more about getting used to the medicine. The first time I did MDMA, psilocybin, and LSD, the experience was not that rough. But the second session of each was extremely challenging.

In my experience, people tend to overestimate how much progress they can make in one psychedelic session but underestimate how much progress they can make with more sessions.