Wellness tourism is not just a trend or a response to public health crises. It’s also a big business, led by companies like Jamaica’s MycoMeditations, whose co-owner and CEO, Justin Townsend, a former Westchester and Fairfield counties resident, has a long résumé as an entrepreneur in the fields of communications, health care and technology.
According to the Global Wellness Institute, 2022 saw more than 819.4 billion wellness trips booked – a number that’s projected to grow to one trillion this year. And with that growth comes a shift in what tourists are expecting from wellness travel.
“People have become far more specific about what they want to achieve in a retreat or program,” said Beth McGroarty, vice president of research for the Miami-based institute. “They want to go deeper and experiment with wellness in ways they have never before. Growing numbers of psilocybin and psychedelic retreats are opening each year.”
Psilocybin, first isolated in 1957, is a psychedelic compound found in more than 200 species of fungi – so-called “magic mushrooms” – that has been used in rituals, recreation and most recently as a treatment for everything from addiction to anxiety and depression. While the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has granted “breakthrough therapy status” to psilocybin to study its effects on treatment resistant depression (TRD) and major depressive disorder (MDD), with clinical trials underway, it is illegal under federal law in the United States, where it is classified as a Schedule I controlled substance.
Some 25 states have considered 74 bills either to decriminalize or legalize psilocybin, with 10 bills enacted and 32 still active. In March, Connecticut lawmakers decriminalized possession of magic mushrooms, with a fine of $150 for possession of a half-ounce but no jail time. Meanwhile, a bill to legalize psilocybin-assisted therapy in New York has “a real chance” to pass in the State Senate, lawmakers there have said.
Given its suppressed status in the United States, wellness tourists have turned to the growing number of specialized psychedelic retreats overseas, including the pioneering MycoMeditations, with three Jamaican locations – in Blue Martin and Rainbow Tree, both in Treasure Beach in the parish of St. Elizabeth; and Bluefields Bay Villas in Bluefields in the parish of Westmoreland.
“Many people in the world are walking trauma units and have never been diagnosed,” said Townsend, a onetime Harrison, Yonkers and Greenwich resident who served as head of innovation and entrepreneurship at the Institute for Next Generation Healthcare, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
“We are living in a period of hyper-novelty whereby everything seems to be changing at a rate that is faster than society can keep up with. At the same time, there is a mental health crisis sweeping the West that appears to be becoming more acute with each generation. These mental health issues, be they anxiety, depression, PTSD, etc., all appear to be further exacerbated by a lack of meaning and purpose in the world beyond that of the hedonistic hamster wheel that many appear to be on. These mental health difficulties present in individuals and family units leading to dysfunction and, of course, cross into the workplace, too, negatively impacting the well-being and productivity of the individuals, their career aspirations and goals.”
My experience with MycoMeditations – which took place in Blue Martin after I completed the screening process – has been both easy and hard to write as it was a journey into myself that I never took before. Yet I wanted to try to resolve – or at the least address – decades of deep emotional wounds that I have carried within me for most of my life.
These wounds arose from growing up as the fifth child in a family of 10 (five boys and five girls) and the middle child among the five boys – to quote an observer, “the middle child, squared” – where I became the scapegoat for a toxic mix of dysfunction and tragedy. Technically, it’s called a “negative reinforcing feedback loop,” but the gaping wounds by any other name are just as painful and left me with a lot of scars.
My childhood experience made me resistant to the tropes of traditional talk therapy and the typical pharmaceutical “solutions” so readily and cavalierly dispensed by the medical community. In the process of this assembly line standardization of mental health “treatment,” I, like many, became a citizen of Prozac Nation. And it did me little good.
MycoMeditations bases its high doses of psilocybin on the same protocols conducted in clinical trials at institutions like the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Imperial College London. Throughout an eight-day retreat that incorporated individual and group therapy, I was surrounded by some of the most gifted, compassionate health professionals I’ve ever met, who never left my side.
But I won’t deny it: My three journeys were an experience of profound sadness and pain. I felt wave after wave of loneliness and grief. For much of the time, I felt these feelings had no boundaries or limits – that they comprised the whole universe. There were a lot of tears.
The therapist who stayed with me reassured me afterward that given my childhood, what happened was not surprising, that in essence, my mind and body were working through almost 60 years of subconscious trauma.
I’ve always blamed myself for the pain I suffered. What did I learn? That I’m a good, decent person who didn’t deserve this, and that I can feel good about myself. And while I didn’t encounter deceased parents or siblings, I did experience this: I saw a concert pianist at the keyboard, dressed formally in tails, playing soft, soothing music. He did so deep in thought, leaning forward into the keys, then arching back, then moving side to side. He was immersed in the performance. And then, for some reason, I could see the sheet music he was reading from: He was playing the chords of my life – for me.
Attending a psychedelic-assisted retreat enabled me to see a different side of myself. My fellow guests (eight) were all admirable, courageous, successful people, each seeking to resolve respective issues and challenges within them, whether personal or professional. And like me, they felt that they benefitted from the retreat.
“Psilocybin has the potential to offer you more creativity, and more ease with uncertainty and ambiguity,” Townsend said, “and we all could use a dose of that, that’s for sure.”
This is new and groundbreaking. It requires bravery and openness. But you will emerge a better version of yourself. As one guest at my MycoMeditations retreat said, “I am a more whole person for having come here.” And so, too, am I.
According to the National Library of Medicine,“psychedelics are contraindicated for individuals who have been diagnosed with certain mental illnesses, on the grounds that (the) subjective effects may be disturbing or otherwise counter-therapeutic.” Abbie Townsend, MycoMeditations’ director of operations, writes: “We have a thorough screening process and deny applicants for a variety of reasons but primarily a personal or familial history of bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.” Before beginning any treatment, consult your primary care physician. Costs range from $5,950 to $27,300. For more, visit mycomeditations.com.
Psychedelic therapy in Canada
Psychedelic therapy in CanadaApart from psilocybin-assisted therapy, MDMA-assisted therapy, which uses the psychoactive drug ecstasy, will soon be approved for clinical treatment of PTSD by the U.S. Food and Drug Adminstration (FDA), although the therapy will not become widely available for perhaps an additional six to 12 months.
However, you can now access this therapy at ATMA CENA Psychedelic Therapy in Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta (the only Canadian province with licensed psychedelic treatment). ATMA CENA adheres to the protocols of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).
Canada offers a Special Access Program (SAP), whereby patients can gain access to MDMA and psilocybin therapy. Added ATMA CENA CEO Reverdi Darda: “We know the regulation and licensing for psychedelic-assisted therapy is going to take time. Without… the Special Access Program, individuals would not have access to safe, medically supervised and legal treatment.”
After completing an application, which typically takes six to 10 weeks to process, a client can start preparation with a therapist and receive the first dose of MDMA within three to four weeks.
Said ATMA CENA COO Jacque Lovely: “In the most recent MAPS clinical trial, 86% of participants treated with MDMA achieved a clinically meaningful benefit, and 71% of participants no longer met criteria for PTSD by study’s end.” – William D. Kickham
