The just published Brill Handbook of Entheogenic Healing includes a chapter by Benedicte Mannix, Michael J. Winkelman and me titled “Treating Childhood Trauma through Psilocybin.”
The first couple of paragraphs can serve as an abstract:
Based on decades of experience of using psilocybin mushrooms in therapy, Bénédicte Mannix has developed a protocol for the treatment of childhood traumas. This chapter describes her protocol, its therapeutic effects, and the philosophical and psychological traditions that inform her healing work in
Jamaica, where psilocybin is legal (https://sophrodelic.com/). The chapter discusses the role of traditions, training, alterations of consciousness, ritual healing sessions, and ethnomedical ideology, along with occasional illustrations drawn from her experience with clients. The motivation for the development of this protocol has been to harness the power of psilocybin to heal human minds, bodies, and souls from psychological trauma and to participate in the broader ongoing social transformation of the human relationship to our ecological environment.
The first part of the chapter consists of three sub-sections, which together introduce the theoretical background and practical strategies that shaped the development of the protocol. In addition to explaining the ideological background for the role of psychedelics in the protocol and the role that Sophrology often plays in supplementing the healing process, we also describe some of the main psychological and therapeutic schools of thought that inform Mannix’ approach. The second part of the chapter introduces the three phases of the protocol—the pre-session, the session itself, and the post-session integration—by explaining their key components and their functions as part of the integrative healing ritual process. In the third part, the clinical evidence for the effectiveness of psilocybin in treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and trauma is presented, and the mechanisms underlying this healing are discussed. First, however, we provide a rationale for focusing on childhood trauma as a target for entheogenic healing.
F. LeRon Shults 
This is such a thoughtful article — I especially appreciated the way you connected the science with real-world experiences. In my own exploration of the field, I’ve found that people often struggle to bridge research with personal integration. That’s one of the reasons I started collecting resources at https://psychedelicsphere.com, where I’ve been curating articles and guides on responsible use, microdosing, and integration practices. I think it complements what you’ve shared here really well, and I’d love to hear what others think about balancing the clinical side of psychedelics with the lived experience.
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