What we mean when we say a drug "works"

Set and setting

Dr Marcus Holloway · 6 May 2026 · 8 min read

The clinical label describes what medicines have failed to do, not what a person is. That distinction changes how we read the research — and how we treat the people in it.

Dr Alani Reyes · 19 April 2026 · 6 min read

Trauma is not only a memory problem. Understanding why it lives in the body helps explain why some emerging therapies work on the body's terms, not the mind's alone.

Dr Marcus Holloway · 10 April 2026 · 8 min read

If psychedelic therapy becomes a real treatment, the next question is not whether it works but who will be able to reach it — and whether access will follow need or money.

Tomas Iwu · 2 April 2026 · 7 min read

A therapist describes what it was actually like to sit with a patient through a supervised dosing session — the boredom, the fear, and the part nobody had prepared her for.

As told to Priya Nandakumar · 24 March 2026 · 6 min read

People imagine the dosing session as the climax of psychedelic therapy. In practice, clinicians often describe it as the prologue. What a person does with what they saw — over weeks, sometimes months — is where a temporary experience becomes a durable change, or fails to.

A calm, practical guide to raising the subject with a clinician — what to ask, what to expect, and how to tell credible care from a sales pitch.

Higher Place editors · 9 May 2026 · 6 min read

The two oldest words in this field, explained without mysticism — what they actually refer to, why clinicians take them so seriously, and how to apply the idea.

Higher Place editors · 22 April 2026 · 5 min read

A harm-reduction guide for friends and family — how to be useful to someone shaken by a psychedelic experience, and how to recognise when to seek help.

Higher Place editors · 30 March 2026 · 6 min read