Resurrecting Ancestral Familial Health: A Role for Psilocybin?

Abstract

Background: Research investigating high-dose, high-support psilocybin-assisted therapy reports significant psychological benefits, increased consciousness, and an enhanced socio-cognitive niche, resulting in empathy, connection, creativity, and overall well-being. These qualities lend themselves well to the bonding, emotional regulation, and attachment required for thriving family systems. Research from social scientist Darcia Narvaez on the evolved developmental niche (EDN) acts as a unified orientation to healthy familial systems that emphasizes the psychological, biophysical, and social benefits of following the human social mammal physiological design. Objective: In this narrative review, I outline the rationale for a curated family-centered psilocybin-assisted therapy model that can bridge modern contradictory trends of birth, parenting, and family culture to realign with the EDN. This article supports a theoretical construction weaving high-dose psilocybin with family systems therapeutic interventions of family constellations, somatic integration, and emotional intelligence to customize a healing modality that supports the creative integration of EDN components within modern-day family systems. Methods: I examine the transdisciplinary evidence for psilocybin-assisted therapy and the complementary components, family constellations, somatic integration, and emotional intelligence. Additionally, I investigate the EDN and the respective research indicating the health and morality of adhering to these practices. Results: There is increasing evidence for the construction of a family-centered psilocybin-assisted therapy that follows the values of the EDN. Conclusion: A family-centered psilocybin-assisted therapy protocol may positively heal intergenerational trauma and resurrect elements of the EDN, supporting the cultural shift to align with the social mammalian physiological needs of the human being.