If you take psychiatric medication
Read this first
Do not stop or change a prescription because of anything you read here, on any site. Discontinuation carries real relapse risk, and withdrawal symptoms are routinely mistaken for the illness returning — which is how people conclude they need the medication when what they are feeling is the absence of it.
56% vs 39%
relapsed within a year after stopping an antidepressant, against those who stayed on it. Randomized, in primary care.
Bring what you read here to a prescriber who knows your history. Lithium and MAOIs are genuine contraindications with psilocybin, and a personal or family history of psychosis or bipolar I disorder is an exclusion in essentially every trial.
The washout question is where this gets practical. A large share of the trials now recruiting require participants to taper off psychiatric medication first, and our trial finder marks which ones do, because that requirement is buried in the eligibility criteria on the registry and it is the single most common reason someone turns out not to qualify. Knowing before you apply is better than finding out during screening.
What that filter is not is permission to taper. If a study you want requires a washout, the conversation is with the study team and your prescriber together — the study team knows what the protocol needs, and your prescriber knows what stopping would mean for you specifically. Neither of them is a website.
Our interest in this subject is a reason to hold our claims to a higher standard, not a lower one.
Questions people actually ask
- Can I take psilocybin while I am on an antidepressant?
- This is a question for the prescriber who knows your history, not for a website. What can be said generally: SSRIs and SNRIs are thought to blunt psilocybin's subjective effects for many people, though the evidence is thinner than the confidence with which it is repeated online. Lithium is a genuine and serious contraindication — case reports link the combination to seizures. MAOIs are also contraindicated. None of that is a reason to stop a medication on your own.
- Should I stop my antidepressant to qualify for a psilocybin trial?
- Not without your prescriber's involvement. Many trials require a medication washout, and that requirement is real — but discontinuation carries relapse risk that is frequently understated. In a randomized primary-care trial, 56% of people who stopped their antidepressant relapsed within a year, against 39% of those who stayed on it. If a study requires a taper, the study team and your prescriber should plan it together.
- What excludes someone from a psilocybin trial?
- A personal or family history of psychosis or bipolar I disorder is an exclusion in essentially every psilocybin study, because of concern about precipitating a manic or psychotic episode. Significant cardiovascular disease is commonly excluded because psilocybin raises blood pressure and heart rate. Lithium and MAOI use are exclusions. Trials also screen for suicidality, and criteria vary between studies.
- Why do withdrawal symptoms get mistaken for relapse?
- Antidepressant discontinuation can produce symptoms — low mood, anxiety, sleep disruption, dizziness — that closely resemble the condition being treated. People experiencing them often conclude the illness has returned and that they need the medication, when what they are feeling is its absence. Distinguishing the two is genuinely difficult and is a clinical judgment, which is the reason it should not be attempted alone.