Last month, President Trump signed an executive order to accelerate psychedelic treatments for serious mental illness. And the FDA followed through. Three companies just received National Priority Review Vouchers, which means their therapies will be reviewed in one to two months instead of the usual twelve.
I’ve been doing this work for a while now. Fifteen years across every corner of medicine brought me here. And I’ll be honest: this is one of those moments where the rest of the field is catching up to what many of us have known for years. Altered states heal. The science has been there and the political will is finally arriving.
Here’s what actually happened.
Three therapies were fast-tracked:
- Compass Pathways is developing psilocybin therapy for treatment-resistant depression. These are patients who have tried multiple medications without relief.
- Usona Institute is also working with psilocybin, but for major depressive disorder more broadly. A wider door for a wider population.
- Transcend Therapeutics is developing methylone, a compound similar to MDMA, for PTSD. This is excellent news for people who have been struggling, whose nervous systems are still living inside of moments that ended years ago.
Treatment-resistant depression, major depression, and PTSD are the exact conditions we treat at Mind Balance Flow in Livermore right now, today, with ketamine infusions and Spravato. These are both FDA-approved and evidence-based. They both work through the same principle: that sometimes the mind needs a different doorway to reach what talk therapy and medication alone cannot.
So what does this mean for you?
I want to be honest. These three therapies are not available yet. The fast-track review is real and significant, but we’re still looking at a timeline. FDA Commissioner Makary’s recent resignation adds some uncertainty. Even in the best scenario, widespread access is likely one to two years away.
But here’s what I want you to know: you don’t have to wait.
If you’re already a patient at MBF, you’re already receiving care that operates on the same frontier this news is pointing toward. Ketamine and Spravato work through altered states of consciousness to create space for healing that the default waking mind resists. That’s not new to us. That’s what we do.
And if you’ve been curious about this work, if something in you has been paying attention to these headlines and wondering whether it might be for you, this is a good time to have that conversation.
I’m not here to sell you on anything. I’m here because I believe the nervous system knows how to heal when we give it the right conditions. That’s what I’ve seen in my patients, and that’s what the research keeps confirming. And that’s what this moment in medicine is finally acknowledging on a national level.
The landscape is shifting. We’re already here.
If you want to talk about what any of this means for your care, or if you’re considering treatment for the first time, my door is open.
