No doubt, but that applies to all depression treatments. Most of which have a far higher risk of side effects, and many of which take weeks or months to show an effect if they do work.

Ketamine treatment takes an hour, with virtually no chance of side effects, and you'll know if it works within a few hours. Even if it only works for a tiny percentage of depression sufferers, it should be first line treatment. As it is, it seems to work for a reasonably large percentage of people.

Not just that it's important to remember that many studies have questioned whether antidepressants are at all better than placebo for the treatment of depression in the first place. [1] Some say no, some say yes statistically significant but not meaningful clinically. [2]

The reality is psychedelics may be the only meaningful medical treatment we actually have for depression.

[1] https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20080227/antidepres...

[2] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.0040...

It's great to see psychedelics being considered more and more for tackling mental health conditions, but I'd still like to see the discussion extended to include:

a) Other ways of achieving peak experiences and senses of connectedness, wonder and awe, be that mindfulness/meditation, being out in nature, flow states, breathwork etc. which are more often accessible to everyone, for free and without needing to involve big pharma and may have less side effects, supported where necessary with the same complimentary (talking) therapies that run alongside the psychedelics.

b) Challenging some of the potential underlying causes, I'm not suggesting this will apply in all cases, but stress/burn-out, financial pressures, lack of meaning, lack of connectedness, pressure from social media, inequality etc.

Yes, your mileage may vary, as they say. Our bodies are all unique and so are our responses. It was a miracle for me, it might be completely ineffective for someone else.

I think it is more, or different than "our bodies are unique" and something else entirely.

Saying someone has "depression" is like saying someone has "a stomach ache". The stomach ache might be Crohn's, an ulcer, food poisoning, or the aftermath of too many hot wings. All would show at least a somewhat similar cluster of symptoms, different based on the person, but all "stomach ache". Imagine the same for depression, but we don't necessarily have the labels or causes pinned down very well.

There probably are many conditions under depression that we'll eventually have good diagnoses for and consistent treatments for, just not yet.

It's not a matter of "everybody is unique" but that the science and testing is quite primitive so far and only some of the distinctions and treatments have been worked out.

Depression is a symptom, not exactly an illness. I mean we often treat it like one-- and call that Major Depressive Disorder-- but I expect in the future we'll be able to break it down to 'inflammatory disorder causing symptoms of depression', 'trauma disorder leading to symptoms of depression', etc

Yes, this. IMHO, there are two type of depression, both immune mediated, and both drive my glutamate/GABA imbalance. One is high glutamate the other is high GABA, either effecting different region of the brain.

This imbalance affects serotonin and norepinephrine release.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8311508/

And this change is mediated by the immune system. Glutamate is now known as an immunomodulator.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2997749/