Psychedelics and Other Unconventional Therapies

This 60 Minutes report, aired in March 2025, follows nine US combat veterans on a psychedelic retreat in Mexico, then covers three other experimental PTSD and depression treatments: a neck injection called stellate ganglion block, modernized electroconvulsive therapy, and AI mental health chatbots. Standard care is failing many patients, and clinicians and veterans are testing very different alternatives to close the gap.

Veterans and a Psychedelic Retreat in Mexico

Last year the VA said it would begin funding its own trials of psilocybin and MDMA for PTSD, depression, and addiction, though approval is years off. Some veterans aren't waiting: 60 Minutes joined nine veterans on a week-long retreat near Puerto Vallarta run by Heroic Hearts Project, a nonprofit that says it has helped more than 1,000 veterans access psychedelics abroad within indigenous ceremonial traditions. Each had to taper off antidepressants, pass a medical screening, and rule out a family history of psychosis (see Psylopedia's safety and harm reduction guide). Traditional healers led three ceremonies, two with psilocybin mushroom tea and one with 5-MeO-DMT, a fast-acting compound from a toad. Most veterans described intense, meaningful experiences, but Navy veteran TJ Duff found it frightening, left early, and later said it triggered a dangerous decline that put him back on antidepressants. Afterward the group had virtual check-ins with a counselor, aftercare Psylopedia's integration guide calls essential.

The VA's top health official called unregulated retreats a safety concern, but pointed to promising early agency data: a small VA trial pairing MDMA with therapy put 45 percent of veteran participants into complete PTSD remission, "unheard of" with standard care, though larger trials are still needed to confirm it. Nearly a year later, eight of the nine veterans reported improved symptoms and called the retreat life-changing.

Stellate Ganglion Block: A Nerve Block for PTSD

About 20 veterans die by suicide daily, a toll the VA calls an epidemic, and only about 40 percent find relief from PTSD with current treatments. This segment covers stellate ganglion block (SGB), long used for chronic pain and now studied for PTSD in a 2 million dollar Army trial: a doctor injects a local anesthetic near a neck nerve cluster that regulates the fight-or-flight response, believed to calm a nervous system left hyperactive by combat. Marine Sergeant Henry Cotto, after 12 failed medications, felt a "huge difference" within two minutes of his injection; effects clear the body in a day but can ease symptoms for six months or longer, with no known side effects. A retired brigadier general who disclosed his own PTSD in 2016 said SGB "lifted the fog," and cited stigma as a major barrier to other veterans. SGB remains experimental, offered at only 12 of 172 VA hospitals; an Army placebo trial with more than 100 soldiers is under peer review.

Electroconvulsive and Magnetic Seizure Therapy for Depression

The report turns to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), or "shock therapy," which researchers call one of the most effective treatments for severe, medication-resistant depression, a condition affecting more than 5 million Americans. Stigma from ECT's harsh history means only about 1 percent of people who might benefit ever try it. Modern ECT is given under general anesthesia with muscle relaxants, inducing a roughly one-minute seizure the patient never feels. Kitty Dukakis, former first lady of Massachusetts, became a public ECT advocate after 17 years of unresponsive depression. "I just was like a new person," she said of her first course. Because depression often relapses, she has had ECT more than 100 times over two decades. Its main drawback is memory loss near treatment, which does not always fully return.

Dr. Sarah Lisanby of the NIMH has spent nearly two decades developing magnetic seizure therapy (MST), which targets about 4 percent of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, with magnetic pulses rather than flooding the whole brain. A 2015 study she cited found the memory disruption caused by ECT was absent after MST. A five-year NIMH-backed trial comparing the two is underway in Toronto and Dallas.

AI Chatbots as Mental Health Tools

The final segment looks at AI chatbots built to help fill a severe shortage of human therapists. Psychologist Allison Darcy built Woebot, a text-based app using cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) principles for depression, anxiety, addiction, and loneliness. Since its 2017 launch, Woebot reports 1.5 million users and is now accessible only through an employer plan or a referring clinician. It runs on a "rules-based" system of pre-written, clinically reviewed responses, trading flexibility for predictability. A test conversation showed its ability to flag risky language was inconsistent, a reminder it is not built to assess whether someone is in crisis.

The risk of a less constrained system showed up in Tessa, an eating-disorder support chatbot with fixed, clinically approved responses. After a technology partner reportedly added generative AI features, Tessa began giving advice that ran counter to standard care, including tips to restrict calories and measure body composition. "That was never the content that our team wrote or programmed into the bot that we deployed," said psychologist Ellen Fitzsimmons-Craft, who helped design Tessa's original content; the National Eating Disorders Association pulled it offline once the problem surfaced. Clinicians said AI could expand access to care but warned most mental health apps remain unregulated, and that in-person empathy, being visibly understood by another person, may not be replicable by software.

Key takeaways

• ●The VA began funding its own trials of psilocybin and MDMA for PTSD, depression, and addiction, but approval is years off, pushing some veterans toward retreats abroad like the nine-person Mexico trip profiled here, which used psilocybin and 5-MeO-DMT ceremonies.
• ●Outcomes at that retreat varied: most veterans reported lasting relief, but one left early after a distressing experience and briefly returned to antidepressants.
• ●A small VA trial combining MDMA with therapy reported 45 percent of veteran participants reached complete PTSD remission, though larger trials are needed to confirm it.
• ●Stellate ganglion block, a neck injection long used for chronic pain, is being studied by the Army for PTSD; some veterans reported rapid relief lasting months, but it is not a cure.
• ●Electroconvulsive therapy is highly effective for severe depression, researchers say, but stigma keeps usage low and memory loss remains its main drawback; magnetic seizure therapy, an experimental alternative, showed less memory disruption.
• ●AI chatbots like Woebot can widen access to mental health care, but even careful systems can miss signs of crisis, and less constrained generative AI produced harmful advice through the Tessa chatbot.
• ●None of the treatments in this report are presented as cures; each is framed as one option to weigh within a supervised clinical setting, not a replacement for professional care.