Beyond the Food: What Psychedelic Healing Is Revealing About Eating Disorders

Eating disorder recovery is often measured in numbers: weight restored, calories consumed, behaviours reduced.

But what if healing isn't just about what’s on the plate, but about reclaiming your place in the world?

Let’s explore what psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) is revealing about the deeper layers of eating disorders, and why recovery is less about fixing a problem and more about remembering who you truly are.

A Different Kind of Recovery
The research on psychedelics and ED recovery is still new, but what's emerging is profound: healing isn’t just behavioural. It’s somatic, relational, and spiritual.

Psychedelics invite people to remember their agency. To rediscover their values. To feel worthy of nourishment, on a physical, emotional, relational, and soulful level.

As one participant in a recent 2024 study, Beyond The Numbers: reimagining healing with psychedelics for eating disorders, said:

“I thought my eating disorder was me being responsible. But after my journey, I felt what it meant to truly participate in my life — to be self-aware, and to choose responsibility in a way that honors me.”

Beyond the Illness: A Tapestry of Forces
This isn’t just about the individual. In my own healing journey, I witnessed something larger than myself unfold:

“An eating disorder is so complex...
Through psychedelics, I began to see the map — my lineage, the collective, my early childhood, cultural and institutional forces, family systems. It was a tapestry. At first it was intimidating… but it also showed me the way through.”

PAT creates a space where people can reframe their eating disorder, not as a personal failure or even a “disorder”, but as a deeply intelligent adaptation. A response to trauma, to absence, to the longing for love, safety, and control.

Redefining Recovery
This new understanding received from psychedelics allows recovery to mean something more than behaviour change.
It can mean:

• Cultivating self-compassion

• Expanding emotional intelligence

• Honouring boundaries

• Releasing shame

• Embracing love, both given and received

In this light, recovery is a spiritual and psychological rebirth. It’s about reconnecting with your body, yes — but also your will, your voice, your place in the world.

A Path Forward
Psychedelics won’t “cure” an eating disorder. But they can open a door, expand awareness, and usher in new possibilties. A door to truth, to tenderness, to hope. The path must still be walked, slowly, safely, with skillful support. But for many, PAT has become the turning point they didn’t know was possible.

May this emerging field continue to center the wisdom of those with lived experience. May it honour the ancestral and cultural roots of these medicines. And may it continue to offer a way through — especially for the individuals who’ve been stuck for far too long, including affected families and friends.

If you're exploring psychedelic support for ED recovery, your experience is welcome here!
Start by tuning in to your own readiness, seek ethical guidance, and trust that healing can look different than you imagined, and deeper than you ever thought possible.

→ Explore my microdosing support program
→ Or reach out for 1:1 integration guidance