Seven women in the United Kingdom with a current or previous cancer diagnosis were interviewed about their attitudes toward using psilocybin for mental health. Four had used psilocybin and three had considered it. Participants viewed psilocybin as a needed alternative to traditional treatments for depression and anxiety linked to their cancer diagnosis, but they felt its illegal status was a major barrier to access. Three themes emerged: somatic healing needs, illegality as both a burden and boundary, and reconnecting self, nature, and mortality. The authors suggest a compassionate access scheme in the UK could transform mental health care for people with cancer.
People who have been in comas describe their corporeal experiences in ways that challenge conventional boundaries of the body. Based on narrative research with seventeen participants from Israel who had experienced various coma states, three types of narrative protagonists emerged: "dead-alive," "rational," and "emissaries." Participants redefined bodily boundaries, particularly when recounting experiences they did not understand as corporeal, such as out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, or being between the earthly and unearthly. Their difficulty finding words to convey these stories highlights the gap between experiencing and telling, crossing the medical establishment's normative discourse and revealing the ambiguous nature of human existence.