Research

Green, Oades & Grant, 2006 — Cognitive-behavioral, solution-focused life coaching: Enhancing goal striving, well-being, and hope

One of the earlier rigorous studies on life coaching outcomes. Participants in a coaching program showed significant increases in goal striving, well-being, and hope compared to controls. The study is notable because it used a non-clinical population — these were people who were functioning well but wanted to move toward something more aligned with their values. That's the population I primarily serve through coaching: not people in crisis (who often need therapy), but people navigating transitions who want structured support for the work of building a life that fits who they're becoming.

Theeboom, Beersma & van Vianen, 2014 — Does coaching work? A meta-analysis on the effects of coaching on individual level outcomes in an organizational context

A meta-analysis of 18 studies finding positive effects of coaching on performance, well-being, coping, work attitudes, and self-regulation. The effect sizes were meaningful across all categories. What the meta-analysis doesn't capture — but what matters for how I work — is that coaching's effectiveness depends heavily on the framework the coach is operating from. A coach using ACT principles is doing fundamentally different work than a coach using a goals-and-accountability model, even if both fall under the "life coaching" umbrella. The research supports coaching as an effective modality; the framework determines what kind of change it produces.

Hofmann et al., 2010 — The Effect of Mindfulness-Based Therapy on Anxiety and Depression: A Meta-Analytic Review

A meta-analysis of 39 studies finding that mindfulness-based therapy significantly reduced anxiety and depressive symptoms across clinical populations. The effect sizes were robust and held across different conditions, including medical populations — which is relevant to my work with clients facing life-altering diagnoses. Mindfulness doesn't eliminate the reality of a difficult situation. What it does — and what the research supports — is change the person's relationship to their experience of that situation. That's the same mechanism that ACT targets and that psilocybin appears to catalyze.

Keng, Smoski & Robins, 2011 — Effects of Mindfulness on Psychological Health: A Review of Empirical Studies

A broad review covering both clinical and non-clinical populations, finding that mindfulness practice is associated with reduced rumination, reduced emotional reactivity, and increased cognitive flexibility. These are the same capacities that prepare someone for a productive psilocybin experience — and the same capacities that integration work aims to strengthen afterward. The convergence isn't coincidental: both mindfulness and psilocybin appear to work in part by disrupting the default mode network's habitual patterns of self-referential thinking.

Gukasyan et al., 2022 — Efficacy and safety of psilocybin-assisted treatment for major depressive disorder: Prospective 12-month follow-up

This is the longest follow-up from the Johns Hopkins psilocybin-for-depression program. Participants who received two psilocybin sessions with psychological support showed sustained reductions in depression at twelve months. What matters here isn't just that it worked — it's that two sessions, with proper preparation and integration, produced effects that lasted a year. That durability is why I structure my work as a multi-session process rather than a single event.

Carhart-Harris et al., 2017 — Psilocybin with psychological support for treatment-resistant depression: six-month follow-up

One of the earlier studies establishing that psilocybin could help people who hadn't responded to conventional antidepressants. The six-month follow-up showed sustained benefit for most participants. Notably, "psychological support" in this context means preparation and integration sessions — not just the dosing session itself. The researchers found that the quality of the subjective experience during the session predicted outcomes, which underscores why set, setting, and skilled facilitation matter as much as the molecule.

Griffiths et al., 2016 — Psilocybin produces substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer: A randomized double-blind trial

This is the study I reference most often with clients facing serious illness. Participants with life-threatening cancer diagnoses who received a single high-dose psilocybin session showed clinically significant reductions in anxiety and depression — and roughly 80% still showed sustained benefit at six-month follow-up. What the study can't fully capture, but what clinicians involved have described, is the shift in relationship to mortality: not denial, but a kind of acceptance that reduced the existential terror without requiring the person to pretend everything was fine. The resonance with Breitbart's meaning-centered work above is not coincidental — both approaches help people facing death by engaging with existential reality rather than defending against it.

Johnson et al., 2014 — Pilot study of the 5-HT2AR agonist psilocybin in the treatment of tobacco addiction

This small pilot study showed an 80% abstinence rate at six months for long-term smokers who received psilocybin-assisted therapy — dramatically higher than any existing pharmacological treatment. What's interesting from a mechanistic standpoint is that psilocybin doesn't work on nicotine receptors at all. The researchers hypothesized that it works by disrupting deeply entrenched patterns of self-referential thinking — the stories people tell themselves about who they are and what they can or can't change. That mechanism is consistent with what we see in ACT: the issue often isn't the behavior itself, but the psychological inflexibility that maintains it.

Smigielski et al., 2019 — Psilocybin-assisted mindfulness training modulates self-consciousness and brain default mode network connectivity

This is the study that most directly supports combining meditation practice with psilocybin — the core design principle of my Liberation Intensive program. Researchers found that psilocybin combined with a structured meditation retreat produced changes in self-referential processing and default mode network connectivity that neither intervention produced as reliably on its own. In practical terms: meditation builds the attentional skills that allow someone to engage with the psilocybin experience more productively, and psilocybin appears to deepen and accelerate the kinds of shifts in self-perception that meditation cultivates over longer periods.

Heuschkel & Grautoff, 2020 — Depression, Mindfulness, and Psilocybin: Possible Complementary Effects of Mindfulness Meditation and Psilocybin in the Treatment of Depression

A thorough review arguing that meditation and psilocybin share overlapping mechanisms — both quiet the default mode network, both reduce rigid self-referential thinking, and both can produce experiences of ego dissolution that shift how people relate to their own thoughts. The authors propose that the two could potentiate each other's effects. This is consistent with what I observe in practice: clients with even basic mindfulness skills tend to navigate psilocybin experiences with more openness and less reactivity, and the psilocybin experience often motivates a more committed meditation practice afterward.

Madsen et al., 2020 — Psilocybin dose is associated with long-term increases in mindfulness

A dose-response finding: higher psilocybin doses were associated with greater long-term increases in trait mindfulness. This matters because mindfulness isn't just a pleasant state — it's a measurable capacity that correlates with psychological flexibility, reduced rumination, and better emotional regulation. The finding suggests that psilocybin doesn't just produce temporary experiences of expanded awareness; it may durably increase the capacity for the kind of present-moment attention that meditation traditions have cultivated for millennia.

For a deeper discussion of how these two practices inform each other, see my blog post Compass and Vehicle: How Meditation and Psilocybin Inform Each Other.