>psychedelics can help people who had maladaptive experiences or upbringings make permanent improvements, that symptom relief drugs like antidepressants may even stand in the way of.
this is my understanding as well. kind of like how a child would never learn how to walk on its own if the parent held it upright 100% of the time.
unfortunately, i think a big problem with the current standard of care is that it prioritizes shutting the patient up -- reducing complaints regarding symptoms -- over curing the patient.
there is a difference; imagine if the "real" effect antidepressants have is to make people more reluctant to communicate negative thoughts to others. the patient would still be suffering just as much, but appear to have improved. the brain is subtle enough for this to be a reality...
obviously i don't believe that this example (which is totally made up) is uniformly the case. but shifting the frame to address the underlying problem of "stuck" or maladaptive neural circuitry via psychedelics could be immensely helpful for patients.
psychedelics would also improve the efficacy of the other psychoactive tool we kind of think is somewhat helpful in some instances of some kinds of cases: therapy. therapy is retooling neural circuitry the hard way -- via repeated activation of alternative thought patterns of nebulous physiology in the hopes of eventually shifting the thought pattern to be adaptive rather than maladaptive. if we had a switch to flip that would enhance neural plasticity, this process would be much faster and much more effective. it would also be much more fraught with chances of inflicting damage, i'd assume.