TOGETHER WITH

To care for women is not only to work within what is known, but to stay in relationship with what is unfolding.

We are in a moment of flux, and women are no longer waiting. They are taking their health into their own hands, reading their own labs, and asking harder questions. They are paying top dollar for therapies their primary care will not offer and their insurance plans won’t cover. They are expecting more from their providers, their medicines, and the system itself. 

They are also taking psychedelics. 

Women’s health should be approached through a psychedelic-informed lens, not as a requirement of practice, but as an expansion of understanding. The nature of the female experience is already one of continual transformation. 

There are many anecdotal reports and lived accounts, both ancient and modern, of women using psychedelic medicines to navigate life transitions. Across cultures and time, these substances have not been treated merely as pharmacological agents, but as mind–body–spirit allies used to support periods of great change. The reported effects have been profound, but the research lags behind. 

The call to investigate is both clear and urgent — and while the data is still catching up, the momentum is real. We are still missing the tools, methods, and even the full language required to truly evaluate their efficacy; they don't quite work like the drugs medical professionals have been prescribing. Despite this truth, women continue to explore psychedelic medicines in pursuit of well-being, spiritual expansion, and deeper relationships, across all life stages.

Psychedelic and plant medicines are integrative medicines. They point beyond symptom management, toward root causes and the deeper psychological, spiritual, and existential dimensions of health. And where they are used, there is both an opportunity and a responsibility to weave in the full spectrum of therapeutic modalities that support a well woman. Every woman will encounter shifts across these dimensions, and the systems designed to care for her must evolve to meet that reality. With this comes a clear duty: Clinicians and scientists must be informed about these powerful medicines, their mechanisms, their risks, and their potential applications, in order to provide guidance with integrity.

What is emerging is not a universal protocol, but a pattern sewn with intention and integration. And while it may look like one big experiment to some of you, there is wisdom carried forward from those before us, alongside knowledge being generated by both rigorous academic research and equally committed independent investigators pushing the field forward.

There may still be many unanswered questions, but from a neurobiological perspective, we already understand several critical mechanisms. Estrogen regulates the very systems — serotonin and glutamate — that underpin mood, cognition, and emotional stability. Classic serotonergic psychedelic therapies (e.g., psilocybin, mescaline, DMT), and ketamine therapy, while not a classic psychedelic, act directly on these same pathways. It is therefore biologically plausible, and clinically relevant, that one’s hormonal state meaningfully influences subjective experience, dose sensitivity, and therapeutic response. To ignore cycles and hormonal states in how these medicines are studied and applied is not just incomplete, it is a critical blind spot in modern medicine.

Oh yes, psychedelic therapies are now very much part of modern medicine. Welcome to healthcare in 2026; I invite you to walk through the open door! 

Estrogen also shapes and protects the brain across a woman's life. Hormonal shifts across the cycle, and transitions like the perinatal period and menopause, mark neurological inflection points where the timing of therapeutic interventions matters. And while estrogen may be queen, progesterone and testosterone are also vital architects, equally deserving of our attention and deeper investigation.

It is not a modern desire to seek deeper connection with oneself, with one’s partner, to move through grief, to process trauma, or to pursue relief from chronic pain. It is not a modern experience for women to grapple with cyclical changes in the body and mind that feel unmanageable. To struggle to inhabit the identity of motherhood, or to release it, is as ancient as the experience itself. Change, waxing and waning, is the most natural phenomenon. Feeling like you are falling off a cliff is not. Let alone having to exist in a society that creates no space for us to honor our rhythms or recalibrate our energy.

Do we not deserve education, options, agency, and access to integrated systems that honor life stage and precision-based medicine?

Our responsibility, as clinicians and researchers, is not to prematurely standardize or over-simplify, but to ask better questions and offer better answers. To design studies that account for hormonal variability rather than excluding it. To consider, in both research and practice, social and cultural factors. Timing, context, and life stages are core variables, not confounders.

Medicine is complex and so are women. Precision does not mean reduction. It means honoring biology, lived experience, and change over time. Though the science is still developing, there is robust, reliable information available, and therefore fear of the unknown is not a sufficient stance. The responsibility is to seek it out, to evaluate it critically, and to communicate it responsibly. To shut down these conversations, or to spread misinformation, ultimately undermines patient care.

To do no harm is not only to avoid what is dangerous, but to engage with what is emerging with care, accuracy, and responsibility.

“If you’re interested in learning more about the importance of life stage and hormone cycles in women’s care, and how the psychedelic-informed lens can meaningfully fill gaps where modern medicine currently lacks, GALILEA is hosting a series of webinars and workshops with DoubleBlind, starting on June 14th.

I look forward to learning with you,

Stephanie Karzon Abrams, woman. 

GALILEA The Method
GALILEA The Community
@galileahealth
The Unlimited Science Women’s Health Introductory Course

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DoubleBlind is a trusted resource for news, evidence-based education, and reporting on psychedelics. We work with leading medical professionals, scientific researchers, journalists, mycologists, indigenous stewards, and cultural pioneers. Read about our editorial policy and fact-checking process here.