Kendis Gibson was at the height of his career as an ABC anchor when, on an afternoon in 2018, he seriously considered taking his life. “I had been spiraling with depression,” he says.
Luckily, something stopped him.
Now he's ready to open up about his mental health journey—specifically, about the powerful role played by psychedelics. It’s something he’s particularly keen to talk about as a Black man, as the psychedelic therapeutics story is one often told through a white lens.
“Not only is mental health within the Black community not spoken about often enough, but we also aren't in literature when it comes to psychedelics and plant medicine and it being a possible positive solution for many of our mental health issues,” explains Gibson, 52, who shares some of the most private details of his life in his debut book, Five Trips: An Investigative Journey into Mental Health, Psychedelic Healing, and Saving a Life.
“So, I decided to tell my story,” he says, “but also tell the story of a whole bunch of experts who are top of the field in the science world, psychology, psychotherapist and medicine, men and women, all brown and Black people.”
In the new book, Gibson details his youth spent in poverty in Belize, his immigration to New York City at the age of 11, and his career in the broadcast journalism industry. It’s a unique blend of memoir, travel log, self-help guide, and investigative reporting about the use of psychedelics—something that’s turned him into somewhat of an advocate for the increasingly popular approach to mental-health treatment.
For years, Gibson had suffered from depression as he struggled to come to terms with childhood sexual abuse, his bisexuality, and the traumatic death of his first love—all compounded by decades of facing racism in the media workplace. "Everything came to a head all at once—right as I was reaching the pinnacle of my career,” Gibson tells Fortune, an overnight TV anchor at the time.
Over the years, he tried a combination of talk therapy and antidepressants, but experienced unfavorable results. “While they were good at not making me really depressed, they were also good at not making me very happy. So they kept me right in the middle,” he says. “The emotions and feelings would still come to a boil occasionally and have me bursting into tears.”
That’s what sent Gibson to try a different answer: psychedelics, inspired by a positive experience with psilocybin mushrooms he’d had just a couple years after his suicide attempt. “Everything was amplified,” he recalls about the 2020 experience, while driving with a friend through Belize’s Mayan ruins. "The trees were literally leaning into the road. Potholes were the size of craters. I could really notice all the sounds and everything. We were listening to some Afrobeats music, and I could feel it going through my veins…”
And some of the overall effects, he noticed, seemed to last: Back in New York City, the COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing, with sirens blaring nonstop. To his surprise, it didn't send him into psychological turmoil. What’s more, he viewed his decreased work shifts—what he previously would’ve seen as a low point in his career—as a bright spot.
“My brain had completely flipped,” he says.
Gibson wondered if a sort of “rewiring,” courtesy of the mushrooms, could’ve been at play, and began researching the growing field of psychedelics—which includes not only psilocybin but MDMA and ayahuasca (and, similarly, the dissociative anesthetic ketamine).
“What I've found from the doctors is that just one single dose of psilocybin or magic mushroom can rewire your brain,” he says, referring to research that has found just one dose of psilocybin can disrupt certain brain networks, offering a chance to shift one's thinking about the world.
While antidepressants have been linked to new neuronal connections, psychedelics are speculated to have similar effects. "There is a form of stress response system in the human brain that is thought to allow for rapid change in our thinking to adapt to massive changes in our environment,” Dr. Lanre Dokun, a New York City-based board-certified psychiatrist and co-founder of Healthy Minds NYC, tells Fortune. “Psychedelics are theorized to hijack this system. And when used in the context of psychedelic assisted therapy, it is thought to increase the rate at which patients can ‘change their thinking.’”
In fact, studies have shown that psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin cause acute changes in how people perceive time, space, and themselves. Research shows a single dose of psilocybin under controlled conditions can relieve depression symptoms. What’s more, these therapeutic effects can last long after the drug's acute effects wear off. However, it’s not clear how these drugs affect the workings of the brain and achieve the drugs’ therapeutic effects.
The surge in psychedelics
But experts stress that going it alone with the drugs as Gibson did, rather than trying psychedelic therapy under the guidance of an experienced professional, can be risky, possibly leading to panic or heightened anxiety.
"What we really have the best data on is psychedelic assisted therapy,” says Dr. Dokun. "Basically it's not just like, ‘Hey, I just kind of popped a mushroom or what have you.’ It's more that you're engaging in active care with an actual professional who has a degree and actually is trained.”
That market—of assisted psychedelic treatment—is projected to grow globally from $3 billion in 2024 to $8 billion in 2032, though the legality of such treatments is a national patchwork.
Only a few U.S. states, including Colorado, Oregon, and D.C. have regulations and legislative initiatives in place allowing for psilocybin therapies, which are used to address a wide range of issues, from depression and anxiety to PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and eating disorders. MDMA, meanwhile, was recently dealt a blow when the U.S. Food & Drug Administration failed to approve it for the treatment of PTSD; ketamine can be prescribed for off-label use in mental-health scenarios, though the legality has been described as being like the “wild west.”
But while there is still skepticism and stigma attached to the usage of such drugs for mental health disorders, the future, according to experts, looks bright.
“I think it’s really promising,” says Dokun. “While psychedelics go back thousands of years in different cultures and around different parts of the globe, we've only really begun studying them in a clinical context relatively recently. But I believe that as we learn more and more about them, this may prove as a really good option for certain patients.”
One of the hopes, he adds, is that “these might be more rapid …and lasting responses,” but cautions that there are also potential side effects, and that further studies are needed. Like Gibson, many other professionals and CEOs are experimenting with psychedelics —including on C-suite executive leadership retreats.
Ultimately, Gibson’s hope is to encourage everyone to seek alternative solutions when it comes to their mental health care. For him, he believes doing that saved his life.
“Read, do your research, and open your mind to other possibilities,” he says.
