1/26/12 09:39 pm
‘Sandoz Laboratories distributed LSD to researchers so they might induce a brief psychotic state in normal volunteers. Scientists hoped such experiments might shed light on naturally occurring psychotic disorders like schizophrenia.Sandoz also recommended giving LSD to psychiatric interns to help them establish a sense of empathy for their psychotic patients. These young doctors were amazed by this temporary encounter with insanity. The raw encounter with their own previously unconscious memories and feelings led these psychiatrists to believe that these mind-loosening properties might enhance psychotherapy.
Numerous research publications suggested that the normal mechanisms of talk therapy were much more effective with the addition of a psychedelic drug. Dozens of scientific articles described remarkable success in helping previously untreatable patients suffering from obsessions and compulsion, post-traumatic stress, eating disorders, anxiety, depression, alcoholism, and heroin addiction.
The rapid breakthroughs described by researchers using ‘psychedelic psychotherapy’ spurred other investigators to study these drugs’ beneficial effects in despairing and pain-ridden terminally ill patients. While there was little effect on the underlying medical conditions, psychedelic psychotherapy in these patients had striking psychological effects. Depression lifted, requirements for pain medication fell dramatically, and patients’ acceptance of their disease and its prognosis improved markedly. In addition, patients and their families seemed able to address deep-seated and emotionally charged issues in ways never before possible. The rapid acceleration of psychological growth resulting from this new treatment appeared quite promising in these cases where time was of the essence. Some therapists believed that a transformative, mystical, or spiritual experience was responsible for many of these ‘miraculous’ responses to psychedelic psychotherapy.’
