Psychedelic Psychiatry: book
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Tikkun 24.1 (Jan-Feb 2009): p97(1). (117 words)
Author(s): Erika Dyck.
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THIS HISTORICAL STUDY TELLS HOW LSD WENT from being a carefully
studied psychopharmacological miracle drug, to a university campus
rage, to a feared "street drug." Popularized by Aldous Huxley, Timothy
Leary, and Ken Kesey, the drug became identified with the notion of an
alternative experience of reality that could expose the contradictions
and distortions built into daily life in advanced capitalist
societies. Many saw LSD use as encouraging a rejection of authority,
patriotism, and postwar middle-class values. Fearful of losing their
youth to a subversive counterculture, adults of the 1960s responded by
criminalizing the use and distribution of LSD, thereby cutting off the
important medical experimentation that had begun.
Erika Dyck
Johns Hopkins U. Press, 2008
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Business Day (South Africa) (Oct 25, 2006)(1117 words)
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(From Business Day (South Africa))
Byline: Marika Sboros
A new take on 'flower-power' drugs Canadian researchers have uncovered
studies suggesting a single dose of a hallucinogenic drug could
effectively treat the withdrawal symptoms of alcoholism. Other
research suggests the drugs are resurfacing as legitimate branches of
psychiatric research, writes MARIKA SBOROS THE late Harvard-trained
psychologist, Dr Timothy Leary, would have approved: Canadian research
showing that a single dose of the hallucinogenic drug, LSD, can be an
effective treatment for alcoholism may be spot on.
There's a proviso, though. LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) has to be
given in a clinical, nurturing environment, and for good reason. LSD
was the drug of choice for hippies during the heyday of the '60s
flower power era. Taken in the wrong, uncaring environment, it can and
did lead to what was known as a bad trip the hippie euphemism for
extreme negative mental and physical consequences, including untimely
death, that resulted from uncontrolled use of hallucinogens.
Yet far from being fringe medical research, LSD was once a legitimate
branch of psychiatric research, says Erika Dyck, a doctoral researcher
in the history of medicine at McMaster University history department,
Canada. She believes it is poised to do so again.
LSD first appeared in scientific literature in 1943. It was able to
produce what psychiatrists called a model psychosis experiences
similar to the symptoms of schizophrenic patients. For nearly a decade
thereafter, psychiatrists claimed LSD gave them insight into
schizophrenia, and also showed potential as a cure for alcoholism.
In the '60s, however, LSD became increasingly associated in media
reports with hippy love-ins, anti-war demonstrations and
counterculture. Despite the promise it showed as a psychotherapy tool,
its subsequent popularity as a street drug, and the perception of it
as a threat to public safety, triggered a worldwide ban. Before the
decade ended, medical research into its potential therapeutic effects
was first restricted, then terminated.
Leary, who died 10 years ago, is probably best known for his research
in the '60s on the effects of mind-altering drugs, in particular LSD,
on volunteer university students. He used the drug in psychotherapy
for prison inmates. The university students and prisoners liked his
methods a lot. His university superiors did not. Leary left Harvard in
1963, but continued his advocacy of LSD with a clarion call to the
youth to turn on, tune in and drop out, even after the drug was made
illegal.
He became known as a counterculture philosopher, and psychedelic
turned cyberdelic guru. He was called other weird and wonderful names,
including revolutionary avatar of the mind, Galileo of consciousness
and the most dangerous man in America the latter courtesy of then US
president Richard Nixon. In the '70s, Leary was arrested and spent
time in jail for possession of drugs.
If Leary did not specifically investigate LSD as a cure for
alcoholism, the idea would have resonated with him. He believed it was
a cure for many modern-day ills. His professional writings in the '50s
helped launch the emerging humanistic psychology movement that
emphasised interpersonal relationships, multilevel personality
assessments, group therapy, body/mind interaction, and what is
described as a libertarian redefinition of the doctor-patient
relationship.
Dyck believes LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs are about to enjoy a
resurgence of interest in psychiatric circles. Researchers in the US,
ironically including a team at Harvard, have recently been granted
permission to conduct experiments with LSD. Other US research groups
are examining the usefulness of MDMA (methylenedioxymethamphetamine, a
synthetic, psychoactive and stimulant drug also known as Ecstasy), to
treat medical conditions such as Parkinson's disease and cancer.
Dyck has unearthed research by a group of pioneering psychiatrists in
Saskatchewan in the '50s and '60s. She found records of the
psychiatrists' research showing a single dose of LSD, used in a
clinical, nurturing environment, can effectively treat the symptoms of
alcoholism. Her findings are published this month in the journal,
Social History of Medicine.
The psychiatrists were said to have noticed similarities in the
experiences of people on LSD and those going through delirium tremens
(commonly known as the DTs), the withdrawal symptoms from alcohol
abuse. They reported that the DTs often marked a rock bottom or
turning point in the behaviour of alcoholics, and LSD could trigger
such a turnaround without the painful physical effects associated with
DTs.
They may have been correct. The LSD somehow gave these people
experiences that psychologically took them outside of themselves and
allowed them to see their own unhealthy behaviour more objectively,
and then determine to change it, says Dyck.
She read published and private papers of the Saskatchewan researchers,
and recently interviewed patients involved in the original studies
many of whom have not had a sip of alcohol since their single LSD
experience 40 years earlier. According to one study conducted in 1962,
65% of the alcoholics in the experiment stopped drinking for at least
a year and a half (the duration of the study) after taking one dose of
LSD. The controlled trial also concluded that less than 25% of
alcoholics quit drinking for the same period after receiving group
therapy, and less than 12% quit in response to traditional
psychotherapy techniques commonly used at that time.
Published in the Quarterly Journal for Studies on Alcohol, the 1962
study was received with much skepticism. One research group in Toronto
tried to replicate the results of the study, but wanted to observe the
effect of LSD on the patients in isolation. They blindfolded or tied
up the patients before giving them the drug. Under these
circumstances, the Toronto researchers determined LSD was not
effective in treating alcoholism.
The Saskatchewan group argued that the drug needed to be provided in a
nurturing environment to be effective. However, the Toronto
researchers held more credibility than the Saskatchewan researchers,
who were led by a controversial British psychiatrist, Dr Humphrey
Osmond and the Saskatchewan group's research was essentially buried.
Dyck believes there is value in the Saskatchewan group's experiments.
The LSD experience appeared to allow the patients to go through a
spiritual journey that ultimately empowered them to heal themselves.
That's really quite an amazing therapy regimen, Dyck says. Even
interviewing the patients 40 years after their experience, I was
surprised at how loyal they were to the doctors who treated them, and
how powerful they said the experience was for them. Some felt the
experience saved their lives. The medical profession accepts all sorts
of drugs, but LSD's street reputation is probably what ultimately led
to its demise, Dyck says. That's too bad, because I think the
researchers in Saskatchewan, among others, showed the drug is unique
and has some intriguing properties that need to be explored further.
With Newswise and Science Daily