Humphry Fortescue Osmond (1917-2004), a radical and conventional psychiatrist: The transcendent years.
Journal of medical biography – February 01, 2016
Source: PubMed
Summary
Humphry Osmond, the psychiatrist who coined "psychedelic" and introduced Aldous Huxley to mescaline, pioneered radical approaches in Canadian psychiatry. Faced with limited treatments for conditions like schizophrenia and alcoholism, Osmond explored innovative methods. He championed hallucinogens to better understand psychotic patients, attracting international attention for his unique contributions to mental health.
Abstract
This article describes the life and work of the psychiatrist Humphry Osmond who pursued a radical path as a psychiatrist while he remained within the establishment. To the public mind however, he is best known as the man who introduced Aldous Huxley to mescaline and coined the iconic word psychedelic. From an early stage of his career, Henry Osmond embraced new ideas to break the nexus in psychiatry at a time when neither biological nor psychoanalytic treatments were shown to have much benefit. To do this, he joined the radical social experiment in health in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan where he initiated a range of innovations that attracted international attention, as well as controversy over his espousal of the use of hallucinogens better to understand the experiences of psychotic patients.