Matthew Oram, The Trials of Psychedelic Therapy: LSD Psychotherapy in America
Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences – January 13, 2020
Source: OpenAlex
Summary
The current renaissance of psychedelics, like psilocybin, echoes a mid-20th century medical ambition. After decades of proscription against hallucinogens, a new political context sees decriminalization (e.g., Denver, 2019). Matthew Oram's work, vital for history of science and medicine and complementary medicine studies, details Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) psychotherapy's trials. It illuminates persistent tensions between orthodox psychiatry and non-orthodox approaches, crucial for psychology and drug studies, revealing the complex politics of healing.
Abstract
Psychedelics are back in vogue. In popular culture, political legislation, and scientific research, we appear to be witnessing an early twenty-first century renaissance of the heady acid days of the 1960s. The success of Michael Pollan’s 2018 New York Times bestseller, How to Change Your Mind, the decriminalization of psilocybin-containing mushrooms in Denver in 2019, followed by all plant entheogens in Oakland the same year, alongside a surge of papers and pilot studies into psychedelic-assisted therapeutics throughout the 2010s, all indicate a relaxing of attitudes after half a century of alarmist proscription of hallucinogens. It is in this context that Matthew Oram has published The Trials of Psychedelic Therapy: LSD Psychotherapy in America. In this meticulous account Oram traces the history of medical research into the use of Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in the treatment of mental disorders in post World War II America. However, as Oram emphasizes in his introduction, this is not another addition to the profusion of books on 1960s drug culture. The double meaning in the title hints at the deeper concern at the heart of the book: the problematic relationship between experimental and non-orthodox therapeutics and institutionalized, state regulated medical research. Tensions between fringe and orthodoxy in modern medicine have been a persistent feature of health and healing in the western world from at least the mid-nineteenth century. Oram’s examination of such tensions in the mid-twentieth century, when LSD offered medical researchers the tantalizing prospect of bridging the divide between cognitive therapy and psychiatric drug treatment, represents a nuanced and refreshing intervention in the historical literature on clinical medicine, drug regulation, and the mind sciences.