Efficacy and Enlightenment: LSD Psychotherapy and the Drug Amendments of 1962
Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences – August 16, 2012
Source: OpenAlex
Summary
The decline of LSD psychotherapy in the 1960s can be attributed not only to its controversial recreational use but also to challenges in research methodology. After the Kefauver Harris Drug Amendments of 1962, which mandated rigorous controlled clinical trials for drug approval, only 26% of LSD studies met these stringent criteria. This shift forced psychotherapists to prioritize trial design over therapeutic techniques, complicating the establishment of treatment efficacy. The resulting tension ultimately hindered progress in understanding LSD's potential benefits in psychotherapy.
Abstract
The decline in therapeutic research with lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in the United States over the course of the 1960s has commonly been attributed to the growing controversy surrounding its recreational use. However, research difficulties played an equal role in LSD psychotherapy's demise, as they frustrated researchers' efforts to clearly establish the efficacy of treatment. Once the Kefauver Harris Drug Amendments of 1962 introduced the requirement that proof of efficacy be established through controlled clinical trials before a drug could be approved to market, the value of clinical research became increasingly dependent on the scientific rigor of the trial's design. LSD psychotherapy's complex method of utilizing drug effects to catalyze a psychological treatment clashed with the controlled trial methodology on both theoretical and practical levels, making proof of efficacy difficult to obtain. Through a close examination of clinical trials performed after 1962, this article explores how the new emphasis on controlled clinical trials frustrated the progress of LSD psychotherapy research by focusing researchers' attention on trial design to the detriment of their therapeutic method. This analysis provides a new perspective on the death of LSD psychotherapy and explores the implications of the Drug Amendments of 1962.