The experimental use of psychedelic (LSD) psychotherapy
JAMA – June 15, 1970
Source: OpenAlex
Summary
Psychedelics, such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and psilocybin, have a complex history in psychiatry, particularly regarding their potential to model psychosis and aid psychotherapy. In the 1950s, over 1,000 patients were involved in studies suggesting LSD could illuminate schizophrenia. By 1969, enthusiasm persisted at conferences where practitioners discussed various methods for inducing altered states of consciousness. Despite conflicting claims and evolving perspectives, these discussions laid a foundation for understanding psychedelics' roles in medicine and psychoanalysis, influencing contemporary drug studies.
Abstract
The history of research with psychedelic drugs has produced a variety of methods for their use and conflicting claims about results. First came the wave of excitement among experimentalists in the 1950s when it was claimed that lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) could produce a model psychosis which might be useful in understanding schizophrenia. While this promise was fading, enthusiastic reports about the possibility of LSD as an aid to psychotherapy in the treatment of alcoholism and other psychiatric disorders appeared. All these approaches were represented in 1959 at the first international conference devoted entirely to LSD.1Since then, there have been at least five more published proceedings of such conferences on various aspects of psychedelic drugs.2-6The most recent conference on various means of producing states of consciousness was sponsored by the Menninger Foundation and the American Association of Humanistic Psychology on April 7 to 11, 1969, in