Can Drugs Be Used to Enhance the Psychotherapeutic Process?
American Journal of Psychotherapy July 1, 1986 Lester Grinspoon, James B. Bakalar 189 citations
Many preindustrial cultures used psychedelic plants to enhance practices resembling psychotherapy, an idea tested in Western psychiatry during the 1950s and 1960s. LSD and similar drugs were employed to facilitate memories, fantasies, and insights and to strengthen the therapeutic alliance, but results were inconclusive, and research largely ended when the drugs became hard to obtain. Revival of such research may now be possible with newer drugs that avoid some drawbacks of older ones. MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine) is currently of most interest; it is relatively mild and short-acting, reportedly enhancing introspection and intimacy without the perceptual changes, emotional unpredictability, or adverse reactions linked to LSD.