The emergence of non-hallucinogenic psychoplastogens, which promote neuroplasticity without altering consciousness, creates a philosophical divide in psychedelic medicine. Psychedelic-assisted therapy treats subjective experience as central to healing, while psychoplastogens aim to repair brain circuits without inducing altered states. Drawing on socio-technical imaginaries and biopolitics, the paper contrasts these approaches, examining tensions between confronting emotional difficulty and pursuing sanitized, effortless treatment. The controversy reflects competing biopolitical visions of mental health, suffering, and therapeutic transformation, with implications for psychiatry's future.
The psychotomimetic model of psychedelics claims to offer insights into both psychedelic experiences and psychosis by connecting them. A common objection distinguishes psychedelic experiences as voluntary or 'willed' and psychosis as an unwilled affliction. This distinction helps sanitize and commodify psychedelics for therapeutic use. The article draws on psychedelic therapeutics, mad studies, and phenomenological psychiatry to destabilize this opposition. Through the concept of 'willful surrender' in psychedelic therapy, it examines the roles of trust, curiosity, openness, and letting go in engaging with extreme experiences. This reveals assumptions about the liberal subject in psychedelic therapy and brings medicalization into uncomfortable proximity with boundary violations.