Humphry Fortescue Osmond (1917-2004), a radical and conventional psychiatrist: The transcendent years.

Humphry Osmond was a psychiatrist who pursued radical approaches while remaining within the establishment. He introduced Aldous Huxley to mescaline and coined the term 'psychedelic'. Early in his career, he embraced new ideas to break psychiatry's impasse when neither biological nor psychoanalytic treatments showed much benefit. He joined a radical social health experiment in Saskatchewan, Canada, where he initiated innovations that attracted international attention and controversy for using hallucinogens to better understand psychotic patients' experiences.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This article describes the life and work of the psychiatrist Humphry Osmond who pursued a radical path as a psychiatrist while he remained within the establishment. To the public mind however, he is best known as the man who introduced Aldous Huxley to mescaline and coined the iconic word psychedelic. From an early stage of his career, Henry Osmond embraced new ideas to break the nexus in psychiatry at a time when neither biological nor psychoanalytic treatments were shown to have much benefit. To do this, he joined the radical social experiment in health in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan where he initiated a range of innovations that attracted international attention, as well as controversy over his espousal of the use of hallucinogens better to understand the experiences of psychotic patients.