Psychotherapy with the aid of LSD

Between 1961 and 1976, Modum Bads Nervesanatorium in Norway treated 379 inpatients with hallucinogens—LSD, psilocybin, and CZ 74—in a procedure called psycholytic treatment. Patients received 2,205 treatments, mostly with LSD. Forty percent were women, 60% men. Diagnoses included psychoses (4.5%), obsessive neurosis (11.1%), other psychoneuroses (26.3%), sexual deviation (6.3%), other character disorders (46.2%), alcoholism (5.0%), and drug addiction (0.5%). Obsessive neurosis was the primary diagnosis in 1961 (35.7%) and again in the last seven years (75.6%). The mean hospitalization for treated patients was 132 days, nearly double the hospital average of 68 days.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Psychotherapeutic treatment with hallucinogens, usually called psycholytic treatment, was used at Modum Bads Nervesanatorium (MBN) on inpatients from 1961 to 1976. The hallucinogens used were LSD, psilocybin, and CZ 74. The indications and the treatment procedure at MBN are described. From 1961 to 1976, 379 patients received 2205 psycholytic treatments, mostly with LSD. From 1970 to 1976, only nine patients had their first hospitalization with psycholytic treatment. Sociodemographic data, diagnoses, length of hospitalizations, and number and kind of treatments were registered. Of the treated patients, 40% were women and 60% were men. The diagnostic distribution (ICD 7) was psychoses, 4.5%; obsessive neurosis, 11.1%; other psychoneuroses, 26.3%; sexual deviation, 6.3%; other disorders of character, 46.2%; alcoholism, 5.0%; and drug addiction, 0.5%. In 1961 it was especially obsessive neurosis (35.7%) that was treated, and in the last 7 years it was again the same diagnosis (75.6%). The mean length of hospitalization for the psycholytically treated patients was 132 days, nearly double the average of 68 days for all hospitalized patients at MBN.□Hallucinogens, Inpatients, LSD, Psycholytic treatment, Psychotherapy.