The experimental use of psychedelic (LSD) psychotherapy

The history of research with psychedelic drugs has produced conflicting claims about methods and results. In the 1950s, experimentalists claimed that lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) could produce a model psychosis useful for understanding schizophrenia. As that promise faded, reports emerged about LSD as an aid to psychotherapy for alcoholism and other psychiatric disorders. By 1959, these approaches were represented at the first international conference devoted entirely to LSD, with at least five more published proceedings of such conferences on psychedelic drugs following. The most recent conference on producing states of consciousness was sponsored by the Menninger Foundation and the American Association of Humanistic Psychology in April 1969.

Study at a glance

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