The psychedelic drugs have unusually wide-ranging effects that vary greatly depending on the setting and the user’s personality and expectations. The fact remains that psychedelic drugs were used for more than fifteen years by hundreds of psychiatrists who considered them relatively safe therapeutic agents. Psychedelic therapy for alcoholism is based on the assumption that one overwhelming...
Many preindustrial cultures traditionally use certain psychedelic plants to enhance a procedure that resembles psychotherapy--an idea that was also tested in Western psychiatry in the 1950s and 1960s. LSD and related drugs were used to facilitate the production of memories, fantasies and insights and to enhance the therapeutic alliance. The results were inconclusive, and research was largely...