The authors surveyed the frequency of alcohol use in individuals identified as practitioners of Transcendental Meditation (N equals 126) and a matched control group (N equals 90). No control subjects reported discontinuation of beer and wine use; 40 percent of subjects who had meditated for more than 2 years reported discontinuation within the first 6 months. After 25-39 months of meditation,...
The authors examine the development and effectiveness of a treatment program for alcoholism among American Indians. This program offers the alcoholic Indian both occupational and cultural therapy, including participation in the services of the Native American Church (peyote meetings). During these meetings, participants often ingest peyote (mescaline), which, like LSD, facilitates cathartic...
Three suicidal adolescents suffering from schizophrenic reactions developed the ability to conjure up a mystical consciousness. Directly experiencing this "oceanic" state (or just its memory) provided the patients with a reliably soothing safeguard against their overwhelming loneliness and possible suicide. Recognition by the psychiatrist of the mystical state as a transitional phenomenon...
An American Indian religion uses significant quantities of peyote, a hallucinogenic plant containing mescaline. Since there have been many reports of serious emotional disturbance caused by similar drugs, the rate of such illness in this population was investigated. The rate was found to be very low, probably because the feelings evoked by the drug experience are channeled by church belief and...
Three patients with toxic psychosis associated with LSD ingestion responded dramatically to a short series of unilateral ECTs after more conservative measures had been unsuccessful. The conservative measures consisted of medication, psychotherapy, and therapeutic milieu. The author recommends ECT for the "bad trip" from LSD that does not remit rapidly.
In a single-blind study chromosome analyses were performed on three groups of subjects: 1) nine heavy users of LSD-25 who have continued to use the drug; 2) eight heavy users of LSD-25 who have ceased to use it; and 3) eight drug-free control subjects. The results revealed no significant differences in chromosome break-age rates between any of the three groups and therefore no temporal factor...
Flashbacks are returns of imagery for extended periods after the immediate effect of hallucinogens has worn off. The most symptomatic form is recurrent intrusions of the same frightening image into awareness, without volitional control. The author compares flashbacks with other clinical phenomena; he believes that psychotherapy is helpful, especially if there is a focus on the traumatic and...
Ninety-five alcoholic patients took part in a single-blind study of the efficacy of LSD treatment, which featured four treatment groups: LSD given with and without a therapist present, sodium amobarbital-methamphetamine hydrochloride given with a therapist present, and routine clinic care. At one-year follow-up, with 87 percent of the patients reporting, all groups showed significant...
The authors outline some of the problems involved in making a determination of legal insanity when a crime is committed following the use of LSD. Three cases of murder known to be associated with the use of LSD are described, one of them involving an individual examined personally by the authors. Five specific criteria that the authors have found to be useful aids in forensic examinations of...
One hundred seventy-six male alcoholic patients participated in a controlled investigation of the differential efficacy of three LSD treatment procedures and a "no therapy," or milieu treatment, condition. Half of each group was also assigned to disulfiram after discharge from the hospital to determine whether any of these techniques could be enhanced by its use. Although significant...
Seventy-two alcoholic patients were admitted to a controlled comparison of LSD and dextroamphetamine as treatments. In the context of little associated psychotherapeutic intervention, LSD produced slightly better results early, but after six months the results were alike for both treatment groups. Controlled studies of such treatments are not only possible but mandatory, the authors conclude,...
An inquiry was sent to 29 investigators conducting research involving the use of LSD or other hallucinogens, in an effort to determine what effects publicity about LSD may have had upon their research. Nineteen of the investigators reported that the publicity had negatively affected the recruitment of "appropriate" subjects, the attitudes of already participating subjects, the behavior of...
Twenty-one paid volunteers who were chronic users of LSD were interviewed and participated in a series of cognitive and perceptual tests and EEG studies. Among other observations derived from both interviews and testing, the authors noted that the group shared a set of magical-mystical beliefs and profound nonaggressive attitudes, as well as a unique sensitivity to certain types of sensory...
DOM, a hallucinogen related to mescaline and amphetamine and designated "STP" by hippies, along with DOET, the ethyl homologue of DOM, were given in small doses to normal subjects in a double-blind study. Both drugs increased self-awareness and produced mild euphoria but no hallucinogenic or psychotomimetic effects. The two drugs "freed up" subjects' word associations without impairing memory...
The authors surveyed a sample of psychiatrists, psychiatric residents, internists, general practitioners, and psychologists in Los Angeles County to determine the number of patients with adverse LSD reactions seen by these professionals during an 18-month period. Over 2,000 adverse reactions were reported on, and the authors regard this as a conservative estimate. Although many clinicians feel...
In an attempt to identify the factors responsible for adverse reactions to LSD and to elucidate the rising incidence of hospital admissions associated with use of the drug, the authors compared 25 psychiatric inpatients hospitalized following LSD ingestion with 25 members of a group who took LSD together regularly without reported difficulty. Although some differences were found between the...
The rationale of psychedelic therapy with alcoholic patients is focused on the alienation-breaking potential of "peak" or psychedelic experiences induced with the aid of LSD. An exemplary LSD session report and MMPI data on 69 pilot patients are presented for illustration. While all present results indicate that psychedelic therapy does add significantly to presently available alcoholic...
Two teen-age cases of toxic psychosis associated with gasoline inhalation are described and compared with the so-called "model psychoses" evoked by mescaline, LSD =25 and psilocybin. The symptoms were predominantly autonomic, perceptual and affective. The perceptual experiences included much personnally significant symbolic content. The inhaling of gasoline quickly became a tempting recurrent...
A new approach to a patient with conversion reaction of 1-year's duration was discussed, whose difficulties were aggravated by psychotherapeutic inaccessibility. Administration of LSD-25 in 3 sessions resulted in complete removal of the conversion symptom. His recovery has been maintained for more than a year without fruther treatment.
A limited research project was undertaken in which LSD was combined with psychotherapy. The results are in essential agreement with those of other investigators, who have used LSD as adjunct to therapy with alcoholic patients. Evidence of the existence of an emotional deprivation syndrome which responds to the technique developed by the present investigators was found and discussed. This...
Possession as seen in Haiti is a culturally sanctioned, heavily institutionalized and symbolically invested means of expression in action for various ego dystonic impulses and thoughts. It provides a behavioral outlet for much of the impoverished and suppressed peasantry of Haiti. For those who are Voodoo devotees it provides legitimized public roles for private repressed impulses and needs. It...
It would seem, in fact, that we now have an experimental model of the schizophrenic syndrome superior to the "model psychoses" induced with mescaline or LSD. Not only will perceptual interference reproduce more closely the primary symptoms of schizophrenia, but these disturbances are caused entirely by external manipulation, without the confusion of a toxic psychosis. While of course we cannot...
Psychodynamic observations made during the mescaline-induced state in 124 patients are reviewed. Mescaline produces a "state of being" in which the clinical spectrum can range from sleep to rage and from normalcy to thoroughly disorganized mental states. Anxiety is considered the background upon which the mescaline experience evolves. One may consider the mescaline-induced state under three...
1. Sodium succinate was found to have a definite antidotal effect on the mescaline psychosis in each of 12 subjects. 2. The effect varied greatly in different subjects. Moreover, the effect was rather transient and there was little shortening of the total duration of mescaline effect. 3. The most plausible hypothesis of the succinate effect is that succinate provides a substrate for oxidation...
Harmine, Win-2299, and Nalline in single dosage produce many new mental effects in schizophrenics grossly similar to those elicited by mescaline and LSD. Many of the same effects are reported in normals after harmine and Nalline (other workers). unlike mescaline and LSD at usual dosage levels, the present psychotomimetics regularly produce drowsiness and sleep along with the aberrant mental...