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Empathetic Reform and the Psychedelic Aesthetic: Women’s Accounts of LSD Therapy

Lana Cook

Configurations December 1, 2014 DOI: 10.1353/con.2014.0002 (opens in new tab)

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Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Historical analysis Peer reviewed
Topics LSD Psychedelic-assisted therapy
Citations 6
Key points Argues that Newland and Dunlap used realism and metaphor in their memoirs to develop readers' empathy as a reformist tool, challenging standard narratives of literature and science.

Abstract

Both written under pseudonym, Constance Newland’s My Self and I (1962) and Jane Dunlap’s Exploring Inner Space (1961) are firsthand accounts of psychedelic drug use taken in therapeutic research settings that demonstrate how women’s access to discursive legitimacy was negotiated in mid-twentieth-century life-writing. Newland and Dunlap use realism to connect readers to their psychedelic subjects, while estranging readers’ familiar worldviews through metaphor. Through reader recognition and estrangement, Newland and Dunlap develop readers’ empathy as a reformist tool to challenge standard narratives of literature and science and carve out new representational space for alternative states of consciousness.

Comparable studies

Other theoretical and historical papers on LSD, most cited first.

Study Year Design Participants
The Experimental Use of Psychedelic (LSD) Psychotherapy 1970 Historical analysis
LSD: My Problem Child 1981 Historical analysis
On the Use and Abuse of LSD 1968 Theoretical or philosophical paper
The Use of Music in Psychedelic (LSD) Psychotherapy 1972 Theoretical or philosophical paper
Flashbacks: Recurrent Intrusive Images After the Use of LSD 1969 Theoretical or philosophical paper

Citations in the library

Cited by 5

Cites 2

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LSD Psychedelic-assisted therapy Altered states of consciousness