
Psychedelic Mushrooms Treat Depression [video] - montalbano
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2018-11-25/psychedelic-mushrooms-treat-depression-video
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phren0logy
Speaking as a psychiatrist, this is the most interesting (re)development in
psychopharmacology in decades.

For anyone who hasn't read it, Pollan's "How to Change Your Mind" is a
fascinating journalistic/autobiographical look at these amazing psychotropics.
One of the most important lessons I took from it was just how much research
was conducted in the 50s and 60s, only to be swept under the rug once
psychedelics became politically radioactive. The studies are, of course, of
their time - with all the limitations that implies. It's great to see the
growth of modern, active research in this area.

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50
You should check out Watt's _Psychotherapy, East and West_ (1961), it's a good
read.

Here's a half-baked thought: I always held the notion psychedelics help us, at
least personally, come to the realization of "be in the world, but not of the
world." It relates to what Watt's mentions in that book, in this case the
therapist is in place of the psychedelic:

(1) "The psychotherapist … tries to help the individual to be himself and to
go it alone without giving unnecessary offense to his community, to be in the
world (of social convention) but not of the world."

(2) "Whenever the therapist stands with society, he will interpret his work as
adjusting the individual and coaxing his 'unconscious drives' into social
respectability. But such 'official psychotherapy' lacks integrity and becomes
the obedient tool of armies, bureaucracies, churches, corporations, and all
agencies that require individual brainwashing. On the other hand, the
therapist who is really interested in helping the individual is forced into
social criticism. This does not mean that he has to engage directly in
political revolution; it means that he has to help the individual in
liberating himself from various forms of social conditioning, which includes
liberation from hating this conditioning — hatred being a form of bondage to
its object."

(3) "Psychotherapist... are dealing with people whose distress arises from
what may be termed maya, to use the Hindu-Buddhist word whose exact meaning is
not merely 'illusion' but the entire world-conception of a culture, considered
as illusion in the strict etymological sense of a play (Latin, ludere). The
aim of a way of liberation is not the destruction of maya but seeing it for
what it is, or seeing through it. Play is not to be taken seriously, or, in
other words, ideas of the world and of oneself which are social conventions
and institutions are not to be confused with reality."

(4) "When a man no longer confuses himself with the definition of himself that
others have given him, he is at once universal and unique. He is universal by
virtue of the inseparability of his organism from the cosmos. He is unique in
that he is just this organism and not any stereotype of role, class, or
identity assumed for the convenience of social communication."

I was talking to a friend about this earlier this year and one argument that
stood out was my friend saying it can't be as simple as that, the whole
spectrum of mental illness, which was conflicting with what I initially
thought.

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sylvanhughes
Interesting choice of backing music...I'd think reggae would be used for a
cannabis research...shrooms are more along the lines of Floyd and Hendrix.

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nnd
It's an oversimplification to think that depression is caused by low serotonin
levels. As far as we currently know psychedelics affect neurotransmitters in a
certain way, but it doesn't work like an SSRI for example. I think what's
really promising is psychedelic-assisted therapy to tackle underlying causes
rather than treating symptoms.

