
Psychedelics Could Trigger A 'Paradigm Shift' In Mental Health Care - rvikmanis
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/psychedelics-mental-health-care_55f2e754e4b077ca094eb4f0
======
codeshaman
They can trigger a paradigm shift in many other areas, not just mental health
care. Except it's so hard to explain this to a 'normal' person, who's never
taken any.

"If God were to permit you a brief voyage into the divine process, let you
whirl for a second into the atomic nucleus or spin you out on a light-year
trip through the galaxies, how on earth would you describe what you saw when
you got back, breathless, to your office? This metaphor may sound farfetched
or irrelevant, but just ask someone who has taken a heavy dose of LSD." \- Tim
Leary, The politics of ecstasy, 1968

It's similar to the 'overview effect' reported by astronauts who've been to
space. Of course it triggers a paradigm shift and 'cures' depression or other
mind-loops that we find ourselves in so often.

It's good to see that there are more discussions about psychedelics in the
scientific community. I suspect there are many (more and more) scientists and
academics who use psychedelics so I think we will see more and more material
published on this subject, apart from the huge amount of anecdotal material
available online.

I also suspect that people use more psychedelics now than ever in our history.
And it's happening globally. And it's a good thing.

Because I believe psychedelics are the mythical 'love bomb' which can stop
wars and bring peace to people and other species on Earth. And they could, in
theory, cure cancer - certainly the psychological and spiritual effects of the
disease, which could bring remission to it's physical manifestation.

So yeah, there's lots of research still to be done.

~~~
MichaelGG
Eh this sounds like exactly what was wrong with the early LSD promoters.
Psychedelics are the mythical "love bomb"? I do not think the evidence
supports that. While I think the world would be far better off if everyone had
tried it, I don't think it'd stop wars or anything. At best, it might get
people to sit up and think a bit, and turn to rationality for explanations.

But in real life, seeing as how one's predispositions get highlighted with
acid, we'd probably end up with a lot of people thinking they now know the
answers. Or that their trip showed them that (Allah|Zeus|Quantum
Democracy|Whatever) is the True God and go all nuts on that.

Leary and others made up these unsubstantiated claims about the effects of
acid and really tried to sell it as something beyond what it is. It's a damn
awesome molecule that does really nifty shit to brains, and certainly bears
plenty of research and use.

But to say it can cure cancer? Come the fuck on man. That's just new-age
heebie jeebie nonsense with no basis in reality. It's why a lot of pro-LSD
people are simply not taken seriously, because they forget it's just a
molecule messing with brains' perceptions.

(Unless you meant cure cancer in the "well it made you feel better, and
feeling good is important to health so it might give you a better chance
against some diseases", in which case it's not much of a claim and certainly
shouldn't be phrased that way. Hey, Apple products can prevent street crime,
because the metal bodies might slow down bullets and make an otherwise fatal
shot survivable!)

~~~
carapace
These chemicals are tools, no more and no less. They should be investigated
with intelligence and caution. Take drugs soberly, if at all. I know a few
people who have basically ruined their lives though what I would call "abuse"
of drugs including MDMA, LSD, cannabis, and nitrous oxide(!) (as opposed to
the more obvious drugs like crystal meth, heroin, and crack.)

That said, I know of a few people who had cancer, and no longer have cancer,
and the treatment plan they followed involved copious quantities of a kind of
goo or tar made from cannabis plants. Those three items are _facts_ : They had
cancer, they no longer have it, they used ganja and not chemo or radiation.

I have no interest in arguing with anyone about this, nor am I attempting to
condone or evangelize anything. I offer the above as (admittedly anecdotal)
data points for consideration. If you want to know more about this please do
your own homework online, no one is hiding this sort of thing from anyone (but
themselves.)

~~~
MichaelGG
Those _facts_ , as you put it, really mean nothing other than maybe someone
should do a study and see if there's any real correlation. How many other
people had cancer, used plenty of cannabis, then died or continued to have
cancer?

There's billions of people in the world. That means the frequency of "Bad
thing, Weird thing, Good thing" will often be nonzero for all sorts of things.

~~~
cnp
You should listen what people have to say when they describe it as a "Love
Bomb", as "Seeing God", etc -- sometimes a little less quantifying can go very
far in resolving problems physical or otherwise; the trick is experience and
an open mind. The testimonials describing these substances as powerful healing
tools is endless -- there is validity in this fact.

~~~
Nursie
No, there isn't. There is validity in the fact that the substances make people
think that they are healing tools.

Until or unless there is actually a quantifiable effect it is not a fact that
they can be said to heal anything.

~~~
cnp
A single trip report could be worth a thousand peer reviewed papers, and a
thousand trip reports could create a new science -- if you're willing to
listen.

~~~
Nursie
>> A single trip report could be worth a thousand peer reviewed papers

It really couldn't, you know. It's subjective experience.

>> and a thousand trip reports could create a new science

A thousand may contain useful data if corrected for confirmation bias etc, but
no, not a whole new science.

>> if you're willing to listen.

I have tripped. Many times. I know it well. It's not about being willing to
listen, it's about being objective.

~~~
cnp
Not everything needs to be objectively verified in order to be agreed upon as
useful or valid. Sometimes objective validation comes, by necessity, later.

I would recommend watching this documentary from Alejandro Jodorowsky's son,
Christobol. Its important to watch it all the way through. In it he discusses
Psychomagic and Psychoshamanism (two fields his father developed) and the
relationship between ritual and healing, and how belief plays into the
psychological or subconscious mechanism that promotes recovery. That's all I
meant by my obviously rhetorical comments above, that there is an enormous
amount of power within the belief centers of being.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOya-
MersYs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOya-MersYs)

~~~
Nursie
Sorry, no time to dedicate to watching fanciful bullshit.

And yes, it does need to be verified before it can be said to be useful.

~~~
cnp
Welp

------
chestervonwinch
Psychedelics are a lot like taking a vacation. You may have an experience
which will impact your life in some (perhaps significantly better or worse)
way. You may gain new perspectives on life. You may gain insight into yourself
and travel companions. You may develop an ugly tendency to be that annoying
person who always talks about their trip to ___ and always find a way to
interject it into conversations.

~~~
MichaelGG
That's a risk for just about anything that's interesting. Reading up on a new
(to you) philosophy. Finding a new (to you) diet, or exercise or yoga.
Learning a new programming paradigm. And on and on. People naturally want to
share experiences they found exciting/stimulating/useful/etc. I don't think
that really provides much judgement or insight into whether a specific
activity tends to be good or bad.

------
fsiefken
Support MAPS (Multidisciplinairy Association for Psychedelic Studies)
[http://www.maps.org/](http://www.maps.org/) or the Dutch OPEN Foundation to
promote research in this area.
[https://twitter.com/FoundationOPEN](https://twitter.com/FoundationOPEN)

------
Litost
Pretty tangential, and i've no idea yet as to it's accuracy, but i loved the
idea that the human race's "emergence into consciousness was triggered by our
ancestors encounters with visionary plants". From an ironically, as otherwise
i probably wouldn't have stumbled on it, Ted Talk by Graham Hancock:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0c5nIvJH7w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0c5nIvJH7w)

Out of interest, are there any other theories as to what might have caused
this "leap"?

~~~
Retra
Here's one: it's not actually much of a leap. Save for the fact that your
brain has a bigger language center, you're no better than any other ape.

~~~
knowaveragejoe
There are numerous ways in which we're similar to apes and other organisms,
and then there's also numerous things that have nothing even _close_ in the
animal kingdom(that we're aware of, anyways). So if nothing but a larger
language center explains that, then it's a far bigger difference than you make
it sound:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrCVu25wQ5s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrCVu25wQ5s)

~~~
Retra
If you're looking to say humans are categorically different from every other
animal -- that is, that we have something _none_ of them do -- then you're
operating with such a level of granularity that it's necessary that you
overlook small differentiating factors. The issue is not "why are humans
unique, just like every species is unique" but "why are humans unique in a way
no other species is?"

And if you take a human and ignore their facility for language, you will
essentially have a regular ape. If you take away our capacity for culture and
technology, you don't have an animal that rules the world uncontested.
Whatever other differences we have are moot in comparison. (Take Stephen
Hawking as an example.)

~~~
knowaveragejoe
I suggest you watch the talk either way. It's well-paced, witty and above all
extremely fascinating. It centers around both the things that we previously
thought were unique to humanity(but discoveries have shown we're not), as well
as the ways in which we are unique("why are humans unique in a way no other
species is?").

------
s_dev
If LSD is this safe in a black market environment:
[http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11660210](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11660210)

I don't see how if it was clinically manufactured and administered the risks
couldn't be acceptably mitigated. The interviewee seems confident the
government is on board and things are going down a new path though so I guess
this could be a thing now.

------
xacaxulu
This is strong medicine, but the reports around ayahuasca, ibogaine,
psilocybin, DMT and peyote all indicate the possibility of deep and lasting
positive psychological shifts. I'd personally submit to treatment in the
safety of a psych/medical clinic rather than a secret Peruvian yoga retreat
but the fact that so many centers are popping up indicates some kind of global
hive-mind desire for change. I'm supremely interested in the official and
unofficial studies taking place all over the world right now in these domains.

------
api
Psychedelics are, I think, a genuine example of a suppressed technology.
They're one of two major suppressed technologies of the 20th century, with the
other possibly being nuclear power.

~~~
pnevmatico
To expand on your point, psychedelics have been suppressed even before that.
Witches burnings in Europe for example, have been related to those "witches"
taking psychedelic plants and potions. The Christian missionaries explicitly
banned Indians from taking peyote and magic mushrooms as it was considered a
"communion with the devil" in their eyes.

------
Mz
_" The exciting thing isn't just that these drugs work for something that we
already have treatment for. It's that they're getting big effects on disorders
for which we have very poor treatment."_

It sounds to me like it may imply that much of what we call "mental health"
disorders are really somatopsychic conditions.

~~~
baobabaobab
Wait, do people think that mental health disorders somehow don't involve brain
function? What else could it possibly be?

~~~
Mz
Uh, I think most people have some vague, hand-wavy notion about "the mind" and
social factors, (largely) disconnected from brain function.

------
Synaesthesia
At the very least psychedelics should be a legitimate subject of serious
inquiry in the fields of neuroscience and psychiatry.

~~~
beagle3
The only reason they are not, as far as I can tell, is nearly universal drug
schedules in the west - rather than lack of promise or interest among
researchers.

------
werber
I was surprised the article didn't mention Ayahuasca, maybe the original
source did. I know a few people that used it to get off heroin for good after
going through several Regan-relapse cycles.

~~~
pstuart
Which is effectively DMT.

~~~
pcthrowaway
Not exactly. Ayahuasca actually refers to the vine Banisteriopsis caapi, which
is a powerful MAOI, but contains no DMT.

Traditional preparations _often_ (but not always) contain other components
which contain DMT, the effect of which is normally metabolized by a
mitochondrial enzyme called monoamine oxidase. Since the ayahuasca vine
inhibits the activity of monoamine oxidase, a preparation of ingested DMT
taken with, or after, an MAOI will allow the DMT to reach the brain.

The vine taken on its own, however, has an intense effect which is said to be
mildly psychedelic, and a preparation of just the ayahuasca vine qualifies as
ayahuasca.

------
noahdesu
I just finished reading "Acid Test: LSD, Ecstasy, and the Power to Heal" by
Tom Shroder. It was parallel tour of the history of influential people
(primarily Rick Doblin of MAPS), and a Iraq veteran suffering from PTSD that
was treated later in the book with MDMA. [http://www.amazon.com/Acid-Test-
Ecstasy-Power-Heal/dp/014751...](http://www.amazon.com/Acid-Test-Ecstasy-
Power-Heal/dp/0147516374)

------
thucydides
Rick Doblin at MAPS has said he's funding the medical research of psychedelics
and MDMA partly to change their public perception. It's a good strategy.
"Medicinal alcohol" during Prohibition and medicinal cannabis during
Prohibition 2.0 both helped sway a skeptical public.

Strategic concerns aside, psychedelics clearly are powerful medicines and can
yield profound insights, and their relative safety makes their Schedule 1
status morally repellent.

------
Glench
Here's a link to an early-release PDF of the study:
[https://psilosybiini.info/paperit/Psychedelic%20medicine,%20...](https://psilosybiini.info/paperit/Psychedelic%20medicine,%20a%20re-
emerging%20therapeutic%20paradigm%20\(Tupper%20et%20al.,%202015\).pdf)

------
ArkyBeagle
The man made the "unreliable narrator" his main device, but I think "Fear and
Loathing in Las Vegas" should put to rest any idea that such trendy chemical
amusement aids have much therapeutic value in the general case.

It least puts such ideas in a position of having to work a lot harder to make
their case.

~~~
oldmanjay
I'm not sure I follow your logic here. Although there are reasons to believe
the incidents in the book are to some degree real, it is a story told with a
purpose of entertaining, not a medical evaluation of chemical action.

Have I mistaken your purpose, and if not, can you clarify the reasoning?

~~~
ArkyBeagle
No, I think the book makes something akin to a _moral_ point. That Our Humble
Narrator was as much victim as perpetrator of the Better Living through
Chemistry era.

It's precisely the opposite of a medical evaluation. It's a reductio ad
absurbum on the idea that there's a potential Utopia within us revealed by
drugs. Drugs apparently make you a new man but the new man may not be
perceptually ... congruent with the old man.

I think he's describing the collapse of the experiment that included the
Summer of Love.

"And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the
forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need
that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our
side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high
and beautiful wave. . . .

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas
and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-
water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”

Can the medicos provide structure to ameliorate this?

------
max-a
Psychedelics can trigger psychosis too.

~~~
trxcllnt
There is evidence that does not agree with (edit: support) this statement:
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130819185302.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130819185302.htm)

~~~
fossuser
While this book is only one anecdote with severe extenuating circumstances -
it's a pretty good read.

[http://www.amazon.com/And-Then-Thought-Was-Fish-
ebook/dp/B00...](http://www.amazon.com/And-Then-Thought-Was-Fish-
ebook/dp/B008DZEWF8)

It's also online as part of his blog: [http://www.stilldrinking.org/the-
episode-part-1](http://www.stilldrinking.org/the-episode-part-1)

~~~
douche
Definitely a fantastic read. Terrifying, but incredibly interesting. The
author seems like an otherwise fairly well-adjusted person now - but it must
be incredibly weird to look back at memories from when you were that
completely out-to-lunch.

------
nmrm2
TA: "The fact that the effects last beyond the time that you take the
medication -- that's really a new paradigm in psychiatry."

I have no doubt that psychedelics are capable of producing lasting changes in
behaviors, habits, or outlooks. Actually, I'd be surprised if that particular
point is at all controversial.

However, prespcribing a psychedlic that could have lasting impacts on a person
for "reasons we don't understand" seems... unnecessarily dangerous, whenever
an alternative exists. Which of course is only an argument for more research.

~~~
MichaelGG
Isn't this the state of most mental medicines? That is, "reasons we don't
understand"? Hence the typical search for the right med combo of anti-
depressants, stabilizers, and stimulants to make someone OK?

Sure SSRIs might have lots more study than LSD and they might know how it
affects certain neurotransmitters. But it seems a far cry from really
understanding it.

~~~
tedks
I know a lot fewer people who have started taking SSRIs and then started
taking SSRIs every weekend and got involved in cults centered around taking
SSRIs and experiencing enlightenment and then ended up broken shells of
people.

SSRIs have a very specific method of action, and it's drastically more limited
in scope than these recreational drugs.

