LSD and Psychotherapy

Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) first acts on the brain's serotonin system; the part of the brain responsible for feelings of well-being, and subsequently on the prefrontal cortex; which processes some of our uniquely human abstract thoughts. It also seems to reduce communication between different brain areas, leading to loss of inhibitions.

 

Dr. Ronald Sandison (1916 - 2010) was one of the first people in the U.K to use LSD in psychotherapy over 50 years ago. He remarked that it had three effects:
 

1) a general enhancement of 'what's going on inside'

2) a specific effect in raising forgotten memories, particularly traumatic memories

3) it seems to allow people the facility to explore those memories

 

Dr. Ben Sessa (pictured), consultant Psychiatrist at Bristol University, wants to pick up where Sandison left off. Dr Sessa argues that ''the role of LSD can speed up the process of breaking down the client's defences''.


Today, despite a growing belief of it's benefits among some parts of the medical community, the laws have made further use in psychotherapy almost impossible.

 

Sessa adds, ''I believe it can be used safely in the context of the clinical environment. If there is a possibility that LSD or other hallucinogenic drugs can have therapeutic potential in psychiatry, then I do believe they should be researched to explore this, because to leave that stone unturned is potentially closing the door on that group of patients who may benefit.''

 

Many experts today believe the dangers of LSD are more fiction than fact. It's physiologically non-toxic and no one has ever died from an overdose. True, one or two people in the 60's may have jumped out of windows, but that seems to have become a myth ingrained in history.

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''LSD was an incredible experience. Not that I’m recommending it for anybody else; but for me it kind of – it hammered home to me that reality was not a fixed thing. That the reality that we saw about us every day was one reality, and a valid one – but that there were others, different perspectives where different things have meaning that were just as valid.'' 

                                                                                              ~ Alan Moore