Psychedelics Could Trigger A 'Paradigm Shift' In Mental Health Care • Hacker News Board

Re: Psychedelics Could Trigger A 'Paradigm Shift' In Mental Health Care

#81

Post by MichaelGG » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 7:35 PM UTC

carapace wrote: post #67

MichaelGG wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 predispos…

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…

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.

Re: Psychedelics Could Trigger A 'Paradigm Shift' In Mental Health Care

#82

Post by trxcllnt » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 7:48 PM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #61

Alex3917 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I must be missing something; any thoughts? Since the beginning of the era of modern psychedelic research, no one has developed any serious longterm mental illness as the result of taking psychedelics in a research setting. And this is out of thousands of people. I think part of the reason is that it's actually a lot easier to determine if someone is predisposed to mental illness than it actually is to determine if…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSD_and_schizophrenia Look in the references: "Four additional studies found post-LSD psychotics with prior psychosis but also patients in whom the drug precipitated psychosis without a prodrome ... One group reported cases of psychosis following a single dose, suggesting a peculiar vulnerability to the drug in certain individuals. A review of this problem concluded that prior illness wa…

That article's only reference is a study I linked to earlier, which concluded, "We did not find use of psychedelics to be an independent risk factor for mental health problems."

Re: Psychedelics Could Trigger A 'Paradigm Shift' In Mental Health Care

#83

Post by trxcllnt » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 7:51 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #76

Alex3917 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I must be missing something; any thoughts? Since the beginning of the era of modern psychedelic research, no one has developed any serious longterm mental illness as the result of taking psychedelics in a research setting. And this is out of thousands of people. I think part of the reason is that it's actually a lot easier to determine if someone is predisposed to mental illness than it actually is to determine if…

That one elephant died. Although the elephant got a considerably larger dose (297 mg!!) than people would, and the experimenters handled the situation poorly. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2004/feb/26/research.scie...

From the end of that article: "While the experiment is quoted as evidence of LSD's toxicity, it seems most likely that the Thorazine or the combination of drugs killed Tusko, not the acid. Lending credence to this, in 1984 psychologist Ronald K Siegel repeated the experiment with two elephants, using LSD only. Both survived."

Re: Psychedelics Could Trigger A 'Paradigm Shift' In Mental Health Care

#84

Post by MichaelGG » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 7:56 PM UTC

WorldWideWayne wrote: post #70

MichaelGG wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 predispos…

> we'd probably end up with a lot of people thinking they now know the answers. People thinking that they know things that they actually don't is definitely a problem. I find that it happens way more often in people who have never tried LSD though. People use false assumptions and self-lies all the time to survive this world. Here's an example: > It's why a lot of pro-LSD people are simply not taken seriously, becaus…

... There's zero evidence that consciousness exists outside of the physical world. There's plenty of evidence that it does exist as something brains create. There's plenty of evidence that poking it chemically or otherwise causes changes in consciousness. In some cases, scientists have some ideas about how that might sorta happen (like the release of dopamine or serotonin). No one seems to disagree that taking, say, Xanax, does something to brain chemistry and causes e.g. less anxiety.

LSD is certainly a physical chemical that goes into physical brains. Yet all of a sudden folks want to introduce a separate magisterium and insist that despite having every appearance of acting on the brain somehow, LSD is special and really does something more. And not because of any extraordinary evidence, but because, while they were tripping, they thought up some cool neato thought like, I dunno, all people are one. A thought they can't verify at all, but makes sense while tripping. And because of that, not only is their neato thought true, but LSD itself must be something paranormal because other drugs don't let them think nonsense is true.

That's essentially all of what Leary and others come down to, despite hiding it in a lot more verbiage and nicer sounding ideas.

Just because the understanding of consciousness is rather much in its infancy doesn't give people blank checks to make shit up. LSD-fueled and valid-only-with-acid ideas on consciousness should be given as much weight as LSD-fueled pictures of Pluto.

Re: Psychedelics Could Trigger A 'Paradigm Shift' In Mental Health Care

#85

Post by tedks » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 8:00 PM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #19

nmrm2 wrote: post #5

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 und…

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.

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.

Re: Psychedelics Could Trigger A 'Paradigm Shift' In Mental Health Care

#86

Post by thucydides » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 8:03 PM UTC

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.

Re: Psychedelics Could Trigger A 'Paradigm Shift' In Mental Health Care

#87

Post by chicagorailsdev » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 8:03 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #62

codeshaman wrote: post #6

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…

I swear, one of the most import pieces of research that needs to be done on them is their capability to induce a false sense of the profound, and make people believe psychedelics will fix everything about the world. Yes, they can be useful, they can make you see yourself differently and see people differently. But they can equally be a pretty blinkenlight show that makes you giggle for hours with friends. Or be distr…

It's so refreshing to see a critical take on psychedelics. While psychedelics can make you feel like some insight or thought is incredibly profound, often times it turns out to be incredibly banal when revisited with a sober mind. Don't get me wrong - I've some incredible trips on mushrooms and acid, some of which completely shattered my ego and made me see the world from in a totally different light. But when the afterglow wore off, my "insights" turned out to be really dumb. As in, "the whole world is connected" type of stuff... pretty bland.

About 5 years ago my friend tried acid for the first time and enjoyed the "profound insights" a little too much. I know this isn't common but he ended up getting addicted to acid, and proceeded to go on a 10 day long acid fueled frenzy. At the peak of his trip he believed that he was Jesus and that he was here to save mankind. Being the good modern Jesus he thought was, he proceeded to spread his Gospel by trying to friend EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON FACEBOOK. He at one point even posted his credentials online so that anyone and everyone could use his account to add more friends. His behavior was absolutely insane but the acid made him feel like it was "profound".

The point I'm trying to make is that while psychedelics can make you feel extraordinary feelings, there's no evidence that the insights gained from tripping have any use in reality.

Re: Psychedelics Could Trigger A 'Paradigm Shift' In Mental Health Care

#88

Post by Mz » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 8:11 PM UTC

"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.

Re: Psychedelics Could Trigger A 'Paradigm Shift' In Mental Health Care

#89

Post by fsloth » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 8:14 PM UTC

codeshaman wrote: post #6

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…

Massive drug use is usually a symptom of unsatisfying social conditions. Personally, I would find it less than satisfying if civilaztions culmination was drug induced contentednes to poor living conditions instead of actually fixing those conditions to be humanly satisfying. Instead of recreational tripping because everyday life is so mentally stunting I would dream of a world where everyday life is personally satisfying to most.

That said, I have nothing against medicational nor recreational tripping - but I would be aware that those are not necessarily fixing the conditions but only changing the perception of them. And sometimes it indeed is only our perception that needs fixing. But in some cases it would be good to fix the source of angst as well.

Re: Psychedelics Could Trigger A 'Paradigm Shift' In Mental Health Care

#90

Post by eternalban » Sat, Oct 10, 2015, 8:16 PM UTC

codeshaman wrote: post #6

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…

Re "divine process". Please refer to demonstration made by Ram Daas's guru in regards to artificial means of touching God.