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Psychedelics and mental illness

stuartritchie.substack.com

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Re: Psychedelics and mental illness

#161

Post by Fnoord »

h2odragon wrote: post #159
Fnoord wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Speaking a bit from experience given past drugs use.) Isn't the same true for stuff like SSRIs? We don't know if/how they are going to affect the patient.

Yes, but talking about that makes one a "science denier" etc. My wife has a good one: she burns opiates different, so they don't really benefit her. she just gets nausea from them. They've got her down as a "drug seeker" now cuz she refuses them.

The two times I got SSRIs prescribed both psychistrists underlined that fact. We are trying to find something which worked for me, and the first choice might not work out. For example, Fluoxetine (Prozac) got the adverse side effect that I got severe muscle fatigue. Basically, it makes me more sensitive to pain. But it also makes me less edgy. I find it counts for all drugs and even food (sugar makes thirsty, requires good dental hygiene; salt makes thirsty, pee less; yet we crave both in our food).

Re: Psychedelics and mental illness

#162

Post by mnkv »

This article is interesting but a major issue is that the vast majority of the points (and the linked articles!) are not about psychedelics. They are about pharmacology, psychology, statistical significance, and science in general. The majority of the author's critiques can and are applied to a lot of other fields (he even takes a meta-review critical of nutrition and applies the logic to psychedelics).

His main three themes (author bias, statistical significance, double-blinding/scientific rigour/confounding) are not at all unique to research with psychedelics. If the author's point is that we should take all studies with a grain of salt then why focus on psychedelics? If psychedelics is really such a problem field then I would expect more evidence than a couple bad actors (the MAPS stuff sounds terrible!) and light issues in a few studies that were brought up in reviews before publication.

It seems the main point isn't research as much as the public's perception and hype (partially fueled by researchers to be fair). That's a good point and I'm totally against the psychedelics version of "weed cures cancer" bros. But, as the author points out, this isn't unique to psychedelics either! Ironically, I found the intro and most of the article to sound much more critical of the research than the conclusion really is.

Re: Psychedelics and mental illness

#163

Post by dennisgorelik »

criticaltinker wrote: post #62
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Psychedelic enthusiasts can be even worse in this regard. When someone does have a bad trip, they tend to reach for every possible excuse to avoid blaming the drug. This ranges from criticizing their "set and setting" to blaming "triggering an underlying mental health issue". The latter is particularly concerning in the context of treating mental health issues, because by definition everyone in that category has some…

Listen, your comments on all these threads make it clear you’re seriously pessimistic about psychedelic medicine, and that’s perfectly ok. What bothers me is the incessant pushing of this agenda: > anyone ending up in a psychedelic research study is doing so because they think psychedelics are promising for mental health and they want to try it out > maybe the real reason psychedelics show efficacy in depression is t…

> I’ve linked you to recent ones in other comments.

I could not find any "placebo"-related links in your last 3 months of comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=criticaltinker

Why didn't you include an actual link into your comment instead of referring to your unspecified past comment?

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