DOI: 10.1097/01.nmd.0000224907.01633.7f
,
Issn Print: 0022-3018
Publication Date: 2006/07/01
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Walsh, Roger, and Grob, Charles S. (Eds) (2005) New York: SUNY Press. ISBN: 0791465181. xii + 267 pp. $24.95. Paperback.
The book is a collection of interviews and the distilled wisdom obtained between late 1996 and mid-1998, updated and edited by eminent psychiatrists, Professors Roger Walsh and Charles Grob. The alliteratively poetic title in lower case, in green and blue with a colorful psychedelic logo, contrasts with the ashen photographs of all the participants. The book will evoke nostalgia in anyone who lived through the 1960s. Betty Eisner’s chapter’s title, “The Birth and Death of Psychedelic Therapy,” may be less poetic but more accurate. It invites comparison with Freud’s magnificent polemic, “A History of the Psychoanalytic Movement” (Freud, 1917). Why not a history of the psychedelic movement?
It was quite a feat to bring together these aging luminaries in one place for 3 days of meetings, interviews, and follow-up. Still, one may wonder why it took so long to bring it to fruition. Some developments after 1996 are missing. For example, in August 2003, “This Week on the Infinite Mind: Psychedelics” (Goodwin, 2003) gave an extensive report on much current research and ongoing litigation with the government. My colleague, Bill Richards, is still carrying on approved research with psilocybin. My grandson reports from his college that students still take LSD and are hospitalized or expelled for dealing.
This useful and stimulating volume contains the reminiscences of Ram Dass, Betty Eisner, James Fadiman, Gary Fisher, Peter Furst, Stanislav Grof, Michael Harner, Albert Hofmann, Laura Archera Huxley, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Alexander Shulgin, Ann Shulgin, Huston Smith, and Myron Stolaroff. The book is divided into chapters on Research, Psychotherapy, Culture and Consciousness, and Religious Implications. There is a richness to the book that I find difficult to summarize. It is impossible to do justice to each participant, and I can only suggest that the reader will find each chapter rewarding. The marvelous contributions of LSD’s discoverer, Hofmann, those of Aldous Huxley, and the valiant efforts of Ram Dass to overcome his aphasia require no further exegesis.
Although the wide variety of LSD therapy for different indications may have been highly successful, it does not seem worthwhile reviewing it in extenso for its historical value. Betty Eisner believes that psychedelic therapy can be achieved with Ritalin. I personally am skeptical. I am not in a position to evaluate Stan Grof’s psychedelic therapy achieved through controlled breathwork, but I recommend highly his original chapter on the theory and practice of psychedelic therapy. I am still in debt to Stan Grof for an LSD session that helped me over a problem with dependence on sleeping pills. The rebirth experience does have an impact. Surprisingly, psychedelic therapy even without drugs evokes a hostile press, at least in Australia, where the headlines in The West Australian, Perth proclaim, “Banned Therapy Link Sparks Alert.” Max Honeycutt [a psychologist] questioned the validity of therapies offered by California-based psychiatrist, Stanislav Grof. However, Dr. Koesterich, the Vice President of the Australian Medical Association, said “breathing and meditative techniques were used by many people with a lot of success.” He would be concerned about the “possible risks of someone attending the workshop trying the techniques without appropriate training or skills.” (Hodge, September 5, 1998)
Interest in LSD therapy began with Condrau’s 1949 paper on the treatment of depression, which I tried to replicate (Savage, 1952). Later therapy assumed importance as a rationale, a legal justification for the psychedelic movement; Alpert describes how he turned his back on the promising beginnings of psilocybin therapy with convicts. That was unfortunate.
