[HN Gopher] How psychiatrists got serious about using psychedeli...
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How psychiatrists got serious about using psychedelics to treat
mental health
Author : spansoa
Score : 19 points
Date : 2022-07-24 19:18 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (robbreport.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (robbreport.com)
| iasay wrote:
| bufferout wrote:
| It's anecdotal, but if anyone is interested in an in-depth
| account of an ex Navy Seal using psychedelics to successfully
| treat PTSD: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=asrnXJ-xCzs
| bertil wrote:
| I understand that a lot of readers of HN like solutions and read
| those stories with enthusiasm. But they are often that: stories,
| anecdotes. They rarely include properly set-up double-blind
| trials, even if the same actors could easily set trials up with
| the same circumstances.
|
| And the article has quote hoping for trials... except tests
| _have_ happened. Spoiler: they were not as conclusive those
| stories would have you think. Reviewers from serious psychiatric
| publication are a bit tired of that story. Vice (not the paragon
| of scientific rigour) or Netflix (same) going after them only
| adds to the already transparent evidence that those PR efforts
| are paid for by Big Pharma trying to cash in, again, on a new
| trend.
|
| You want to have an easy way to tell the difference, if you are
| not a board-certified psychiatrist? Addiction, PTSD, etc. most of
| the Western World has an issue with those. The larger share of
| the Western World (EEA, Canada, Australia, NZ; Singapore, South
| Korea and Japan if you want to include them in there) has state-
| financed medicine. There's no organised interest for those, even
| in the most forward-thinking countries. One country has not
| effective price controls and medicine with ruinous costs ----
| literally, people die of the consequence of their medical debt.
| If those stories about wonder drugs only happen to patients from
| that one country, you can tell what's pushing the press (and the
| shill account promoting that on social media) is a profit motive,
| not the passion of a few aging hippies.
|
| Don't get me wrong: there's nothing wrong with a well-financed
| effort to make a profit and fix a problem. Mark Cuban trying to
| screw over Big Pharma ---- I'm sure he has a marketing budget,
| and some of that goes to making sure there's press. But if
| there's no institutional support, it's not because doctors hate
| patients getting healthy.
|
| I'm hoping that, on top of stories, readers of HN also like and
| understand the scientific progress, and know that psychiatry is
| desperate for new, effective drugs. They hear about street drugs
| every day. They've tried.
|
| No one working in that field would snub a molecule because it's
| associated with "bad people", aka patients: they routinely,
| successfully prescribe heroin (well, opioids) to surgery patients
| and meth (well, amphetamines) to ADHD sufferers. Doctors,
| pharmacist and nurses do _not_ care for how "society" sees their
| method. They routinely deal with people writing on the walls with
| their own shit, screaming all day long and trying to kill
| themselves to know what's important. Hitting enough keywords to
| impress the editorial board of _Vice_ isn't it.
| valec wrote:
| how would you propose setting up a double-blind trial for a
| psychedelic?
| bertil wrote:
| Most of the setup described here includes conditions similar
| to sensory-deprivation tanks. Those can induce hallucination
| without psychedelics.
|
| More importantly, I would match the amount of therapy: all
| those offer an astounding level of discussion with people
| that might be professional, trained therapists or not. That's
| the massive difference between a lot of different treatments,
| not the molecule -- surprise, they lead to massively
| different outcomes.
| labrador wrote:
| If it takes scientific studies and regulated psychiatry to
| bring the benefits to the masses so be it. I can accept that.
| But I recently caused a controversy on Twitter when I suggested
| psychedelic therapists have some experience with the drug
| itself. Apparently, this is a taboo topic and speaking about it
| openly might endanger the efforts to wrap it up in a legal
| doctor-patient type relationship.
| bertil wrote:
| The drug is nowhere as innocuous as the people selling you
| make you think.
|
| You can tell surgeons that they need to ride a bike before
| they should operate on people after crashes but you won't
| have a great reaction either.
| labrador wrote:
| > You can tell surgeons that they need to ride a bike
|
| That's not a good analogy. Fixing broken flesh and bones
| has nothing to do with knowing how to ride a bike
|
| A better analogy would be getting a sponsor in A.A. because
| you could get a sponsor who wasn't an alcoholic (and some
| do) but it's accepted that it takes an alcoholic to help an
| alcoholic. In other words, it takes some experience with
| the drug at hand to help someone with that drug.
|
| > The drug is nowhere as innocuous as the people selling
| you make you think
|
| There have been some famous acid casualties, such as Syd
| Barret of Pink Floyd. I'm sure we all know someone who did
| too much. However, there have been millions, perhaps
| billions of psychedelic trips taken over the last 60 years,
| yet the psyche wards aren't overflowing with people made
| sick by their trips.
| allears wrote:
| labrador wrote:
| I've taken many different psychedelics in different settings and
| had both good and bad experiences. Psychedelics can be a very
| helpful tool if used intentionally while open to new experiences.
| They can also amplify negative experiences. I'd never drop acid
| at a heavy metal concert for example, but that's just me.
|
| Most people use some form of mind altering substance, the most
| common being nicotine, caffeine and alcohol. It really is up to
| the person and that's how it should be with psychedelics. I am
| free to alter my perceptions and learn from it.
|
| The problem I have with the recent push to decriminalize is that
| the experience is wrapped up and controlled by a therapist. They
| have to package it this way to get the laws relaxed. But do I
| want some recent college graduate with a psychology degree to be
| in charge of my experience? Um, no.
| more_corn wrote:
| It was serious before Nixon decided psychedelics in the hands of
| hippies were a threat to the social order and villainized them.
| bertil wrote:
| Hippies were white. I believe that spared them the bulk of
| Nixon's wrath.
| GameOfFrowns wrote:
| We got the Soylent, we got the Panopticon, here's the Soma.
| sibeliuss wrote:
| The so-called Soma came a long time ago with Xanax and various
| other benzodiazepines that are over-prescribed. Psychedelics
| are a vastly different thing that can _cure trauma_ without
| dependency. Please understand the implications of that.
| labrador wrote:
| The fictional Soma as described by Huxley was a tranquilizer to
| make people numb to discomfort. Since you compare Soma to
| psychedelics, I can deduce with some confidence that you've
| never taken psychedelics.
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