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Comment by TheOperator | Hacker News Reader

>Before this current phase, the universally accepted advice for psychedelic experimenters was to never use psychedelics if you had underlying mental health issues

That advice was an overly broad crock and some of the most promising applications of psychadelics are for treating things like treatment resistant depression.

In regards to always having a sitter I do think there is a ton of temptation to forgo this step yet I think the drug is simultaneously less effective and more dangerous if you forgo this step. Still I rarely hear anybody fail to stress the importance of a sitter.

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> some of the most promising applications of psychadelics are for treating things like treatment resistant depression.

The most promising applications for psychedelics are studied in conjunction with intensive therapy sessions before, during, and after the psychedelic dose.

The problem is that too many people read this articles and conclude that the drug is doing all the work, ignoring the rigorous therapy that surrounds the psychedelic dosing in all of the clinical studies.

My point was that taking LSD in your basement alone is not 1:1 equivalent to the clinical research that uses LSD as an ingredient in a structured therapy program. Even this article explains LSD use in the context of therapy. Yet people read these articles and assume that LSD operates as a standalone wonder drug.

I have a bit of a different take but reach a similar conclusion. I think the population of people trying these experimental treatments has already been though long periods of ineffectual therapy and self-help attempts. I believe being in such a state puts you in a prime position to benefit from the drug as I roughly see it as a sort of accelerant for the mind. It can make a lot of those lessons click. Which is part of why I'm very skeptical of the idea psychadelic are a drug for the mentally healthy... I suspect the outcomes might actually be worse on average and question the common wisdom.

I'm unconvinced a therapists supervision is the "secret sauce". Yet there are many many reports even before recent studies that having a "sitter" or "shaman" type was essential and the presence of a therapist just seems like a medicalization of that principle.

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