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psycho-pharmacologists marks a most important advance in the field of psychology.
Harrison (22), James (27), Kluver (31), and a number of others long ago pointed out the
importance to psychology of this area of experience but their work was not followed up.
Psychology, in its desire to become scientific, attempted to do so by accepting as
sufficient the methods of the other sciences. In adopting these it has been forced to
restrict its scope to the measurement of the observed behavior of the individual. This
concentration upon behavior has precluded the examination, except through reflection in
activity, of the awareness, the feelings, the motives, the values and the beliefs from which
behavior arises. In neglecting these areas, psychology has omitted those aspects of
human individuality which differentiate man from the other animals.
Much has been learned through the behavioristic approach and much more will be
learned in the future. However, the tendency to regard this as the only possible avenue to
the understanding of human psychology is currently undergoing a change. The growth of
interest in the origin and nature of motives, value systems, beliefs, attitudes, mood, etc.,
is clearly reflected in the literature.
The discovery of LSD by Hoffman and the early investigations by Stoll have led
to extensive trials and there is little doubt that work with psychedelic agents will help to
accelerate this change in the climate of scientific thinking.
In this process of broadening the scope of scientific psychological investigation
the psychedelic drugs are likely to prove extremely important. They offer great promise
in therapeutic procedures. Even more remarkable, however, are their potentialities as
research tools in the investigation of personality and social relationships.
During the last 150 years there has been a prodigious acceleration of the rate of
advance in the physical sciences and their attending technology. The psychedelic drugs
may prove to offer the means of a parallel advance  or indeed revolution  in social
understanding and human relations.
For these reasons it would seem that any guide which could hope to widen the use
of the drug would be useful. Should the guide contain errors, these can only be corrected
as more and more investigators come to understand the use of the drug and to pool their
information.
RESULTS OBTAINED BY THE AUTHORS
Scale 1. for the assessment of LSD experience was devised, in part, to ascertain
the extent which the expectation of the therapeutic process, which we have outlined
below, are met by the phenomena comprising the LSD experience. The questions to be
used to tap these areas are indicated by number in the text and are listed below. Table 1,
shows the extent to which the subjects felt that the various phenomena were present in
their experience.
Almost universally, therapy is seem as a relationship in which the patient can
permit himself to surrender many of his previously held attitudes (Question 43, 59) and
can escape from his deeply ingrained perspective into a situation allowing for unhabitual
perception (Question 2) with its potentiality for change. By so doing he can get a
relatively objective view of his motives and can both discern their etology (Question 47,
48) and scrutinize and re-assess their contribution to the psychological valencies of the
various elements of his environment (Question 52).
Enhanced understanding (Question 66) developing from this increased self-
knowledge and self-acceptance (Question 44) permits him to participate with greatly
reduced emotional reservation in inter-personal relationship (Question 65, 38, 42) to
come, in fact to see himself not only as a unique individual but also as an integral part of
a larger social unity (Question 63). Requisite to any therapeutic effect, however, is his
acceptance of the validity of the treatment and what he experiences must seem real and
very convincing (Question 37), if it is to be remembered (Question 22) and incorporated
in his day to day behavior.
The question asked to study the extent to which the expectations of the
therapeutic process were realized, were as follows:
Question 43. Did you feel that you were able to give yourself up completely to the
experience?
Question 59. Did you feel in the experience like laughing at many of the ideas you held
prior to it?
Question 48. Did you feel that you were aware of the long ago?
Question 2. Did you feel that anything unusual happened in the experience?
Question 52. Did you notice any change in the significance of things or events?
Question 66. Did you feel that your understanding was enhanced?
Question 44. Did you feel that you became more self-accepting?
Question 42. Did you feel a high level of trust and affection for others in the experience?
Question 65. Did you feel that you gained a more complete acceptance of others?
Question 38. Did you feel emotionally very close to others in the experience?
Question 63. Did you feel yourself a part of a larger unity?
Question 37. Did you feel that the experience was very real?
Question 22. Do you feel that you remember much of the experience clearly?
 The answers given to these questions by the various groups are summarized in
Table I.
TABLE I
Comparison of Responses, NORMALS and ALCOHOLICS
to
Questions Dealing with the Therapeutic Aspects of LSD Experience
Question- Percentage Of Subjects
- Normals (No.-32) Alcoholics (No.-20)
- Very Little None No Very Little None No
much answer much answer
43 60 25 6 3 50 35 15 0
48 50 12 37 0 45 30 25 0
59 34 23 37 0 35 30 35 0
22 78 22 0 0 65 25 10 0
2 90 6 3 0 80 10 10 0
52 72 9 16 3 50 30 15 5 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]