Self-psychotherapy with psychedelics?

[troglodita]

Hi. I know one guy who has been struggling with some issues since he was 14 years old (and is now 30). He has been to several psychologist and psychiatrist over 10 years, and tried different medications, with little success. Apparently, he has one big trauma caused by the dead of his mother when he was only 1 year old and a half. Whatever the cause is, he is extremely introvert, has never had friends or girlfriends despite countless trials, he has a hard time finding life enjoyable, and now he is unemployed, although he has an university degree. He has never had suicidal tendencies or psychosis.

Lately, having tried all that common psychiatry has to offer, he has started reading about psychedelic psychotherapy. Stanislav Grof, The Secret Chief (www.maps.org/secretchief/sctoc.html), and others. Quickly, he arranged some sessions for himself in his room (he lives alone): eye covers, good music and no sitter. First with mushrooms, then LSD and then LSD+MDMA. Days later, he has noticed outstanding improvements in the ability to relate to others and the overall vital energy, to the point of crying of hope. But also, he has noticed that the deep fear/anxiety of what seems to be some deep trauma emerges when he lets his mind wander for a while or when he starts to be emotionally close with someone, in the same way that it emerged during the plateau of the LSD trip and during the comedown of the candyflip.

Overall, he is happy with the results, but he notices that he needs further improvement in order to function normally and be happy. But he wants to enjoy life, he would not like to mess himself up and he is not an expert in this. He is specially worried about the anxiety.

Has anyone self-treated like this or know someone who has? How did it go? What did you use and how? How many sessions, dosage, time between sessions?.

Also, if anyone knows therapists that know how to proceed with this, that would be helpful too for him.

I am sure he will be deeply grateful for all the info he can get from the people in the forum.


[TL;DR] Desperate extreme introvert with childhood trauma wants to heal himself with psychedelics but doesn't want to mess himself up.

 

[OriginalCrazyone]

I have seen this work in one person and miserably fail in another... even though many of us have experimented with our brain chemistry with various methods, and that is why we find ourselves together on this site, this is not a method I would recommend attempting. for one, you are using chemicals that in most cases are not fully understood how exactly they affect the change on the chemical structures of the brain. it is unknown the long term effects of even the one time use of these substances may have on your brain, or in some cases what you experiment with today may have effects genetically upon your future progeny that may not become evident for several generations. also, you may find yourself experiencing adverse effects from the experimentation, causing the problems with anxiety and depression to become worse, and the chemical alterations created through this experimentation would make normal therapies non effective on you, because they are unable to work the same on your altered brain and body chemistry...

tl;dr: I wouldn't, might make things worse and might make other methods not able to work, and screw your future kids up in the process

-OcO-

 

[embers_fading]

Effective psychotherapy has to be provided by a qualified professional. You can't just trip on some psychedelics and think that you're going to solve your problems that way. If this guy is dealing with traumatic past experiences he really shouldn't be self-administering powerful psychedelic chemicals, don't you think? You don't think it seems outlandishly odd and ridiculous in the least, the idea that a person can work through this sort of thing on his own by drug use and effectively heal oneself?

Maybe this guy just hasn't connected with the right therapist yet. Maybe medications might be best for him. Mucking about with drugs like this could end up causing far more problems for him. He should try healing himself through more conventional therapeutic routes. If he's had little success it could be due to the fact that he doesn't follow through with his therapy or appointments, or that he just has to keep trying.

 

[daytryptr]

What everyone else already said, with the additon of the hardest thing is not to look at yourself while tripping and see your flaws/shortcomings/issues, its integrating and actually changing your life to come to terms with that realization. Not doing so, can just make your problems worse. Why most people advocate tripping in a healthy state of mind only.


Unless you know what your doing, medicinal psychadelics for psycological self medication/treatment is risky, risky territory. Not untraversable, but lots of steep cliffs to fall of off in the path you seek.

 

[troglodita]

Some material to document the subject for the skeptics:
- The history of a psychotherapist that started using psychedelics and never looked back: http://www.maps.org/secretchief/sctoc.html
- A history of personal growth of a broker who chose to try Ayahuasca to change his life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0ommNRJeMQ

 

[daytryptr]

^^ one is trained to deal with psychological issues regarding psychadelic therapy, the other is relying on a shaman, with years of expirence and centurys of usage traditons, to make sure the amount of harm done, is less than the amount of healing.

On an individual basis, not coming from a medical psychology background, or taking part in a ceremony guided by someone very well expienced in the non-destructive usage of psychadelics, ie someone with a good # of trips under their belt and expirence on how to guide others having a rough ride through it unscathed, i personally think its very risky.

Hence, where the shamans/psychologists/therapists come in. They know how to handle the rough waters, to a degree. At least moreso than your average person. No one is trying to disprove what you propose is possible, just that theres a very real risks you have to consider when trying to conduct self-psychotherapy w/ psychadelics solo, or without adequate expirence/information on the practice.

Its not an idea that is inherently bad or risky, theres just people who have been led astray doing so, or possibly may have a medical psychology background weighing in on the risks involved.

Psychadelics are just catalysts. Tools of various utility. In the right hands they can help with the difficult task of psychological/emotional issues. In the wrong hands, they can cause more damage.

 

[troglodita]

Yes daytryptr, I put the info for everybody to read in general, for the people with a more traditional view. All you say seems logical. The problem for the guy of the original post is finding someone who works with this stuff and knows what he is doing...

 

[herbavore]

^if the guy in the original post is in fact you will you please change this into the first person? Using a mythical third person takes away from genuine discussion. (If it isn't then just ignore that request.) Since using psychedelics therapeutically is illegal in most countries, practitioners that may want to use this method have to be extremely clandestine or risk losing their careers, not to mention, incarceration. Also, you will not find specific information here on Bluelight as that would be considered sourcing which goes against Bluelight policy.

The discussion of self treatment is fine and certainly within the interests of harm reduction, but be careful of asking for information about where to find practitioners of what is (unfortunately IMO) an illegal activity.

 

[cook]

No. The issue is caused by lost contact to his mom at very early age and the only way to "fix" it is through another contact. Psychedelic therapy might work, but the contact is the main driver there not the drug itself. Self medication with psychedelics will not work, it will only dig him/you deeper.

However, psychedelics may give rise to spirituality which can be used as a coping mechanism. But they should not be used to address the issue itself, at least not alone and without proper guidance. It's too bad that the research of psychedelics has been halted for so long, i'm sure they would have therapeutical value when administered by professionals. Actually the whole self-psychotherapy is paradoxical, because the basis of psychotherapy is the contact to another person.

Psychedelic therapy yes, self medication no.