First Study of LSD’s Psychotherapeutic Benefits in Four Decades Breaks a Research Taboo

Today The
Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease published results
from the first
study of LSD’s therapeutic potential in humans to appear in
more than four decades. The controlled, double-blind study, which
was conducted in Switzerland under the direction of Swiss
psychiatrist Peter Gasser, measured the impact of LSD-assisted
psychotherapy on 12 people with life-threatening diseases (mainly
terminal cancer). “The study was a success in the sense that we did
not have any noteworthy adverse effects,” Gasser
says. “All participants reported a personal benefit from the
treatment, and the effects were stable over time.”

Initially eight subjects received a full 200-microgram dose of
LSD while the other four got one-tenth as much. After two
LSD-assisted therapy sessions two to three weeks apart, the
subjects in the full-dose group experienced reductions in anxiety
that averaged 20 percent, as measured by the State-Trait Anxiety
Inventory, while the other subjects became more anxious. When the
low-dose subjects were switched to the full dose, their anxiety
levels went down too. The positive effects persisted a year later.
“These results indicate that when administered safely in a
methodologically rigorous medically supervised psychotherapeutic
setting, LSD can reduce anxiety,” Gasser and his colleagues
conclude, “suggesting that larger controlled studies are
warranted.”

One of Gasser’s co-authors, Rick Doblin, executive director of
the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS),

tells The New York Times the pilot study is “a proof
of concept,” since “it shows that this kind of trial can be done
safely, and that it’s very much worth doing.” Doblin, whose
organization sponsored the study,
says it “marks a rebirth of investigation into LSD-assisted
psychotherapy,” which was the subject of more than 1,000
scholarly articles before the drug was banned in the
1960s. 

One of the subjects, a middle-aged Austrian social worker
suffering from a degenerative spine condition, reports that
“my LSD experience brought back some lost emotions and ability to
trust, lots of psychological insights, and a timeless moment when
the universe didn’t seem like a trap, but like a revelation of
utter beauty.” He
tells the Times: “I will say I have been more
emotional since the study ended, and I don’t mean always cheerful.
But I think it’s better to feel things strongly—better to be alive
than to merely function.”

MAPS has more information on the study here.