Overview

LSD's short but colorful history in North America carries with it the distinct cachet of counterculture and government experimentation. The truth about this mind-altering chemical cocktail is far more complex-and less controversial-than generally believed. Psychedelic Psychiatry is the tale of medical researchers working to understand LSD's therapeutic properties just as escalating anxieties about drug abuse in modern society laid the groundwork for the end of experimentation at the edge of psychopharmacology. Historian Erika Dyck deftly recasts our understanding of LSD to show it as an experimental substance, a medical treatment, and a tool for exploring psychotic perspectives-as well as a recreational drug. She recounts the inside story of the early days of LSD research in small-town, prairie Canada, when Humphry Osmond and Abram Hoffer claimed incredible advances in treating alcoholism, understanding schizophrenia and other psychoses, and achieving empathy with their patients. In relating the drug's short, strange trip, Dyck explains how concerns about countercultural trends led to the criminalization of LSD and other so-called psychedelic drugs-concordantly opening the way for an explosion in legal prescription pharmaceuticals-and points to the recent re-emergence of sanctioned psychotropic research among psychiatric practitioners. This challenge to the prevailing wisdom behind drug regulation and addiction therapy provides a historical corrective to our perception of LSD's medical efficacy.

Full Product Details

Author:   Erika Dyck (Professor, Tier 2 Canada Research Chair, Medical History and Graduate Director and and, University of Saskatchewan)
Publisher:   Johns Hopkins University Press
Imprint:   Johns Hopkins University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.431kg
ISBN:  

9780801889943

ISBN 10:   0801889944
Pages:   216
Publication Date:   10 November 2008
Recommended Age:   From 17
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

Table of Contents

"Preface Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Psychedelic Pioneers 2. Simulating Psychoses 3. Highs and Lows 4. Keeping Tabs on Science and Spirituality 5. Acid Panic 6. ""The Perfect Contraband"" Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index"

Reviews

Dyck combines archival materials, interviews, medical journal articles, and popular press accounts to create a reliable and original account of the rise and fall of psychedelic psychiatry, and of its central, tragic figure, Humphry Osmond... Her analysis is dead on. - David T. Courtwright, University of North Florida

Author Information

Erika Dyck is an associate professor of history at the University of Saskatchewan.

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