4 ms·
If depression were so easy to treat it would hardly qualify as a mental illness. I think the purpose of the pleasant, relaxed setting was more to ensure the psi
by DFHippie 8y ago
If depression were so easy to treat it would hardly qualify as a mental illness. I think the purpose of the pleasant, relaxed setting was more to ensure the psilocybin had positive rather than negative effects on the participants. It's a precaution, like how in radiation therapy you point the radiation at the tumor rather than adjacent vital organs.
- marviel 8y agoSure, it makes sense --- but I think what your parent is trying to say is that a control would be fairly easy to implement --- just put some other people on the retreat and don't let them take anything.
- im3w1l 8y agoI think it would be better to put them on a separate retreat. Otherwise they could piggyback on the group dynamics of the people who took the psilocybin.
- marviel 8y agoGood point. Trying to equalize the retreats for time of year, weather, and other externalities could get tough. But with a big enough sample size maybe those features would be levelled out.
- adrianN 8y agoLet them take a placebo.
- JulianMorrison 8y agoOr a pleasant non-drug such as chamomile tea.
- marviel 8y agoYeah that would certainly be a better approach.
- ataturk 8y agoPeople are right to be depressed--the modern world is inhumane. Depression, in this context, is a feature, not a bug. It's like saying that Londoners were depressed during the the Blitz. Yeah, well... Anyways, taking drugs like psilocybin or pot or whatever isn't going to fix anything.
- adrianN 8y agoFrom what I heard it's not terribly hard to improve depression symptoms for a short time. Interventions with long-term effects are harder to come by.