9 ms·

Psychedelic drugs reduce depressive symptoms by helping people accept emotions

142 points by InInteraction 6y ago

Alex3917 6y ago
The headline is a pretty good summary of the situation. Although it might be more accurate to say that psychedelic drugs help people see the interconnectedness between good and bad things, which helps people come to terms with difficult experiences.
- steve_adams_86 6y ago
  For me, the ability to see that interconnectedness between good and bad largely results from a subdued reaction to how those things make me feel. I can think about it more, think about it differently than I normally would, rather than shut it out and carry on.
phoe-krk 6y ago
Accepting emotions in their whole shape and size as they are and occur is something that I've been struggling with (and am still struggling with) since childhood, especially since the way I've been brought up essentially repressed expressing or even exhibiting whole classes of emotional reactions. Psychotherapy works in my case, but is also long, painful, and tiring. Any kind of scientific (and legal) development in other means of helping in this matter will be beneficial for future people who will need to suffer less after prolonged psychological stress and/or trauma.
- loceng 6y ago
  MDMA-assisted psychotherapy to rapidly treat PTSD is being fast tracked by the FDA thanks to the efforts of MAPS.org
- OneGuy123 6y ago
  What did me a lot of good was reading these two books by Alice Miller which describe how childhood trauma caused by parents causes issues and why many modern psychiatrists still overlook this crucial issue, perhaps it might help you, it definitely helped me: Alice Miller: The Drama of the Gifted Child Alice Miller: The Body Never Lies
- sowbug 6y ago
  Working through personal issues with the help of psychedelic mushrooms will still be emotionally painful and tiring -- that's unavoidable with this kind of work -- but it's potentially not as long because you're communicating with parts of yourself at the speed of thought and shared context rather than with another person at the speed of speech. As for legality, if you have the means to visit certain US cities¹, you can try psychedelic mushrooms with less risk, as they have been decriminalized in those cities. They are still not legal, but the risk of legal consequences is smaller. ¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin_decriminalization_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin_decriminalization_i...
  - zozbot234 6y ago
    > but it's potentially not as long because you're communicating with parts of yourself at the speed of thought and shared context rather than with another person at the speed of speech. Insight meditation is another way of pursuing this, that does nicely side-step the issue of having to rely on "mushrooms" and illegal drugs.
  - pmoriarty 6y ago
    You can also pick your own. Only be sure to educate yourself thoroughly on how to identify them properly. Here is a fantastic starting point: [1] But this is just a starting point. It should be the start, not the end of your education. Remember: There are old mushroom hunters, and there are bold mushroom hunters. But there are no old, bold mushroom hunters. [1] - "Identifying North American Psilocybin Species" by Alan Rockefeller - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcL-7u80kjs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcL-7u80kjs
- zozbot234 6y ago
  > Any kind of scientific (and legal) development in other means of helping in this matter will be beneficial for future people who will need to suffer less after prolonged psychological stress and/or trauma. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equanimity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equanimity "The virtue and value of equanimity is extolled and advocated by a number of major religions and ancient philosophies." (Notably, the article does have in-depth sections on Eastern philosophies such as Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as Western thought including Stoicism and Epicureanism.)
- ShapesOfEmpathy 6y ago
  I wrote a book on how learning the different shapes of cognition can help people live more meaningful lives. You mentioned shapes, so here are my thoughts: Psychotherapy is difficult, but worthwhile. However, there are other psycho-technologies you can use. For example, many people resist meditation, but once they begin realizing the benefits, they end up changing their entire lives. Here is a new and unique, evidence-based technique: Emotional differentiation is a technology that you can employ on your own time. Naming emotions connects them to your cognition. The more connections we make between our emotions and cognition, the more effective we become. So, we don't just accept and process our emotions, we connect them and integrate them. They are telling us something, and it is good to get that information to our more nuanced and powerful cognitive center. In short, you accept them and you integrate them. www.robertstonehill.com
biophysboy 6y ago
Having taken psychedlics myself, it did a couple things for me: 1) gave me a better appreciation of my body - health, pain, stress, etc 2) helped me know what I enjoy most
- steve_adams_86 6y ago
  I’d echo that and add that it refreshes my perception of the otherwise mundane. This is extremely helpful in allowing me to reevaluate things, internal or external. I have a bad habit of being too sure of myself, often pessimistically, and I suppose in a way this does reduce depression as the study suggests. I find it lifts weights off, provides more optimism where it was missing and less pessimism where it wasn’t helpful. I’ve also seen it lead to trembling terror and nihilism in others so it’s very much a YMMV kind of thing.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
Drugs to repress emotions Drugs to accept emotions Drugs to create emotions
- genericone 6y ago
  It does sound a bit bleak. Are these drugs better or worse than the animalistic hormones locked in our bodies? Mature adults know how to handle the surging hormones that destroy teen emotions, maybe humans can learn to deal with drugs... but only with constant exposure, just the same as we've done in all our adolescence. I am in no way for or against such drugs, having not experienced any psychedelics or behavior control drugs in my entire life. Just a philosophical thought I had after I read your comment.
  - OneGuy123 6y ago
    I'd like to point out something: "Mature adults know how to handle the surging hormones...." This is not true for 99.99% of adults: proof: if adults would know how to control "hormones" they would never experience fear, doubt, anxiety,... Issue in most cases seems to be repressed childhood emotions.
    - zeendo 6y ago
      handle != control
    - genericone 6y ago
      I hope I will always be able to feel fear and doubt, and that no drug can steal that experience from me. Just as people who can't feel physical pain are in tremendous danger every moment of their life, without the ability to feel fear or doubt, you would also be ignorant of danger. Anxiety is another beast right? Anxiety is the negative reaction to fear and doubt. Lets leave adults out, mature individuals can handle small amounts of anxiety.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- 6y ago
wombatmobile 6y ago
From the research article: > We conducted a prospective cohort study utilizing an online convenience sample of individuals with plans to use a psychedelic. Participants were recruited via online advertisements shared through social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter), email newsletters, and online forums (e.g., Reddit). > Based on when they planned to use a psychedelic, individuals were sent emails at three key time points [i.e., 1-week prior to psychedelic use (baseline), as well as 2-weeks and 4-weeks post-psychedelic use] reminding them to complete the online surveys.
acituan 6y ago
Note that this study is not a controlled trial. It is measuring 358 people who already were going to use psychedelics, before and after their use. What is severely missing is any report on incidence of adverse reactions, especially since they have two subsamples, one within traditional contexts and other completely self administered, which I would guess have different strategies on handling those. Anyone who experienced a bad trip can attest that set & setting matters a lot, and psychedelic experiences are far from guaranteed to be curative. For example for people high in neuroticism psychedelics can cause challenging experiences which can increase neuroticism even further. We don't know if those populations were screened out, implicitly or explicitly. [1] [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5540159/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5540159/
- tempsy 6y ago
  "bad trip" can mean a lot of things - there are cases when people really freak out but there's others where it's a difficult trip because psychedelics force you to let go and confront things that you've pushed away or avoided
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  Thanks for linking the actual study. The selection bias in studies like these is massive. Including only people who actively planned to use psychedelics is a guaranteed way to bias your results toward people who are already true believers. People who voluntarily chose to seek out psychedelics, despite high legal consequences for doing so, are likely already convinced that the psychedelics will "work" for whatever goal they're trying to achieve. Selecting these people over the internet will only further concentrate the group toward people who enjoy discussing and researching this topic online. In short, they optimized the test group for maximum placebo effect. It's fascinating to watch how internet comments will quickly tear apart any study of prescription medication that has obvious sampling bias, lacks control groups, and relies on self-reported information gathered from internet surveys except when the study tells people what they want to hear. I'm all for the resurgence of proper, controlled research into psychedelics for treating mental health issues in conjunction with therapy. Let's get to the bottom of this and draw some scientific conclusions on the matter. However, questionable studies like this do more harm than good for the body of research. It may feel good to see studies that claim positive results, but the more we build the body of research on top of obviously flawed studies like this, the harder it is for serious researchers and lawmakers to take it seriously.
is_this_valid2 6y ago
> "The only way to handle danger is to face it. If you start getting frightened of it, then you make it worse; because you project onto it all kinds of bogeys and threats that don't exist at all. > [...] > The rule for all terrors is head straight into them. When you are sailing in a storm, you don't let a wave hit your boat on the side. You go bow into the wave and ride it. So in the same way, old folklore says, whenever you meet a ghost don't run away, because the ghost will capture the substance of your fear and will materialize itself out of your own substance and will kill you eventually, because it will take over all your own vitality. So then, whenever confronted with a ghost, walk straight into it and it will disappear." — Alan Watts Coping skills: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coping Defence mechanisms § Level 4: mature: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanisms#Level_4:_mature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanisms#Level_4:_ma...
ineedasername 6y ago
I don't think this sort of phenomenon is unique to psychedelics. Anti-anxiety drugs (Benzos) used carefully for extreme anxiety issues can help reduce anxiety to a manageable level. It gives a person the opportunity to learn to manage their anxiety that would be difficult when in an extreme state. Then reduce the dose, repeat the process, etc. I'll reiterate though: This needs to be a careful, deliberate process undertaken with both a pdoc to manage meds and a therapist to assist with coping skills, along with a close eye that the process is working rather than the drugs becoming a crutch. And it certainly won't work if the dose is high enough to eliminate anxiety instead reducing it. Totally masking negative emotions, be it depression, anxiety, mania, etc.... that should only rarely be an initial goal. Medication should help people reach a state where those things are manageable, and work from there. Long term medication is absolutely a necessary option, but should be an approach taken when problems have been shown to be recalcitrant to various treatment options designed to help a person overcome the root causes of their problems. I fully understand that such a goal is often not attainable though. I'm often frustrated by folks who say otherwise and espouse some cure-all like a keto diet or various supplements, or plenty of other such things. It's great if it works for a person, but they are, at their core, body-changing treatments themselves, and just like all medications for these issues, whether or not they work for a person is often hit or miss.

142 points by InInteraction 6y ago

The headline is a pretty good summary of the situation. Although it might be more accurate to say that psychedelic drugs help people see the interconnectedness between good and bad things, which helps people come to terms with difficult experiences.

steve_adams_86 6y ago
For me, the ability to see that interconnectedness between good and bad largely results from a subdued reaction to how those things make me feel. I can think about it more, think about it differently than I normally would, rather than shut it out and carry on.

phoe-krk 6y ago

Accepting emotions in their whole shape and size as they are and occur is something that I've been struggling with (and am still struggling with) since childhood, especially since the way I've been brought up essentially repressed expressing or even exhibiting whole classes of emotional reactions. Psychotherapy works in my case, but is also long, painful, and tiring. Any kind of scientific (and legal) development in other means of helping in this matter will be beneficial for future people who will need to suffer less after prolonged psychological stress and/or trauma.

loceng 6y ago
MDMA-assisted psychotherapy to rapidly treat PTSD is being fast tracked by the FDA thanks to the efforts of MAPS.org
OneGuy123 6y ago
What did me a lot of good was reading these two books by Alice Miller which describe how childhood trauma caused by parents causes issues and why many modern psychiatrists still overlook this crucial issue, perhaps it might help you, it definitely helped me: Alice Miller: The Drama of the Gifted Child Alice Miller: The Body Never Lies
sowbug 6y ago
Working through personal issues with the help of psychedelic mushrooms will still be emotionally painful and tiring -- that's unavoidable with this kind of work -- but it's potentially not as long because you're communicating with parts of yourself at the speed of thought and shared context rather than with another person at the speed of speech. As for legality, if you have the means to visit certain US cities¹, you can try psychedelic mushrooms with less risk, as they have been decriminalized in those cities. They are still not legal, but the risk of legal consequences is smaller. ¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin_decriminalization_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin_decriminalization_i...
- zozbot234 6y ago
  > but it's potentially not as long because you're communicating with parts of yourself at the speed of thought and shared context rather than with another person at the speed of speech. Insight meditation is another way of pursuing this, that does nicely side-step the issue of having to rely on "mushrooms" and illegal drugs.
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  You can also pick your own. Only be sure to educate yourself thoroughly on how to identify them properly. Here is a fantastic starting point: [1] But this is just a starting point. It should be the start, not the end of your education. Remember: There are old mushroom hunters, and there are bold mushroom hunters. But there are no old, bold mushroom hunters. [1] - "Identifying North American Psilocybin Species" by Alan Rockefeller - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcL-7u80kjs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcL-7u80kjs
zozbot234 6y ago
> Any kind of scientific (and legal) development in other means of helping in this matter will be beneficial for future people who will need to suffer less after prolonged psychological stress and/or trauma. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equanimity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equanimity "The virtue and value of equanimity is extolled and advocated by a number of major religions and ancient philosophies." (Notably, the article does have in-depth sections on Eastern philosophies such as Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as Western thought including Stoicism and Epicureanism.)
ShapesOfEmpathy 6y ago
I wrote a book on how learning the different shapes of cognition can help people live more meaningful lives. You mentioned shapes, so here are my thoughts: Psychotherapy is difficult, but worthwhile. However, there are other psycho-technologies you can use. For example, many people resist meditation, but once they begin realizing the benefits, they end up changing their entire lives. Here is a new and unique, evidence-based technique: Emotional differentiation is a technology that you can employ on your own time. Naming emotions connects them to your cognition. The more connections we make between our emotions and cognition, the more effective we become. So, we don't just accept and process our emotions, we connect them and integrate them. They are telling us something, and it is good to get that information to our more nuanced and powerful cognitive center. In short, you accept them and you integrate them. www.robertstonehill.com

biophysboy 6y ago

Having taken psychedlics myself, it did a couple things for me: 1) gave me a better appreciation of my body - health, pain, stress, etc 2) helped me know what I enjoy most

steve_adams_86 6y ago
I’d echo that and add that it refreshes my perception of the otherwise mundane. This is extremely helpful in allowing me to reevaluate things, internal or external. I have a bad habit of being too sure of myself, often pessimistically, and I suppose in a way this does reduce depression as the study suggests. I find it lifts weights off, provides more optimism where it was missing and less pessimism where it wasn’t helpful. I’ve also seen it lead to trembling terror and nihilism in others so it’s very much a YMMV kind of thing.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

Drugs to repress emotions Drugs to accept emotions Drugs to create emotions

genericone 6y ago
It does sound a bit bleak. Are these drugs better or worse than the animalistic hormones locked in our bodies? Mature adults know how to handle the surging hormones that destroy teen emotions, maybe humans can learn to deal with drugs... but only with constant exposure, just the same as we've done in all our adolescence. I am in no way for or against such drugs, having not experienced any psychedelics or behavior control drugs in my entire life. Just a philosophical thought I had after I read your comment.
- OneGuy123 6y ago
  I'd like to point out something: "Mature adults know how to handle the surging hormones...." This is not true for 99.99% of adults: proof: if adults would know how to control "hormones" they would never experience fear, doubt, anxiety,... Issue in most cases seems to be repressed childhood emotions.
  - zeendo 6y ago
    handle != control
  - genericone 6y ago
    I hope I will always be able to feel fear and doubt, and that no drug can steal that experience from me. Just as people who can't feel physical pain are in tremendous danger every moment of their life, without the ability to feel fear or doubt, you would also be ignorant of danger. Anxiety is another beast right? Anxiety is the negative reaction to fear and doubt. Lets leave adults out, mature individuals can handle small amounts of anxiety.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
6y ago

wombatmobile 6y ago

From the research article: > We conducted a prospective cohort study utilizing an online convenience sample of individuals with plans to use a psychedelic. Participants were recruited via online advertisements shared through social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter), email newsletters, and online forums (e.g., Reddit). > Based on when they planned to use a psychedelic, individuals were sent emails at three key time points [i.e., 1-week prior to psychedelic use (baseline), as well as 2-weeks and 4-weeks post-psychedelic use] reminding them to complete the online surveys.

acituan 6y ago

Note that this study is not a controlled trial. It is measuring 358 people who already were going to use psychedelics, before and after their use. What is severely missing is any report on incidence of adverse reactions, especially since they have two subsamples, one within traditional contexts and other completely self administered, which I would guess have different strategies on handling those. Anyone who experienced a bad trip can attest that set & setting matters a lot, and psychedelic experiences are far from guaranteed to be curative. For example for people high in neuroticism psychedelics can cause challenging experiences which can increase neuroticism even further. We don't know if those populations were screened out, implicitly or explicitly. [1] [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5540159/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5540159/

tempsy 6y ago
"bad trip" can mean a lot of things - there are cases when people really freak out but there's others where it's a difficult trip because psychedelics force you to let go and confront things that you've pushed away or avoided
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
Thanks for linking the actual study. The selection bias in studies like these is massive. Including only people who actively planned to use psychedelics is a guaranteed way to bias your results toward people who are already true believers. People who voluntarily chose to seek out psychedelics, despite high legal consequences for doing so, are likely already convinced that the psychedelics will "work" for whatever goal they're trying to achieve. Selecting these people over the internet will only further concentrate the group toward people who enjoy discussing and researching this topic online. In short, they optimized the test group for maximum placebo effect. It's fascinating to watch how internet comments will quickly tear apart any study of prescription medication that has obvious sampling bias, lacks control groups, and relies on self-reported information gathered from internet surveys except when the study tells people what they want to hear. I'm all for the resurgence of proper, controlled research into psychedelics for treating mental health issues in conjunction with therapy. Let's get to the bottom of this and draw some scientific conclusions on the matter. However, questionable studies like this do more harm than good for the body of research. It may feel good to see studies that claim positive results, but the more we build the body of research on top of obviously flawed studies like this, the harder it is for serious researchers and lawmakers to take it seriously.

is_this_valid2 6y ago

> "The only way to handle danger is to face it. If you start getting frightened of it, then you make it worse; because you project onto it all kinds of bogeys and threats that don't exist at all. > [...] > The rule for all terrors is head straight into them. When you are sailing in a storm, you don't let a wave hit your boat on the side. You go bow into the wave and ride it. So in the same way, old folklore says, whenever you meet a ghost don't run away, because the ghost will capture the substance of your fear and will materialize itself out of your own substance and will kill you eventually, because it will take over all your own vitality. So then, whenever confronted with a ghost, walk straight into it and it will disappear." — Alan Watts Coping skills: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coping Defence mechanisms § Level 4: mature: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanisms#Level_4:_mature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanisms#Level_4:_ma...

ineedasername 6y ago

I don't think this sort of phenomenon is unique to psychedelics. Anti-anxiety drugs (Benzos) used carefully for extreme anxiety issues can help reduce anxiety to a manageable level. It gives a person the opportunity to learn to manage their anxiety that would be difficult when in an extreme state. Then reduce the dose, repeat the process, etc. I'll reiterate though: This needs to be a careful, deliberate process undertaken with both a pdoc to manage meds and a therapist to assist with coping skills, along with a close eye that the process is working rather than the drugs becoming a crutch. And it certainly won't work if the dose is high enough to eliminate anxiety instead reducing it. Totally masking negative emotions, be it depression, anxiety, mania, etc.... that should only rarely be an initial goal. Medication should help people reach a state where those things are manageable, and work from there. Long term medication is absolutely a necessary option, but should be an approach taken when problems have been shown to be recalcitrant to various treatment options designed to help a person overcome the root causes of their problems. I fully understand that such a goal is often not attainable though. I'm often frustrated by folks who say otherwise and espouse some cure-all like a keto diet or various supplements, or plenty of other such things. It's great if it works for a person, but they are, at their core, body-changing treatments themselves, and just like all medications for these issues, whether or not they work for a person is often hit or miss.