3 ms·
Lately, I seem to be hearing a lot about drugs of the "psychedelic" variety being used to treat thugs like depression. psilocybin, DMT, MDMA, Ketamine. The thin
by netcan 13y ago
Lately, I seem to be hearing a lot about drugs of the "psychedelic" variety being used to treat thugs like depression. psilocybin, DMT, MDMA, Ketamine. The thing that jumps out at me is that they sound like / claim to be treatments in the way that antibiotics are rather than in the way painkillers are. IE, you go through treatment and get "cured."
Please correct me if I am wrong but as I understand it most medical treatments for mental illness is of the painkiller variety. It relieves symptoms while taken consistently and patients either stay medicated indefinitely or the illness runs its course while the effects are mitigated by the drug.
Are there any established treatments that we understand well of the antibiotics variety? Mental illnesses that are cured by a course of treatment rather than and indefinitely ongoing one.
- nemo1618 13y agoPsychedelics are certainly not drugs in the antibiotic sense; they don't seek out depression-causing neurons and cure them or anything remotely like that. Rather, psychedelic drugs offer a means for the user to "get out of their head" for a bit. In the right set and setting, the experience offers an opportunity for intense introspection. “Psychedelics probably work in addiction by making the brain function more chaotically for a period — a bit like shaking up a snow globe — weakening reinforced brain connections and dynamics.” It is the experience, not the drug, which causes a fundamental shift in attitude/mindset/worldview, and that is what "cures" the illness.