W. Richards

Abstract

The paper describes the results of a clinical study exploring the potential of a complex psychotherapeutic program utilizing psychedelic compounds to alleviate the emotional and physical suffering of cancer patients. A total of 60 cancer patients participated in this experimental study. In 44 of these patients, LSD (200-500 ug per os) was administered as an adjunct to psychotherapy; in 19 patients, a new psychedelic compound, dipropyltryptamine (DPT) was administered (60-105 mg i.m.). Three of these patients received both LSD and DPT administered on different sessions.

The therapeutic results were assessed by means of a rating scale reflecting the degree of the patients’ depression, psychological isolation, anxiety, difficulty in management, fear of death, and pain. The ratings were done by attending physicians, nurses, family members, LSD therapists and cotherapists, and independent raters. In addition, the amount of narcotics required in the management of the patient was measured before and after the psychedelic sessions.

Systematic rating was carried out in a group of 31 cancer patients treated by LSD. The comparison of the means of individual ratings from pre- to posttreatment showed significant improvement in all the measured parameters for most of the raters. There was a definite reduction of the narcotic medication; it did not, however, reach the level of statistical significance. The pre- to post-treatment comparison of the global indexes used as gross indicators of the degree of emotional and physical distress, indicated that approximately 29 % of the patients showed dramatic improvement, and another 41.9 % moderate improvement, with 22.6 % essentially unchanged. In 6.4 % of the patients, global indexes showed a decrement in the post therapy ratings.

Grof, S., Goodman, L. E., Richards, W. A., & Kurland, A. A. (1972). LSD-assisted psychotherapy in patients with terminal cancer. International pharmacopsychiatry, 8(3), 129-144.
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Abstract

The paper describes the results of a clinical study exploring the potential of a complex psychotherapeutic program utilizing psychedilic compounds to alleviate the emotional and physical suffering of cancer patients. A total of 60 cancer patients participated in this experimental study. In 44 of these patients, LSD (200-500 μg per os) was administered as an adjunct to psychotherapy; in 19 patients, a new psychedelic compound, dipropyltryptamine (DPT) was administered (60-105 mg i.m.). Three of these patients received both LSD and DPT administered on different sessions. The therapeutic results were assessed by means of a rating scale reflecting the degree of the patients’ depression, psychological isolation, anxiety, difficulty in management, fear of death, and pain. The ratings were done by attending physicians, nurses, family members, LSD therapists and cotherapists, and independent raters. In addition, the amount of narcotics required in the management of the patient was measured before and after the psychedelic sessions. Systematic rating was carried out in a group of 31 cancer patients treated by LSD. The comparison of the means of individual ratings from pre to posttreatment showed significant improvement in all the measured parameters for most of the raters. There was a definite reduction of the narcotic medication; it did not, however, reach the level of statistical significance. The pre to posttreatment comparison of the global indexes used as gross indicators of the degree of emotional and physical distress, indicated that approximately 29% of the patients showed dramatic improvement, and another 41.9% moderate improvement, with 22.6% essentially unchanged. In 6.4% of the patients, global indexes showed a decrement in the posttherapy ratings.
Grof, S., Goodman, L. E., Richards, W. A., & Kurland, A. A. (1973). LSD-assisted psychotherapy in patients with terminal cancer. International pharmacopsychiatry, 8, 129-144., 10.1159/000467984
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Abstract

INTRODUCTION: My own experience with Maria convinced me that the living can do a great deal to make the passage easier for the dyingJ to raise the most purely physiological act of human existence to the level of consciousness and perhaps even of spirituality.

Aldous Huxley wrote these words after being with his first wife as she died of cancer in 1955. During her final hours, he employed a hypnotic technique to remind her of spontaneous peak experiences she had known during her life, thereby seeking to guide her toward similar states of consciousness as the death process occurred. In his novel/sland, he describes a similar scene during the death of his character Lakshmi. Also in this novel, he writes of the “mokshamedioine” that gives inhabitants of the island a mystical vision that frees them from the fear of death and enables them to live more fully during their everyday lives. To those who knew Aldous Huxley and have read his works (Huxley, 1963a,b), there is no doubt that, in Huxley’s mind, £cmokshamedieine” was a psychedelic oompound similar to mescaline, psilocybin, and LSD. The seriousness with which he envisaged this futuristic scene is well portrayed by his second wife, Laura) in her description of Huxley’s request for LSD a few hours before he himself died of cancer in 1963 (Huxley, 1968).

 Richards, W., Grof, S., Goodman, L., & Kurland, A. (1972). LSD-assisted psychotherapy and the human encounter with death. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 4(2), 121-150.

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