Could an Acid Trip Cure Your OCD?

Research into the benefits and psychophamacological uses of hallucinogens is finally being allowed again, and the range of uses is quite remarkable. This article is from Discover.

Could an Acid Trip Cure Your OCD?

Researchers are again using mind-bending drugs as a means of treating mental disorders.

by Linda Marsa

Peyote Cactus

Lou Genise, a compact man with a shorn head and Fu Manchu mustache, sat propped up on a mattress in a hospital room tucked away on the fifth floor of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. Wearing an eyeshade and listening to music through a headset, he was oblivious to the two psychiatrists sitting nearby, quietly monitoring his every move.

Worry and nausea had been the 37-year-old performance artist’s constant companions during his treatment for metastatic colon cancer that was diagnosed a year earlier. Yet the shroud of negativity lifted under the influence of psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in the hallucinogenic mushrooms used in sacred Native American rituals.

Early one morning last July, Genise had taken a little white capsule containing the psychedelic as part of a medically supervised study to test whether it could ease the mental anguish of people with terminal cancer. He had checked into the hospital the afternoon before, and Charles Grob, the UCLA psychiatrist who is conducting the study, reviewed with him the issues he wanted to confront. Genise said he had developed a Pavlovian aversion to hospitals after all he had been through and would get nauseated in anticipation of getting treatment. He was also having trouble accepting his separation from a former girlfriend, who had come to Los Angeles to care for him when he fell ill.

“I had dealt with the big, earth-shattering problems, but the day-to-day anxieties were the hard part,” Genise recalled five months later, sipping tea in his home in the L.A. neighborhood of Echo Park. “But following the session, I had two startling epiphanies. First, here I was in a hospital having a pleasurable experience, which immediately cured my anxieties. And it suddenly clicked in my head that I didn’t need to cling to my ex. It was a spectacular experience, because in a short time I was able to work through some serious issues on a very deep level.”

At a handful of sites across the country, after a four-decade hiatus, psychedelic research is undergoing a quiet renaissance, thanks to scientists like Charles Grob who are revisiting the powerful mind-altering drugs of the 1960s in hopes of making them part of our therapeutic arsenal. Hallucinogens such as psilocybin, MDMA (better known as Ecstasy), and the most controversial of them all, LSD, are being tested as treatments for maladies that modern medicine has done little to assuage, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, drug dependency, obsessive-compulsive disorder, cluster headaches, and the emotional suffering of people with a terminal illness.

While Grob’s study is not complete—he has tested 11 out of a projected 12 volunteers—patients seemed to have positive experiences. “No one had a bad trip, and most derived some benefit,” he says. “It lowered their anxiety, improved their mood and disposition, and imbued them with a greater acceptance of their situation and capacity to live in the moment and appreciate each day.”

Other early test results are equally encouraging. University of Arizona scientists recently fed psilocybin to nine volunteers whose obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) was so disabling that many could not hold down a job or leave the house; they would observe elaborate cleaning rituals or shower for hours until they felt comfortable. Conventional treatments such as psychotherapy and medication had failed. In each of the nine patients in the study, psilocybin drastically diminished or melted away their compulsions for up to 24 hours, and several remained symptom-free for days.

In another ongoing study, psychiatrist Michael Mithoefer of Charleston, South Carolina, is testing MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine) on people suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including rape victims and Iraq War veterans who have not gotten any relief from conventional treatments such as antidepressants and therapy.

PTSD is normally triggered by a terrifying incident—combat, childhood sexual abuse, physical abuse, a serious accident, rape, or a natural disaster—in which people feel their lives are in danger but are powerless to defend themselves. Sometimes PTSD can be triggered by growing up in a harrowing environment where a child is at the mercy of a cruel parent or parental figure. To survive such horrific circumstances, sufferers often numb themselves to their pain. The cornerstone of PTSD treatment involves reliving the trauma in a way that enables patients to process their fears in a rational way. But by definition, revisiting the experience can be frightening, and people often become locked in the grip of intense anxiety.

The drug MDMA, a chemical cousin of mescaline and methamphetamine, can kindle intense euphoria or sublime seren­ity, creating a calming therapeutic environment in which to revisit trauma. Eighteen out of a projected 21 patients in Mithoefer’s study have already been treated, and in many cases just two sessions dramatically diminished symptoms, which is remarkable because PTSD in this group of subjects has been resistant to other types of treatment.

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Tags: Psychology, hallucinogens, brain, research, Discover, LSD, peyote, MDMA, PTSD, psilocybin, OCD