Psychedelic Psychotherapy
“The whole life of the individual is nothing but the process of giving birth to himself; indeed, we should be fully born when we die — although it is the tragic fate of most individuals to die before they are born.”
— Eric Fromm
As an alternative treatment for alcohol and drug addiction, psychedelic psychotherapy has proven to be far more effective than conventional treatment methodologies. In Dr. Krupitsky's studies, Ketamine Psychedelic Therapy (KPT), patients who used Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy as part of their alcohol addiction treatment program maintained an alcoholism recovery rate of nearly 70 percent after one year.
The technique of psychedelic psychotherapy has evolved as a specialized procedure with the goal of inducing an ego-dissolving transpersonal peak experience. Also known as a transcendental, mystical or spiritual experience, a peak experience is an ecstatic state characterized by the dissolution of boundaries between the self and external reality, with intense feelings of unity with humanity, nature, the universe and God.
This method generally involves one or two sessions with an entheogenic agent and depends on set, or expectations, and setting, or environment. The entheogenic substances themselves are not the healing agents, but are adjuncts to the psychotherapeutic process involved in the alcohol addiction treatment program itself.
Alternative Addiction Treatment with Entheogens
The most intensive clinical studies of psychedelic psychotherapy (or "entheogenic" psychotherapy) were done in the United States and Europe from the early 1950s through the early 1970s. During that time, more than 40,000 human subjects, both mentally healthy volunteers and psychiatric patients, received LSD, psilocybin and mescaline in scientific research. More than 1,000 clinical studies, medical reports and literature reviews have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals demonstrating that psychedelic psychotherapy is effective as an alternative alcohol and drug addiction treatment approach.
The same studies also demonstrate that this technique is highly effective in the treatment of patients with addiction to narcotics, neurotic disorders, psychosomatic illnesses, depression and personality disorders, as well as death anxiety in individuals dying from cancer or other incurable diseases.
The psychiatrist, Stanislav Grof, M.D., has developed the most comprehensive theory of psychedelic psychotherapy. He believed that a therapeutic experience of a symbolic death and rebirth of ego allowed clients to work through their deep traumatic fixations in the psyche, or unconscious mind. Dr. Grof designed a specific psychotherapeutic approach and applied psychedelic psychotherapy successfully with more than 750 patients. He discouraged his clients from analyzing their psychological problems or clinical symptoms. Instead, he assisted patients in transcending their inflexible maladjustive patterns.
Dr. Grof placed a strong emphasis on the growth potential of his clients and devised a way to enhance this process. He summarized his psychotherapeutic approach in the comprehensive textbook entitled LSD Psychotherapy. We at Eleusis have adapted his recommendations and incorporated entheogen-enhanced psychotherapy into our alternative alcoholism treatment center to help our patients achieve stable alcohol addiction recovery.
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