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The following is an interview with Dr. Christian Elcock, an expert in the history and anthropology of psychedelics. His recent work illustrates new ways of thinking about the “bad trips” associated with hallucinogenic substances and psychedelic-assisted treatments.
Along with Professor Erika Dyck, another expert that I’ve interviewed on Psychology Today, you’ve recently published work that deals with psychedelic medicine and “Bummer Trips.” What is the main point of this article?
The premise is pretty straightforward and quite provocative—there is no such thing as an unequivocally bad trip or a bad reaction to a psychedelic experience. That’s the basis for the argument. We then went on to put this idea in historical context but the more we researched the more we realized that setting a boundary between good and bad psychedelic experiences was artificial and historically inaccurate. As many experimenters know, a trip is rarely a 10-hour joy ride with no ups and downs. Depending on the set, setting, purity and dosage of the drug, and the intention of the taker, there can be moments of deep introspection where unconscious material surfaces unexpectedly. This can be quite challenging and lead to anxiety bouts, even moments of panic. But that is part and parcel of the experience. The reason why many believed that an LSD trip could be an instant trip to Nirvana may have come from popularizers like psychologist Timothy Leary, but even Leary, more privately, resented this.
Conversely, we have also argued that a “bad trip” could have positive meaning ascribed to it in the aftermath. There is a vivid illustration in our article when we present the case of a young man who had a series of weird encounters in the mountains which culminated with his friends lobbing a tarantula into his tent while his head was still full of acid. He had these really graphic visions of the spider chewing up his vital organs but mustering his courage he managed to open the tent and throw it out. After coming down, he ascribed great meaning to this ordeal, even though he fully acknowledged that it was not an easy experience.
So that’s the core of the argument?
Not entirely. We then saw opportunities to take this further by looking at some fascinating cases drawn from medical history. For instance, we examined the work of psychiatrist Jan Bastiaans in the Netherlands. Bastiaans, who used LSD well into the 1980s, had specialized in the treatment of Holocaust survivors who were haunted by the atrocities of the Third Reich (there is some great footage of his treatment here) One of the patients had been tormented by nightmares for years and Bastiaans provided him with his version of LSD-assisted therapy to help him return to Auschwitz and find the cause of the affliction. This was never going to be an easy task and it took the subject several harrowing experiences to finally heal his trauma.
Another fascinating example is the therapeutic model of Mexican public health doctor Salvador Roquet, who had reasoned that the perennial human fear of death was the root of all forms of anxiety. Hence, Roquet purposefully subjected his patients to abuse and showed them violent and pornographic footage under the influence. This may seem crude, but some patients were allegedly better off after their trips.
How did this research and final work come to be?
I remember the first time I thought about this was back in the fall of 2011 (and that gives you an idea of how relieved I am to see this article finally published!), during a talk by Andrea Tone at the University of Saskatchewan. Tone was discussing the covert use of LSD during the Cold War and the casualties of this secret testing. I got on a train of thought and reasoned: what if bad trips were in fact good trips? I then remembered this really provocative article published by French anthropologist Patrick Deshayes on the ritual use of ayahuasca in the Amazon Basin, whereby the psychedelic plant brew was used to purposefully induce states of fear. But in that case, fear was used to keep the hunters on the edge and make them realize the precariousness of their existence. Fear could also have a productive role in certain ibogaine-based rituals in West Africa. So I thought what if this can be applied to Western drug use in or outside medical circles? I discussed this with Erika Dyck who immediately liked the idea and told me that she had material from research teams in Los Angeles and Saskatchewan that could illustrate this.
What are the lessons for the future, if any?
If you look at the contemporary and ongoing scientific research, you can see that the notion of bad trips is being called into question. A research team at Johns Hopkins recently devised a psychometric scale that is tellingly called the “Challenging Experience Questionnaire”—rather than, say, a “Bad Trip Questionnaire.” Most respondents to an online survey that used the CEQ claimed that in spite of the challenge they had found meaning in the aftermath of the “bad trip” and many contended that they would do it again even knowing that there could be difficult moments. Now, this was an online survey, which has its caveats, and this was conducted at a different period in time. But it does suggest some historical continuity.
And another point we make in our paper is that opponents to LSD and psychedelics (medical doctors and politicians) strategically exploited the states of fear, panic, and anxiety the drug could trigger to justify prohibition. The reason, I think, why research teams are attempting to question “bad trips” is that they are aware of the controversial past of these drugs and the public health issues of the 1960s. In this way, they are trying to wipe the slate clean. Between ardent proselytizers like Leary and prohibitionists claiming LSD has no medical value whatsoever, we have tried to point to a middle-ground by restating the obvious: if used properly and in the right context, LSD can be beneficial but the experimenter should bear in mind that the trips will not always be easy, and that confronting something difficult is not always bad.
References
Dyck, E. & Elcock, C. (2020). Reframing Bummer Trips: Scientific and Cultural Explanations to Adverse Reactions to Psychedelic Drug Use. The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs: An Interdisciplinary Journal.
