Scott J Hill, In Appreciation for Dr. Ronald Sandison, MAPS bulletin, 2010 vol XX, Nr. (original) (raw)
Related papers
Confrontation with the Unconscious: Jungian Depth Psychology and Psychedelic Experience, 2013
""In this book I draw on psychedelic research, a wide range of personal psychedelic experiences, and C. G. Jung’s work on trauma, the shadow, psychosis, and transformation—including Jung’s own “confrontation with the unconscious”— to show the relevance of Jung’s penetrating insights to the work of Stanislav Grof, Ann Shulgin, and many other psychedelic researchers. I also demonstrate the great value of Jung’s insights for understanding difficult psychedelic experiences and promoting safe and effective psychedelic exploration and psychotherapy. This book is the result of years of scholarly research (including a Ph.D. dissertation) under the guidance of some of the world's leading experts in psychedelic and transpersonal studies. My research was motivated by my need to understand my own psychedelic experiences, especially the difficult ones. Praise for the Book: “A landmark study … timely, impeccably researched, and wisely conceived.” — Sean Kelly, author of Individuation and the Absolute: Hegel, Jung, and the Path Toward Wholeness “A perceptive and creative interface between the thought of Carl Jung and contemporary psychedelic research, now in its rebirth, by a scholar who skilfully articulates a profound comprehension of both realms of knowledge.” — William A. Richards, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, co-designer and principal monitor for Johns Hopkins’ study on psilocybin-induced mystical experiences “The Jungian insights Dr. Hill provides here are invaluable for clinicians working with acute psychedelic crises and the integration of difficult psychedelic experiences. They also shed light on the robust archetypal dynamics of all psychological transformation.” — David Lukoff, Co-President of the Association of Transpersonal Psychology and co-author of the DSM-IV category Religious or Spiritual Problem “Scott Hill’s brilliant book presents a sophisticated analysis of how psychedelic experiences may be understood from the standpoint of Jung’s archetypal psychology.” — Ralph Metzner, author of The Unfolding Self, and other books, including The Psychedelic Experience (with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert) "Dr. Scott Hill has written a big book about a thorny subject and I, for one, amextremely grateful, though my few words scarcely do it justice. Speaking as aseeker after consciousness, it is about time that someone called our attentionback to the potential value of the psychedelic experience as a bona fide agent inpersonal transformation. And speaking as a Jungian analyst, it is about timethat serious consideration of and openness to it should replace the quick judgment and summary dismissal I witnessed so long ago." – Stephen A. Martin, Jungian analyst and President Emeritus and Co-Founder of the Philemon Foundation "The wisdom in this book offers hope that we can heal the psychological wounds and political divisions of the past, objectively assess the benefits as well as the risks of psychedelics, and move toward a more informed and mature application of these valuable substances." — Rick Doblin, Ph.D., executive director, MAPS
Acid redux: revisiting LSD use in therapy
Recently the use of hallucinogens in therapy has resurfaced in clinical research. Decades after dismissing Timothy Leary for his experiments, Harvard approved clinical trials using psilocybin (mushrooms) in therapy with terminally ill patients. This article reevaluates the research on LSD as a therapeutic element. A re-assessment of the earlier legal research on hallucinogenic therapy reveals both limitations to and the possible utility of these therapies. In this article I focus primarily on three cases: Stanislav Grof's work with LSD psychotherapy in a Freudian framework; research at the Mendota Mental Health Center on psychedelic therapy for alcoholics; and Harriet Whitehead's discussion of Scientology auditing and Piagetian schemata. This article is divided into three sections: a review of sociological and pharmacological perspectives on psychedelic drugs; a discussion of therapies using LSD during the 1960s and 1970s; and an evaluation of this research in light of intellectual developments in the understanding of cognition. While early enthusiasm about the benefits of hallucinogenic therapy was overstated, LSD may still have some utility in therapy when combined with other elements of therapy.
British Journal of Psychology, 2018
Jones's authority as a historian and psychoanalyst and chips away at his skills as a 'mythmaker, propagandist and rhetorician' (p. 12). Crucially, Kuhn places the early history of psychoanalysis within the diverse work of a new generation of 'Mind Healers' and psychotherapists and therefore provides a wider frame of reference. Indeed, he shows the sheer diversity and various trends of psychotherapy which existed at the time but have since mostly been forgotten. In the different chapters, Kuhn diligently disputes Jones's claims to having had a key pioneering role in the introduction of Freudianism in Britain and demonstrates Jones's conscious efforts at selfglorification at the expense of marginalizing or ignoring the contributions of others who had read Freud's writings earlier. Importantly, it was Sigmund Freud himself who credited not Jones, but rather David Eder, a socialist and early Zionist follower as 'the first and for a time the only doctor to practice the new therapy [of psychoanalysis] in England' (p. 3). Kuhn provides a revisionist narrative to Jones's account showing how increasing numbers of physicians and psychiatrists started practising psychoanalysis. By 1911, for example, Freud and psychoanalysis had become an important topic of discussion in local, divisional, and national meetings of diverse medical societies. Crucially, these discussions did not involve wholesale negative reactions to Freud. Kuhn, as well as several other scholars, finds no evidence to support the claims advanced by Jones that there was considerable and fierce resistance to the Freudian emphasis on the sexual theory of the neuroses (p. 287). For the majority of physicians interested in the subject, practical issues and the question of the feasibility of employing psychoanalysis in general, and in asylum practice in particular, were far more important. Kuhn reminds us of the work of some early practitioners of psychoanalysis such as
The History of Psychedelics in Psychiatry
Pharmacopsychiatry
Initial interest in the value of psychedelic drugs (“psychotomimetics”) in psychiatry began in the early 20th century, with explorations of the possibility that mescaline or peyote could produce psychosis-like effects. Over time, interest was focused on whether the effects of psychedelics could inform as to the underlying basis for psychiatric disorders. As research continued, and especially after the discovery of LSD in 1943, increasing interest in a role for psychedelics as adjuncts to psychotherapy began to evolve and became the major focus of work with psychedelics up to the present day.