SPEAKERS

The career of LSD in psychotherapy began when US and German psychiatrists published findings on low-dose serial sessions in 1950. Thereafter, low-dose psycholytic therapy was developed by European psychotherapists. In the US, psychedelic therapy, with the use of a few personality-transforming high dose sessions, became prominent. Even though therapeutic work was nearly stopped since the 1960s, psycholytic therapy was still in use in some European locations until the 1980s (e.g. Denmark, Netherlands, Germany Czechoslovakia). Psycholytic therapy differs from psychedelic therapy in respect to conceptual foundation, techniques and mechanisms of action. It has been used more than psychedelic therapy, but became a neglect since research with high-dose psychedelic therapy offered proof for positive effects in a shorter, easier to conduct and cheaper way. The lecture provides an overview of the development and features of psycholytic therapy. It includes research on psycholytic treatments the author has conducted with the late Professor Hanscarl Leuner (1922-1996), a European authority on psycholytic therapy.