Can Drugs Be Used to Enhance the Psychotherapeutic Process?
Lester Grinspoon, MD & James B Bakalar (First printed in American Journal of Psychotherapy vol.XL, no.3: 393-404, 1986, as part of a longer article which extends into consideration of ecstasy (MDMA) in particular as a tool for therapy – Many MDMA patients have claimed a lasting improvement in their capacity for communication with others) The drug revolution that began 30 years ago has transformed psychiatry, but it has left little imprint on psychotherapeutic procedures themselves. We have used psychiatric drugs as adjuncts to psychotherapy, and psychotherapy as adjunct to psychiatric drugs. But efforts to make use of drugs directly to enhance the process of psychotherapy–diagnosing the problem, enhancing the therapeutic alliance, facilitating the production of memories, fantasies, and insights–have been very limited. In preindustrial cultures, however, there is an ancient tradition in which drugs are used to enhance a process of psychotherapeutic healing; and from 1950 to the mid-19
