It's difficult to explain if you haven't had that kind of experience yourself, but one way to describe it is that psychedelics (some more so than others) open up a window that allows for change. You are no longer stuck in your old ways of thinking that you took for granted.

But the experiences themselves don't change you. You still need to put in the work to make the changes. You can certainly do this without a guide. But if you take these drugs recreationally without such intentions and without putting in hard work pre- and post-session, nothing much is going to happen in the long term. A guide will help you to get the most out of the experience (while also helping with trip safety).

It's not about whether you use psychedlics or not, it's about how you take them.

"It's not about whether you use psychedlics or not"

"without putting in hard work pre- and post-session, nothing much is going to happen in the long term"

Sounds a lot like cognitive bias to me. It's ultimately a placebo if you still need to put the work in. Ergo, you could achieve the same results even without taking it. It's attributing personal growth to a drug rather than to your own willpower to do something.

>Sounds a lot like cognitive bias to me. It's ultimately a placebo if you still need to put the work in.

If you take a doping pill to run faster, you still need to train and to expand heavy personal effort during the race. Is the doping pill "placebo"?

Heck, if you have leg surgery after an accident, depending on the type of surgery, you often need (and are advised by the doctor, and asked to take it up with physiotherapist and such) to put in personal work and exercize properly for months, to be able to walk and regain use of your leg again. Is the leg surgery placebo?

Or how about a debugger. It wont solve your problem automatically. You still need to write the program yourself, to look into different places, and to know how to find a bug etc. Is the debugger a placebo?

Needing to put personal work to get a result is not what's the distinction between a placebo and a drug.

A placebo is not that which is only effective when combined with additional personal effort (that can hold for any regular drug).

A placebo is a neutral drug that does nothing at all itself (it's just water, or some neutral powder or saline solution, etc) and it's effectiveness is all about the belief that it helps.

Besides, psychedelics (even assuming what they do have no bearing at all to getting better from depression, etc, an assumption with which research disagrees), have huge immediate effects on mental state when taken. So they're not neutral in the way a placebo is even on that account.

Logical fallacy of composition/division. My comment isn't being applied to all these other scenarios, it is being applied to the topic at hand—psychedelics.

There is no logical fallacy. Your original comment is just wrong. If psychedelics improve the outcome, they are still worthwhile even if the therapy is still needed and not a placebo. You are just misplacing the bar. The analogy to performance enhancing drugs is actually quite good.

> My original comment is my opinion.

Not at all. "The sky is blue, therefore dogs are green" is not an opinion but a statement, factually incorrect, and annoyingly incomprehensible.

The idea that you presented, that if something doesn't solve everything then it is useless is just not true. Maybe you should keep this in mind.

I never said it was useless.

Logical fallacy of non seguitur.

The logic of the comment should hold for any analogous scenario.

You either have to argue why one or all of the above analogies doesn't hold (what element is crucially different, so that the same counter-argument can't apply to your psychedelics argument), or to argue that the points made for those other things are wrong.

Except if you believe that you've discovered some unique logic that only applies to a single specific case.

I don't have to argue, period. An analogy is unnecessary. We are talking about psychedelics, not doping in sports.

My opinion: people are likely commonly capable of working through things without the use of psychedelics, and we are crediting the substance and not the human being.

I'm not anti-drugs by any stretch, just feel like a lot more research needs to be done before we can start stating things like they're facts. Can you otherwise disprove that it wasn't placebo effect and the individual wouldn't have otherwise figured it out without a placebo or with a sugar pill he was told was a microdose of psychedelics that would unlock the secrets of the universe?

Well, during victorian times people got through surgery without anesthetics. What's your point?

Not sure why you think studies aren't controlling for placebo? Although it's obviously notoriously hard with psychedelics.

Just to be clear: I agree that more studies are needed, just disagree with the rest of your statements.

That over time, through time-proven hypothesis, we arrive at a modern understanding of our biology and psychology.

So you openly admit that this is difficult to assess? That much we can agree on at least.

In fact I'd go a step further and say that it's not only difficult but impossible to assess since it's pretty easy for the test subject to discern whether he was given a placebo or not, especially considering that the benefits are suspected to come from the induced experience itself and not the drug as a substance in isolation.

You can't control if exercising is placebo either, can you? But the consensus is that it's physically and mentally beneficial. I don't think controlling for placebo is of great use here although it obviously has to be taken into account.

I’m not sure I agree, because people might put in the hard work without the psychedelic and not experience the benefit.

Michael Pollan’s “How to change your mind” talks about psychedelic studies where the more effective, longer lasting changes are seen by the people who had more “mystic” experiences.

It’s not just about good intentions, or just taking psychedelics, but seemingly priming your mind to use the psychedelics to (temporarily) change fundamental thought patterns.

By that definition, getting therapy is also a placebo. You could go to therapy "recreationally" without wanting to get better or work on yourself. But that's not going to help you. You still need to put in work. Does that make therapy a placebo?

I think the parent conflates "non placebo" with "fixes everything all by itself".

This doesn't really make any sense, just because you still need to put in the effort doesn't mean it isn't highly affective at making it much easier for an individual to direct that effort positively.

> Sounds a lot like cognitive bias to me. It's ultimately a placebo if you still need to put the work in.

Say without drugs 20% of the depressed population gets better, and with drugs 80% of them. Why would you call this 'placebo' (which is an entirely different topic), and from this word deduce that it is bad? Nonsense.

Did I say that it was bad? Nope.

Cars don't drive themselves just because you put fuel in the tank.

Just because you still have to physically drive from A to B and could theoretically find your way without a map does not make the map a placebo.

Where does that willpower come from though?

Placebo? Situation changing day-to-day? Diet? All kinds of variables. But in this particular scenario, likely placebo.

If I tell someone that a tablet will make them able to do something and it's just a sugar pill, they'll likely be able to do it. The blocking factor is usually a confidence issue.

Psychedelics, LSD in particular, see their major use being a party drug. Coming from a personal experience, many people decide the "trip" they want to go on way before the trip starts. I am pretty sure there are non-zero amount of people who regularly take psychedelics, but have never been on that kind of "trips" that instead of going deep into your own mind, they just enjoy EDM, a party, perhaps a hike, paint something, watch a movie, play some sports outside, play video games, etc.

Edit: I wanted to amend this to say I don’t think people should use psychedelics regularly, which I think my original comment below might imply. Lots of downsides to regular use, occasional (every couple years) seems to have little risk and some benefits in my experience. Original text below is unedited.

I dunno, if you regularly use lsd or mushrooms, you probably have had a “wow that was more than I wanted” experience, that means you had complete ego loss, had the veil of reality completely pulled back so you could “see” the arbitrariness of society and human interactions. Your embarrassing actions you have been deluding yourself about come crashing down around you. You sober up and you rationalize some of it away but there’s a big nagging thing in the back of your mind screaming “maybe you should stop doing ____”.

At least this has happened to me on a couple of occasions and has led to me apologizing to people, changing my default behaviors, etc. I am not a super introspective person so the kick in the head that psychedelics occasionally provide has allowed for some personality changes that were necessary and good.

As an adult I now recognize that these experiences could be beneficial as therapy with the right person to guide you through it, that most people probably don’t get the full benefit these occasional experiences provide by themselves. I didn’t think this while young and just partying (though did have a bit of woo woo collective consciousness mind expansion mindset). Anything other than the recreation aspects of it were me trying to justify why it was ok, and getting high a lot is generally not ok. I actually sobered up for rest of my life after a strong mushroom trip left me thinking I was wasting my life and going down the wrong path.

In short, there’s meat here, but of course with all these things there will be people riding a fad and making a buck, but bad usually tags along with the good in some amount.

> "trips" that instead of going deep into your own mind, they just enjoy [stuff]

Those are also not mutually exclusive, to be clear. Come for the dance, stay for the self-insight.

Not sure, but I have a friend who has plenty of experience with psychedelics, and he just had his first session of psychedelic therapy with ketamine (done by a medical professional trained to do it). After the session he said it was very different to anything he had done before and that he felt he made a ton of progress.

My guess is that the intention that you set before “the trip”, really impacts the experience and hence the results. As well as having a professional guide/sitter that knows how to guide you and create a therapeutic setting.

Buddy of mine recently did a two session psychedelic ketamine treatment with intensive pre and post-support therapy. The changes in his negative habits and ruminative thoughts were impressive. He had done LSD a few times, but he said the ketamine was a much more “safe” feeling experience.

I’ve been considering it myself, despite not being depressed or anxious, just to see what channels of growth it might open up.

where can you do these therapies?

USA directory here: https://www.askp.org/directory/

> is it the external guidance during the experience that really makes the difference?

That's what psychiatrists using psycho active drugs say: without proper stage setting and guidance, the experience can be terrifying and traumatic in itself. Remember, not everybody has good trips, especially not people dealing with depression and trauma.