Psychedelics Do Not Cause Mental Illness?

[NativeSpirit]

to claim that psychedelics are totally benign and risk-free is irresponsible. They definitely CAN promote good mental health (they got me out of a terrible chronic depression), but they are not without risks."

They did not claim this^ anywhere in the study.

Nathanial referred to the OP's claim, not the survey's :[/quote]

I never sayed that psychedelics were risk free i just stated what they wrote in the study. And also the headline of this post comes with a question mark so im not saying that they can't or won't cause mental problems. Everybody is talking about this underlying mental health popping up, and i just wanted to know if there was any research that refers to that. And also i didn't only search on dmt-nexus,erowid and the sites i wrote, those were just a few i named. I searched everywhere and didn´t find jack shit.

 

[NativeSpirit]

Hahah oops The Traveler added that question mark, my bad. But i never stated that they were risk free though.

:twisted:

 

[olympus mon]

I also met a girl at a fire-spinning festival who had been very religious, and then suffered a serious crisis of faith while on psychedelics. She claims that to this day that she cannot believe in God, and that her life is poorer because of it: he is less optimistic, more nihilistic, and way less outgoing. Perhaps another experience would help her, but prescribing psychedlics in that case seemed extremely callous.


~ND

Thats a paradigm shift not a mental illness in my opinion. Its also a pretty common understanding that these experiences cause massive changes in perception and is what most of us wish for.

I can relate to her in that my work with dmt especially removed any chance of believing in God but I see this a s good thing, or at least not a bad thing.

If her eyes were opened to understand that there is no God and this causes her such pain in life I would have to comment that there is a bigger problem there. Such as needing something to feel complete and happy rather then her own being. It sounds like she got what maybe she needed but has had problems integrating it fully and in a way that would benefit her. It just may not be what she wanted.

I have followed this thread a bit and it seems like people are talking, well now arguing, about different things. Psychedelics cause mental illness vs psychedelics can trigger existing mental illness. Big difference.

 

[The Neural]

Trying to completely negate this notion and claiming there are no data is outright irresponsible

Well, I think it is irresponsible to present a pretty strong statement about a causal relationship and then refuse to provide a proof (scientific literature?) to support the statement...

I did not present a "pretty strong statement about a causal relationship". There is no causal relationship, either in that "they do cause" nor that "they don't". All my beef was with the certainty that the statement "they do not" was presented. I hoped that it was clear, but apparently it was not.

... If you want to actually research this chain of the literature, please feel free to do it, there are many articles and reviews available on google scholar (if you don't have access to actual journals), I do not have the time to do the research for you

You don´t have time to support your statements by pointing to allegedly existing literature?

Well, OK... thank you for sharing your personal opinion on the topic.

I did not claim anything. I challenged the construct and internal validity of the survey.
Let's refer to it as a survey please. There is very little inferential power in the design of a survey.

I did make it clear that there is literature, but it seems you care more to prove someone wrong than go yourself and look for it, solely out of personal interest. I sense some antagonistic attitude in your last statements (and elsewhere), so I am going to leave it at that and let the thread carry on. The Traveler did what needed to be done (added the questionmark).

 

[The Neural]

I never sayed that psychedelics were risk free i just stated what they wrote in the study. And also the headline of this post comes with a question mark so im not saying that they can't or won't cause mental problems. Everybody is talking about this underlying mental health popping up, and i just wanted to know if there was any research that refers to that. And also i didn't only search on dmt-nexus,erowid and the sites i wrote, those were just a few i named. I searched everywhere and didn´t find jack shit.

Just so we are on the right track :

On your OP, you refered to the survey that it hints towards psychedelics not causing mental issues. Then you said that you hear that "they do" a lot from people. This is where the clash of opinions arose. People usually say (here and elsewhere) "refrain from using psychedelics if you have a pre-existing mental condition", not that "they do cause mental issues to individuals with no family history of mental illness".

We agree that in the majority of cases, these substances do not cause mental issues in healthy individuals, and this is what the survey looks out for. It's the rest of the OP's statements that brought out the confusion. I personally was surprised to read this :

I always read that people with depression or a history of mental ilnesses should not take psychedelics. That psychedelics would make the depression worse and could make underlying mental problems pop up. Everyone goes around saying this like its a fact. Therefore there is no validated data to back up these claims. It's like its a fake idea imprinted in their minds and they go on spreading it.

As Olympus mon correctly pointed out, these are two different statements. The survey is out to investigate if there is a correlation in the emergence of mental issues and use of psychedelics in the healthy population. But yes, it's a good start.

 

[Orion]

Titles like this get attacked a lot, but to be completely objective it's often hard without having an extremely long, uninteresting thread title.

Another thing, anecdotal reports aren't good enough. 'Yeah but I know this guy at this place that smoked X and was never the same again', without every detail we can't use this for anything. Most of the times these intense reactions are from taking too much too soon IME.

Also does this account for the HPPD I am experiencing right this instant and have 'suffered' (TBH I think it's sort of cool) for the past year, from a completely standard dose? Maybe it does not count because it was an RC (25I NBOMe).

I have an opinion though. Psychs can really help people convince themselves they are in direct contact with the big whisperer in the sky or that they should do really idiotic things. But as far as actually causing mental illness... hmmm.. I've never seen it personally, and the article here comes as no surprise.

 

[The Neural]

Another thing, anecdotal reports aren't good enough. 'Yeah but I know this guy at this place that smoked X and was never the same again', without every detail we can't use this for anything.

Most of the times these intense reactions are from taking too much too soon IME.

Isn't this "IME" an anecdotal report as well? What should we trust in the end?

 

[Orion]

Most of the times these intense reactions are from taking too much too soon IME.

Isn't this "IME" an anecdotal report as well? What should we trust in the end?

Heh, touche! But the reason I say this is because whenever a person has had an extreme reaction like this, and the report is anecdotal, we have no information of dosage etc, and I've never known anyone to go nuts on a small starter dose, and can't name anyone who knows of a time when this has happened. But here the nature of my statement is anecdotal yes. I hope this makes sense.

 

[The Neural]

^ Aye, agreed. We can all remember individuals (assumed neurologically intact without family history of mental illness) who took a dose of psychedelics and then (the next day) seemed to exhibit paranoid ideation. Certainly, others found their truth, others nothing, others resolved their personal issues etc. But there are always some who "seem" to be out of their minds so to speak. This observation needs to be examined in detail if we are to infer that psychedelics have the potential to permanently cause a mental condition.

We simply do not know yet. The survey was good to show some measures of residual after-effects in a clinical context (questions on hearing voices, hallucinations, world out to get me etc), but that does not mean that these questions can tell us that a user "did not experience any mental alteration". They certainly prod further research, which is positive.

There is a link between prolonged activation of specific circuits and neuronal parameter alteration, regardless of substance. Generally speaking, when we prolong the activation due to a specific situation (e.g. rape) that circuit (fear response circuit) may be altered to be triggered more easily (PTSD). There is absolutely no reason why a psychedelic substance may not fall in the same category and exert similar effects. Maybe duration of activation can hint towards safety (in regards to mental illness), meaning the shorter the duration the safer the substance. Btw, talking only about substances that do not induce significant organic damage, for which duration may be irrelevant.