Psychiatrist Answers Psychedelic Therapy Questions

I'm Professor David Nutt, psychiatrist,

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neuropsychopharmacologist, and brain scientist.

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I'm here today to answer your questions from the internet.

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This is Psychedelic Therapy Support.

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Apparently, magic mushrooms help combat depression.

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Well, it's hard to feel sad when you're in a knife fight

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That's not anything any of our patients have described,

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but I think what you're getting to is the fact

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that there is a conception of prejudice

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Psychedelics for depression do not work

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simply by giving people a good time.

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You know, you give people a really happy trip,

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They're not depressed anymore because they've had fun

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and then that depression will come back.

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The truth is, most of our patients,

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whether it's depression or anorexia or PTSD,

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because they are having to deal with the consequences

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and the reality of their mental illness,

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so it's actually quite insensitive to imply

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that they're just getting off their heads

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and having fun and getting better, because they're not.

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They're working through, often, very deep trauma.

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But the second thing to say is that the process

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of changing your experience of yourself during the trip

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they put people into a much better place

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so they can then use cognitive processes,

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psychotherapeutic…

Original source: https://www.wired.com/