from the Newsletter of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic
Studies
MAPS - Volume 4 Number 4 Spring 1994
National Institute of Mental Health Study :
Hallucinogens and Antidepressants
Dr. Katherine Bonson
Request for volunteers
If you have taken LSD or similar hallucinogens while you were taking
physician-prescribed antidepressant medication, Dr. Katherine Bonson at
the National Institute of Mental Health would like to interview you about
your experiences. All you have to do is answer a series of detailed
questions about the antidepressant drug you were on (name, dose, length of
time you had taken it), your drug history, which hallucinogen you had
taken and what your response was to the hallucinogenic drug. We are
particularly interested in any qualitative changes that you might have
noticed in the hours after taking the hallucinogen as well as in the days
following your hallucinogen use.
We want to emphasize that all contact with us is completely confidential.
No one has to give a real name a unique pseudonym is fine as long as we
have a phone number or address of a friend we can contact you through. We
can also give you the questionnaire directly over e-mail, too.
This retrospective study is being conducted primarily to investigate the
underlying biochemical interactions that occur when hallucinogens and
antidepressants are taken concurrently. This will hopefully advance our
understanding of the mechanisms of action of both kinds of drugs being
studied. We have been finding that the response a person has to a
hallucinogen can be greatly altered by antidepressants, dependent on the
particular class of antidepressants that had been taken. Although we don't
want to give out specifics of what weve been finding at this point to
avoid influencing the responses of anyone who replies to our request for
volunteers, everyone who completes the questionnaire will be given a full
update of our results. For those of you who are interested, but have no
personal experience to relate, we will give a brief report in the next
MAPS newsletter of our findings. The initial data of our study is also in
the process of being written up for publication and will be presented at
the Serotonin Club conference this summer in Chicago.
Please contact:
Dr. Katherine Bonson
e-mail: kbonson@earthlink.net
Of note...
The current issue of the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs (Jan-Mar 1994)
includes a lengthy overview article by Tom and June Riedlinger,
Psychedelic and Entactogenic Drugs in the Treatment of Depression. The
article is intended less for the "converted" than to capture the
interest of mainstream psychotherapists, with emphasis on MDMA
psychotherapy. The article also discusses Dr. Stanislav Grofs
psychotherapeutic methods using both psychedelics and breathwork.