Introduction to the Symposium on Psychedelics and Psychoanalysis: A Conversation Long Overdue

ABSTRACT

By way of an introduction to a panel on psychedelics and psychoanalysis, the author recounts his young adult experiences with psychedelic drugs and how they forever influenced his perspectives on mental health and psychotherapy before there were conventions in our literature to ground his observations. The author’s experience foreshadows markers in research and clinical practice for which an evolving theoretical scaffolding is demonstrated in the articles that follow. The essay explores how neuroscience research on psychedelics suggests applications for psychotherapy, particularly as it can augment and deepen psychoanalytic treatment when used in the context of a long-term process. The author frames the use of psychedelics in relation to a theory of psychoanalytic play.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ This idea has arisen recently in relationship to the book I am currently writing, Psychoanalytic Play: Drama, Narration and Improvisation in Field Theory and Metapsychology.

² First Order Change can also involve resistive strategies of defenses and constraints of change especially when it begins to threaten the order of each participants’ character/narrative premises.

³ Second Order Change can also arise from trauma which involves the “assault of the unimaginable” – something subjectively incomprehensible thereby shattering the coherence and cohesion of one’s premises which underly the characters and their narrative.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Philip Ringstrom

Philip Ringstrom, Ph.D., Psy.D. is a Senior Training and Supervising Analyst and Faculty Member at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, in Los Angeles, California. He is a founding member of the Board of Directors of IARPP, and a member of the International Council of Self-Psychologists. He is on the editorial boards of Psychoanalytic Dialogues, Psychoanalytic Perspectives, and Psychoanalysis: Self and Context. He has published over 60 articles, chapters, and reviews and has presented at conferences all over the world. His book A Relational Psychoanalytic Approach to Conjoint Therapy (Routledge 2014) won the Goethe Award in psychoanalysis for 2014. He is currently writing a new book titled: Psychoanalytic Play: Dramatization, Narration, and Improvisation in Field Theory and Metapsychology.