spockman wrote:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4853640/ An article about the difficulties in deciding what to do in conditions (in this case depression) that have a high placebo response rate.
Things like psychedelics have such a dramatic effect one would think that perhaps the expectation created is high that they will work. So the expectations created alone may have a powerful effect.
Sometimes I see a patient for depression and they report feeling "all better" after a few days of anti-depressant. In those cases it shouldn't be the drug that fixed things.
My experience with psychedelics was that at least the first few times you take them they have a pretty profound effect on one's perspective. I could see how that opportunity could be used to possibly have an effect on someone with PTSD, anxiety (especially over end of life fears), depression, maybe addiction. I think most people are probably never quite the same after taking them but their effect does fade over time and while you may never forget the perspectives they can provide you do slowly drift back into every day humdrum existence.
I don't remember the experience of developing some sort of resolve to make changes in my life when I first took them that has occurred the last couple of times I've taken them, which has only been maybe once a decade for the last 20 or 25 years.