With "How to change your mind", take a trip with Michael Pollan
Based on the psychedelic therapy book, a new Netflix docu-series has prompted another writer to reach out to Pollan — and dig into his own experiences.
In late 2012, bestselling author and journalist Michael Pollan ("The Omnivore's Dilemma") was at a dinner party in Berkeley, California. Among his guests was a prominent developmental psychiatrist, in his sixties, who spoke at length about a recent LSD trip. That made Pollan's ears prick up.
His first thought, as he shared in a recent video interview: "People like what< /em> do you take LSD?" The psychiatrist went on to explain that the drug has given him a better understanding of how children think. , LSD in this case, gives us a fore -tasting what child consciousness would be like - that kind of 360 degree absorption of information, not particularly focused, fascinated by everything."
Pollan had already heard of clinical trials in which doctors gave psilocybin to cancer patients to help them manage their fear of death. Now he was really curious about psychedelic therapy. This curiosity became an article in The New Yorker ("The Trip Treatment", 2015). The article became a book, "How to change your mind" (2019).
And now the book has become a four-part Netflix series of the same name, which debuted on Tuesday. Pollan serves as an executive producer (along with Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney) and primary on-camera presence. on accounts of their centuries-old sacramental use and their difficult history in modern society, particularly in the United States. In particular, it focuses on four substances - LSD, mescaline, MDMA (known as ecstasy or molly) and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) - and how they are used. to treat patients with diseases, especially post-traumatic. stress disorder, addiction, depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
One such patient is Lori Tipton, a New Orleans woman who endured a series of Job-fortune type illnesses. Her brother died of an overdose. Her mother murdered two people and then killed herself; Tipton found the bodies. She was raped by an acquaintance. Unsurprisingly, she developed severe PTSD.
"I really felt like I couldn't access the joy in my life, even when it was right in front of me," Tipton said in a video interview. She constantly thought about suicide. When she heard about a clinical trial on MDMA, organized in 2018, she thought she had nothing to lose.
I can relate to some of that. A few years ago, I was diagnosed with PTSD and clinical depression after my life partner, Kate, was diagnosed with terminal brain disease and died about 18 months later in 2020. I n didn't have much interest in living. Running out of options, my doctor prescribed me a weekly regimen of esketamine, which is a close relative of the dissociative hallucinogen ketamine.
Like many, I had experimented with hallucinogens, including mushrooms and LSD, in my youth. I was partying, I wasn't looking. I never planned to go back. But the treatment started helping me almost immediately.
Pollan, 67, doesn't...
Based on the psychedelic therapy book, a new Netflix docu-series has prompted another writer to reach out to Pollan — and dig into his own experiences.
In late 2012, bestselling author and journalist Michael Pollan ("The Omnivore's Dilemma") was at a dinner party in Berkeley, California. Among his guests was a prominent developmental psychiatrist, in his sixties, who spoke at length about a recent LSD trip. That made Pollan's ears prick up.
His first thought, as he shared in a recent video interview: "People like what< /em> do you take LSD?" The psychiatrist went on to explain that the drug has given him a better understanding of how children think. , LSD in this case, gives us a fore -tasting what child consciousness would be like - that kind of 360 degree absorption of information, not particularly focused, fascinated by everything."
Pollan had already heard of clinical trials in which doctors gave psilocybin to cancer patients to help them manage their fear of death. Now he was really curious about psychedelic therapy. This curiosity became an article in The New Yorker ("The Trip Treatment", 2015). The article became a book, "How to change your mind" (2019).
And now the book has become a four-part Netflix series of the same name, which debuted on Tuesday. Pollan serves as an executive producer (along with Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney) and primary on-camera presence. on accounts of their centuries-old sacramental use and their difficult history in modern society, particularly in the United States. In particular, it focuses on four substances - LSD, mescaline, MDMA (known as ecstasy or molly) and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) - and how they are used. to treat patients with diseases, especially post-traumatic. stress disorder, addiction, depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
One such patient is Lori Tipton, a New Orleans woman who endured a series of Job-fortune type illnesses. Her brother died of an overdose. Her mother murdered two people and then killed herself; Tipton found the bodies. She was raped by an acquaintance. Unsurprisingly, she developed severe PTSD.
"I really felt like I couldn't access the joy in my life, even when it was right in front of me," Tipton said in a video interview. She constantly thought about suicide. When she heard about a clinical trial on MDMA, organized in 2018, she thought she had nothing to lose.
I can relate to some of that. A few years ago, I was diagnosed with PTSD and clinical depression after my life partner, Kate, was diagnosed with terminal brain disease and died about 18 months later in 2020. I n didn't have much interest in living. Running out of options, my doctor prescribed me a weekly regimen of esketamine, which is a close relative of the dissociative hallucinogen ketamine.
Like many, I had experimented with hallucinogens, including mushrooms and LSD, in my youth. I was partying, I wasn't looking. I never planned to go back. But the treatment started helping me almost immediately.
Pollan, 67, doesn't...
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