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Paper short abstract

This paper analyses 115 Scottish psychedelic user narratives of psychological transformation. Many described growth, insight and connection - but others spoke of underwhelm, trauma, or cultural estrangement - pointing to the difficulty of integrating a new sense of self in an unchanged social world.

Paper long abstract

Psychedelics are powerful, ancient mind-altering substances of indigenous cultural significance. In contemporary, rationalistic contexts, they are emerging as a potential treatment for mental ill health. Yet questions remain about how psychedelic-induced psychological change is experienced by users.

Recent literature highlights the importance of connection as a meta-theme and identifies social disconnection as a potential form of harm; however, this remains poorly understood. This work focuses on the personal narratives of individuals and how they experience psychological change as a result of meaningful psychedelic experience. Reflexive Thematic Analysis was used to examine 115 open-text participant responses, part of the PENS dataset.

Participants were found to experience psychedelic-induced psychological change through: (a) enhanced connectedness, (b) new perspectives on the self, (c) new perspectives on circumstances and relationships, (d) contextual and elusive insight, and (e) underwhelm and adversity (including a notable subtheme of ‘cultural estrangement’).

Connectedness was regarded as highly significant, and the development of new perspectives was interpreted more broadly as indicative of enhanced psychological flexibility. The theme of cultural estrangement suggests a role for value discrepancies, and may help explain one aspect of social disconnection — where individuals struggle to integrate their experience of a renewed sense of self with an unchanged social world. Whether the struggle to integrate the psychedelic experience might one day constitute a narrow clinical side effect or hold capacity for wider iatrogenic harm raises salient questions regarding medicalisation, the therapeutic process, and the cultural role of psychopharmacology.