Summary

“The Trip Treatment: Psychedelics in Psychotherapy. One: Dying.” Pollan considers the research and intentions of researchers at New York University (Stephen Ross and Tony Bossis) into ways that psychedelics could be used to help people diagnosed with terminal cancer cope with their fear of death. He also considers the problems of getting fully scientific results out of tests that have several sorts of problems with absolute objectivity. First, they tend to have results that cannot really be measured, only spoken about. Second, they tend to they have results that are often more spiritual than physical. Third, they tend to have results that cannot be fully separated from the subjectively defined experiences and actions of both the person being tested and the person monitoring the test. Here he draws connections between the role of the researcher, in this particular context, and the role...