A man with crippling insecurity, shown here tripping balls while a highly trained counselor reassures him that the whole of existence will not be consumed by the void if he blinks |
"It's rare that a single study so clearly supports a medical intervention when it comes to mental health," lead researcher Stadebra Milhause, PsyD explained. "My focus is always on the improvement of my patients and not recognition from the scientific community, like with a Nobel Prize, but people are talking. Not me. But it's out there."
The study, which is being praised by proponents of medicinal psychedelics as revolutionary, measured self-esteem and sociability in intensely insecure subjects after 8 weeks of receiving low doses of LSD plus intense daily counseling from a live-in psychologist. According to Milhause, the key to designing a study that can be trusted by both believers and skeptics is the use of proper controls that help avoid bias. "We compared our treatment group to similarly insecure subjects who were pointed at by strangers who laughed loudly after one of them whispered something that the subjects couldn't quite make out for several hours every day."
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