Reframing Bummer Trips: Scientific and Cultural Explanations to Adverse Reactions to Psychedelic Drug Use

The concept of a 'bad trip' on psychedelics was used strategically by public health officials and regulators in the 1960s to justify prohibition, emphasizing violent and fearful outbursts as chemical reactions causing harm. However, psychedelic therapists in the 1950s and 1960s offered an alternative interpretation, viewing fear and trauma confrontation as beneficial in psychotherapy. By comparing cases from North American psychedelic clinics with news, personal testimonies, and regulatory outcomes in the United States, the article argues that the specter of the bad trip galvanized public support for prohibition. This removed psychedelics from active research, moving psychotherapy away from addressing fear and trauma through confrontation.

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Abstract

The concept of a bad or bummer trip has been used to capture the imagination of public health advisors and drug regulators, especially for producing warnings against taking drugs that cause physical and psychological harm. Psychedelics emerged in the 1960s public health literature as frequently causing bad trips, with violent and fearful outbursts from users causing harm to themselves and others. The fear and anxiety allegedly generated by a chemical reaction in the body, however, was understood differently by contemporary psychedelic scientists in the 1950s and 1960s. Confronting fear or facing trauma played an important role in psychotherapy, and psychedelic therapists offered an alternative interpretation on the bad trip that imbued it with healthful benefits. This article considers the historical tension surrounding the competing interpretations of bummer trips, probing more deeply into the implications of avoiding fear, trauma, or anxiety in the psychotherapeutic encounter. Ultimately, by considering cases presented at different psychedelic clinics in North America and comparing those with news, personal testimonies, and regulatory outcomes in the United States, we argue that the specter of the bad trip was used strategically to galvanize public support for a prohibition on psychedelics. Moreover, by removing psychedelics from active research, the field of psychotherapy in some jurisdictions moved away from addressing core ideas about fear and trauma through confrontation.