Psychoanalysis on Drugs

Nate Gorelick, in an excellent paper, Psychoanalysis on Drugs, argues that the state of inward receptivity cultivated by psychoanalysis has its origins in Freud’s experiments with medical grade cocaine documented in his 1884 paper Uber Coca. This groundbreaking paper was the first of its kind regarding the substance, and was seminal in forming a new genre of scientific drug exploration, shared notably by William James and Havelock Ellis and much later on by Albert Hoffman. In Freud’s case, as Gorelick argues, the sensitivity and interior observation—not to mention the new language—required in the exploration of psychoactive substances, will become in time the special receptive state shared by both analyst and analysand. The “allergy” that much of contemporary psychoanalysis has towards drugs is a willful denial of its own origins.

see also:

Freier Einfall

Bicycle Day

Cleaning the House on Acid