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Participants in this conference included biochemists, psychiatrists, and others. LSD is a psychosis-producing drug to which chlorpromazine and reserpine are effective antagonists. In evaluating the nature of the psychological response to LSD it was agreed that the social and physical setting in which the drug is administered influence the manner of response and the success or failure of the treatment. The recipient of LSD feels fragmented, experiencing distortion in external and internal perception. After an initial period of drug-specific distortion without a personal meaning, hallucinations with personal meaning occur.
Suggestion can produce effects like those of LSD, a fact that complicates evaluation. Transference and countertransference are also important in use of LSD, and require further study. Reaction to the drug varies greatly from one subject to another, probably for physical as well as psychological reasons. The adaptive function of the ego, ego control, and self-observation are said to be affected by the drug. The special conditions of its use, however, (for example, the fact that Abramson kept his patients all day and supplied their meals) render difficult the determination of its effects. In one case, LSD proved helpful in a patient far advanced in psychoanalysis; his resistance to discussion of counteridentification was overcome. Subjects taking LSD experience feelings interpreted as fantasies of death and rebirth (p. 98) but it is not definitely established whether they are different from similar fantasies during analysis.
Resistances are encountered even with drugs. The drug used for exploratory purposes may fail. The subject may instead become 'self-absorbed, watching what is going on inside and perturbed by what is going on inside … he may not communicate because he is under the influence of the drug'. It appears that the drug facilitates