The Psychological Meaning of the Use of Marijuana and LSD in One Case1

The way in which an individual uses and responds to drugs depends not only upon the pharmacological action of the drug but also upon the personality of the individual. In this case the continuity between ways of dealing with pre-existing problems and the reactions both to marijuana and to LSD, can be seen with particular clarity.

A twenty-year-old college girl came to see me following a panic reaction—a “bad trip” with LSD. After several months we discovered that the thing that particularly frightened her had been the feeling of helplessness in the presence of persons she had to depend on, and who might, she feared, injure her. She regularly sought out situations in which she was at the mercy of other people, hoping not to be frightened, but always becoming afraid. The patient said that she distrusted psychiatrists. This turned out to be based on the expectation that I would tell her that she is mentally ill, and “prescribe” treatment for her. She recognized that her own assessment of herself was that she was “insane,” because she had had auditory hallucinatory experiences since childhood, consisting of frightening voices laughing at her, and since taking LSD, prolonged after-images of light and visual hallucinations consisting of spots of colored light. She also recognized that it was her own wish for someone to prescribe for her, to make decisions for her, and actually to take over the management of her whole life. At the same time she dreaded this; she decided she was able to begin treatment only because I did not try to direct her activities or prohibit drugs or give her drugs to control her symptoms.

The sub-culture which used drugs was particularly attractive to her

because of the denial of anger, violence and murderousness in individuals. She wa