Abstrakt
The former Czechoslovakia (CSSR) had lenient restrictions for researchers of psychoactive substances. CSSR was next to the Switzerland the only country which was producing its own synthetically pure lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD); its production with research and therapeutic use lasted until 1974.
Period of the legal LSD research was "a golden era" of psychedelic research and by exploring what was already done, much can be learnt. Hence for the first time all human studies with psychedelics on patients published in the former Czechoslovakia between 1952 and 1974 were systematically analyzed.
A total of 183 papers were found by manual search, 50 of which were studies with patients where therapeutic or psychological effect was studied. Those were systematically reviewed with emphasis on implications for the current and future psychedelic research.
According to the available studies in the 60s psychedelics proved effective for disorders on the neurotic spectrum, depression, anxiety, phobias, neurasthenia, obsessive-compulsive personality, and also psychosis or personality disorders. Besides therapeutic indications interesting insights can be found in terms of the treatment protocol, like group therapy or "weekend psycholytic clinics"; in the clinical neurology as a diagnostic test; combinations of different substances or with sleep deprivation; modelling psychosis, corsakovk's syndrome, and delirium tremens; and many more.
Even more importantly, this review brings one more time to the light topic of ethical issues and responsibility of psychedelic researchers. Also question of the role of research in the relationship between society and psychoactive substances will be discussed.