Remembrances of LSD therapy Past by Betty Eisner is a memoir that draws on her experiences as a psychotherapist who had fostered the first written attempt to integrate the notion of the ‘set and setting’ within the framework of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. In 1957, she had worked with the psychiatrist Sidney Cohen to investigate the techniques for creating the optimal conditions for integrative psychedelic experiences, and continued to investigate how the set and setting shape the outcome of psychedelic experiences. Her interests were also informed by personal contact with Humphrey Osmond and Aldous Huxley amongst others and entailed a principled approach for the selection of LSD patients for therapy, the preparation process, as well as the use of music, photographs, mirrors, and post-session activities in the hospital’s art clinic. Her book conveys the importance of creating better conditions to enable subjects to receive the full benefits of LSD psychotherapy.
Author Introduction
“This book consists of my recollections , correspondence to and from me about work with psychedelics, and reports about drug sessions . Its purpose is to not only document work that I and others did, but to also make a case for the therapeutic potential, given the proper circumstances, of the drugs discussed. For further information about my work, I have donated my files to Stanford. Although the book contains biographical material, it is not complete.“
Summary Review
An online version of this book can be found on the MAPS website or Archive.org.