> Actually, you do, as the placebo effect is very strong for depression.
Is it an 80% reduction in symptoms?
The trip may very well be an essential part of the experience. Giving it during anesthesia would be very different.
Psychedelics just aren’t amenable to placebo controls. That doesn’t mean throw the whole science out, you just need to… control for that. You could have a non-placebo control of similar effort (talk therapy?) to control for drop outs. You could have alternative therapy as baseline.
It was 50% reduction. Presumably a trip and not being anaethsetised would result in an even greater placebo effect.
>You could have a non-placebo control of similar effort (talk therapy?) to control for drop outs. You could have alternative therapy as baseline.
But that would have a much smaller placebo effect, and there would be no blinding to treatment. Comparing the two treatments wouldn't tell us anything.
>The trip may very well be an essential part of the experience.
Yes, I think it is, even if it is a very effective placebo. My point is that you don't need a psychedelic to cure depression of PTSD.
> Yes, I think it is, even if it is a very effective placebo. My point is that you don't need a psychedelic to cure depression of PTSD.
Have you taken into consideration the important distinction between abstract reality and object level reality?
Some fires can be put out with a fire extinguisher, but not all fires can be. Yet, it is objectively true (though misinformative, an extremely popular meme ~2 years ago) to say that "fire can be extinguished with a fire extinguisher".
Or if that's too poorly stated: "you don't need a psychedelic to cure depression of PTSD" is only true to the degree that it is true, and it is not possible for you to know that degree - thus, your mind fills the gaps of the unknown, and you take it as true, as you have been conditioned for decades to do. "It is unknown" is not an option available, to you.
But then that's ~~just~~ my opinion, I could be wrong.
> My point is that you don't need a psychedelic to cure depression of PTSD.
That’s quite the standard. Obviously there’s some depression and PTSD treated in other ways. But maybe this treatment does better in some cases over alternatives. That makes it valuable.
Is it an 80% reduction in symptoms?
The trip may very well be an essential part of the experience. Giving it during anesthesia would be very different.
Psychedelics just aren’t amenable to placebo controls. That doesn’t mean throw the whole science out, you just need to… control for that. You could have a non-placebo control of similar effort (talk therapy?) to control for drop outs. You could have alternative therapy as baseline.