Albion Dreaming

by Andy Roberts

  While some patients who opted for LSD treatment were already in traditional psychotherapy, others were new patients and the decision to invite patients to try the new form of psychotherapy had no set criteria. Though there was no shortage of patients wanting to try LSD in the hope it would relieve their mental torment, Sandison didn’t believe in treating just anyone. There had to be an engagement between doctor and patient: “You don’t really choose people for therapy by diagnosis, you treat them by a kind of feel you have, ‘I think I could help this chap or this woman’ ... and then you discover they’ve got an anxiety state or depression or whatever. Worldwide I think every known condition has been treated. I think LSD gives people hope and it gives them an access to a part of themselves they never thought existed.”18

  Sandison recognised that some types of mental disorder, such as psychosis, were not appropriate subjects for LSD therapy. But there were plenty of patients displaying neurosis, anxiety or depression for whom the drug was suitable. Initially Sandison had no real idea of the optimum dosages for patients and this was determined on a trial and error, “purely experimental” basis. Sandison wasn’t worried about the drug’s physiological effects, believing it to be “incredibly safe” and having only relatively mild effects on the body.

  Most of those treated were day patients. Volunteer drivers would pick them up from home in the early morning and deliver them to Powick by 9.00 am. After a group meeting with the others who were having LSD psychotherapy that day, each patient would be given a dose of LSD dissolved in water. The dosage varied and could be as little as 20 μg or as much as 150 μg. Some patients were given up to 400 μg, a very strong dose, and a few were given much higher doses. Dosages tended to start low and were increased in subsequent sessions until some advancement in their condition was noted. After the patients had been led to their rooms they were left alone for the next few hours, with doctors or nurses checking on them at intervals.

  The treatment rooms were quite stark, simply furnished with a bed and a chair. Though the room was plain there was nothing about it to suggest a medical setting and patients felt quite comfortable taking LSD in those surroundings. The only “props” to aid the patient’s experience were often just a teddy bear, a blackboard and a record player. Photographs in Sandison’s collection show patients involved in various activities as the LSD coursed through their system; one young girl is curled in a foetal position on the bed, holding a teddy bear and staring into the middle distance, another shows a woman drawing what appears to be a monster on the blackboard provided. But props and attendant medical professionals notwithstanding, once in the treatment room and under the influence of LSD each patient was alone with the contents of their subconscious.

  By closely monitoring the experiences of the LSD patients both during their experience and in analysis afterwards Sandison was able to help them direct their visual and mental images. Imposing this structure on the potentially chaotic nature of the LSD experience enabled patients to work through their problems, going deep into their subconscious, often back to their childhood and to traumas that had been suppressed and which were the root cause of the present symptoms. Artistic representation played a part in helping patients to externalise and resolve these issues. One patient’s painting done under LSD was originally a crossroads. A later session added a lighthouse to the scene. Another was of a spider which was later resolved into a flower, and so on. All of these images had meaning for the individuals concerned and Sandison found the images recalled and painted by his patients to contain a lot of archetypal material. This led him to believe: “... LSD opens up a high road to some of the deeper and collective aspects of the unconscious.”19

  Following suggestions made in 1958 by visiting American psychologist Betty Eisner, Sandison noted that his LSD patients liked music. But rather than the swirling washes of electronic sound which would later characterise the music of the counter culture, Sandison’s patients preferred folk music over classical or pop. Patients were asked what their favourite type of music or artiste was and the LSD Unit’s staff would endeavour to provide it from their large collection.

  LSD treatments could be frequent, often once a week and sometimes twice. Some therapists went so far as to administer LSD to their patients every day. However, Sandison believed that up to a week was needed between sessions to allow the patient to absorb and reflect on the experience. Sometimes a gap of several weeks was needed. Most of Sandison’s patients received some follow up psychotherapeutic sessions after they’d finished their LSD treatment to allow some form of closure to the experiences.

  As the afternoon drew to a close and the effects of LSD were tapering off the patients would re-group to discuss their day’s experience prior to being driven home again. In retrospect this way of dealing with people under the influence of LSD might seem irresponsible. The doses of LSD that were administered, even the low doses, were enough to cause significant effects long after the patients had returned home. Sandison was very much aware of this and encouraged the volunteer drivers to talk to the patients as they drove them home. For some patients the transition from the colourful mental kaleidoscope of the LSD experience to the relative drabness of home life must have been quite disorientating. Barbiturates were available if needed to help patients “come down” from their LSD experience, but generally speaking most returned to normal consciousness without any problems. Patients were also told they could phone the unit at any hour of day or night if the effects of the LSD were causing problems.

  Despite the potential for serious psychic trauma Sandison claims that few patients were distressed by their LSD experiences. He did, however, recognise that during a course of LSD treatment the patient “... may be tempted to make major alterations in his environment and way of life”. Sandison wrote that the patient should be allowed to make some minor changes but “... any major alterations, particularly where these involve the question of marriage, marital separation or divorce, should be decided on only after the LSD phase of treatment has concluded.” One of the many perceptions reported by LSD users is that it enables them to see people as they really are. The potential for devastation in a relationship in which discord has been suppressed or not properly resolved when one partner has used LSD and “sees through” the other is immense. Later, recreational LSD users would also note that often after taking a dose of LSD they changed their entire way of living. Sandison reported in his 1964 paper that: “We have found that about one half of our cases required extensive rehabilitation involving the establishment of a new set of conditioned social responses.” Another way of saying they had their minds blown and needed to take a long hard look at their beliefs and relationships.20

  Decades later some patients would challenge Sandison’s opinion that long lasting deleterious effects from LSD therapy were rare. Driven by their personal demons and fuelled by the prevailing compensation culture a number of those who had been treated with LSD would eventually seek redress through the courts.

  At the heart of Sandison’s LSD psychotherapy was the relationship between two people, the patient and the therapist. To ensure that relationship was as effective as possible Sandison, intensely curious about the effects of LSD, decided that he should take the drug. That way he would have an inkling of what his patients were going through, the better to engage in the psychoanalytic relationship. “I think it is important that the therapist should have taken LSD himself, but it is essential he or she has a proper training in psychodynamics and have themselves had a training analysis.”21

  Sandison took LSD just once: “... I learnt something about myself and about what the patients were experiencing. What I did learn was firstly you should never take LSD alone; you could get into all sorts of difficulties if you do. You need to have a trusted person with you; I had Sister Hopkin with me. We did it one Sunday, we were both off duty and she was just there, it was very helpful. It was part of the work of getting to know LSD. A number of the registrars took it as well.”22


  Ronnie Sandison’s work at Powick is well documented, but by the mid-Fifties many other doctors in Britain were also treating their patients with LSD. Sandison believes there might have been more than ten centres where LSD psychotherapy was practised. Hospitals that offered LSD therapy included Roffey Park in Surrey, the Marlborough Day Hospital and Guy’s Hospital in London, Netley Hospital in Southampton, Bromley Psychiatric clinic and several other locations. Many psychiatrists also offered LSD treatment at their clinics or in private practice. The majority of the LSD therapy practised at hospitals and clinics around Britain during the Fifties and Sixties was similar if not identical to that carried out at Powick. Sandison, by dint of his chance visit to Switzerland, had set the ball rolling and others followed in his wake.

  Among the thousands of people who underwent LSD therapy in the Fifties and Sixties were several well-known show business personalities. Comedian Frankie Howerd was one of them. As can often be the case with successful comedians Howerd’s humour masked a depressive personality and his life was a constant search for meaning. In his search for inner peace he tried a wide range of therapies including psychiatry and psychoanalysis.

  Following the death of his mother, Howerd believed LSD therapy might be a solution for his problems and contacted Thomas Ling at the Marlborough Day Hospital. Ling was one of the first doctors other than Sandison to use LSD therapy, both in the hospital and in private practice. Ling’s belief that LSD “... helps the patient see himself as he really is”, was just what Howerd wanted. After an initial meeting Ling undertook to treat Howerd and they began regular fortnightly LSD psychotherapy sessions.

  Howerd’s manager and lover, Dennis Heymer recalls one of his jobs was to drive Howerd to see his LSD psychotherapist at the Marlborough Day Hospital. According to Heymer the sessions followed a set pattern. At 6.00 pm, Howerd was taken to a darkened room where he was injected with 80–120 μg of LSD. As the drug began to take effect Howerd was injected with a small dose of Ritalin to stimulate his central nervous system. Then, alone in the locked room, Howerd was left to recall and write down his earliest childhood memories. Props such as teddy bears, mirrors, family photographs, dummies and other reminders were supplied so Howerd could act out his childhood repressions. At the two-hour stage another dose of Ritalin was administered to inspire “penetrating understanding” and reflection on the experience.

  The LSD session was terminated at 11.00 pm by a mixture of Largactil and Sodium Amytal which caused Howerd to drift from psychedelic awareness into a deep sleep. On waking he would write a report of his LSD experience which Ling would then use as the basis for psychoanalysis. Howerd had many LSD sessions under Ling’s guidance and believed they left him a calmer person, more capable of understanding the impact his father had had on him and with more insight into his strengths and weaknesses. Heymer, however, wasn’t convinced that LSD therapy was useful for Howerd, “It didn’t do him any good. I wouldn’t recommend it at all.”23

  Michael Horsley-Millman remembers the LSD therapists at the Marlborough as being highly competent at putting the traumatised human psyche back together as they: “... led one on and on, through doors off corridors of one’s self built haunted house ... down stairways that Hitchcock’s Psycho never knew existed. Far beyond any hallucination that today’s drug culture imposes ... an outward beyondness that says ‘before birth, before mother’s breast, before, before’, in pretty pictures in blue and gold, the heightened aura blocking out the persistent everyday thinking about thoughts which themselves don’t exist, but lay low like clutter on the floor of some dismal hovel.”24

  Most of those who used LSD as a psychotherapeutic tool did so quietly and without fuss. Publicity wasn’t actively courted but was accepted when it became necessary as a means to secure or maintain funding. There was however one flamboyant exception: R.D. “Ronnie” Laing.

  Once Laing had qualified as a psychoanalyst he opened a practice in London’s Wimpole Street. In the burgeoning liberalism of the Sixties, Laing’s idiosyncratic approach to therapy meant he was instantly popular and patients flocked to him. LSD fascinated him and he first used it in 1960 when it was given to him by Dr. Richard Gelfer. In line with many other medical professionals, Gelfer mistakenly believed LSD mimicked psychoses and introduced it to Laing as such. Laing’s experience however was that “... it was an experience of extraordinary familiarity ... enhancement of multi-levels of association that one can simultaneously bring to bear in a way that one only glimpses in a usual state of consciousness.”25

  The LSD experience firmly imprinted itself on Laing’s psyche. Laing had three precepts for anyone who wanted to become a psychoanalyst. The first was the person should undergo personal analysis, the second that they should read the standard edition of Freud and the third was that they should ingest LSD.

  Laing soon included LSD in his psychoanalytical toolbox and his son and biographer, Adrian recalls former patients confiding: “... dropping acid with R.D. Laing was both exhilarating and liberating.” Some individuals reported that a six-hour LSD session with Laing was more effective than several years of traditional psychoanalysis. Unlike his colleagues in traditional LSD psychotherapy Laing preferred to take LSD with his patient, but took a smaller dose so he could exercise some control over the experience.26

  In 1966, Laing gave a presentation to the annual conference of the prestigious National Association for Mental Health. It consisted of a bold speech on the therapeutic benefits of LSD and mescaline. In it he demonstrated he knew exactly what the potential of LSD was and how it related to therapy: “An LSD or mescaline session in one person, with one set in one setting may occasion a psychotic experience. Another person, with a different set and different setting, may experience a period of super-sanity ... The aim of therapy will be to enhance consciousness rather than to diminish it. Drugs of choice, if any are to be used, will be predominantly consciousness expanding drugs, rather than consciousness constrictors – the psychic energisers, not the tranquillisers.”27

  Laing’s reputation as a therapist spread rapidly among London’s artistic crowd, leading him to have some very high profile, and unlikely, patients.

  Diane Cilento, first wife of actor Sean Connery, wrote that following his success in 1964’s Goldfinger the second James Bond film, Connery felt insecure and spiritually blocked; he was convinced he wouldn’t feel “safe” until he had a million pounds in the bank. Cilento met Laing and was impressed with his radical ideas about LSD therapy, which meant patients could be helped without spending years on the analyst’s couch. Cilento eventually arranged a consultation for Connery and Laing accepted the Bond star for treatment. In keeping with the times Laing didn’t believe in selling himself short and demanded: “... a great deal of money, complete privacy, a limo to transport him to and from the meeting and a bottle of the best single malt Scotch at each session.”

  At their first session Laing gave Connery a full dose of LSD, taking a much smaller amount himself to enable him to act as guide during the session. Cilento claims the initial session didn’t go too well. Connery couldn’t “let go” and resisted the drug, having to spend several days recovering in bed as a result. But the LSD had worked its magic in loosening Connery’s tightly wrapped subconscious: “This initial trip opened a Pandora’s box ... Suddenly, Sean began to remember challenging childhood scenes with his mother or father. Buried anger, victories or defeats came tumbling out without warning.”28

  Laing moved easily between the tight-knit world of psychotherapy and the night-life of swinging London, becoming a frequent sight at counter culture events. When Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett was undergoing his LSD induced nervous breakdown bassist Roger Waters tried to arrange treatment for him with Laing. After some persuasion Barrett eventually agreed to meet Laing and they took a taxi to his flat, but at the last moment he wouldn’t get out of the cab. A few months later they tried again but Barrett wouldn’t even leave his flat when the taxi arrived.29

  Laing remained a staunch a
dvocate of the personal and professional use of LSD to his death, his writings making a considerable impact on the Sixties and Seventies counter culture.

  Ronnie Sandison left Powick in 1964. He had worked with LSD for twelve years and wanted a break and running LSD psychotherapy sessions on a daily basis was a time consuming, physically and mentally draining, experience. Powick was changing too, becoming more a centre for community psychiatry. Two new consultants had recently joined the staff team, both of whom had no interest in pursuing LSD psychotherapy. For Sandison these were all signs that it was time to move on and he took an appointment as Consultant Psychiatrist at Knowle Hospital, near Southampton, in Hampshire. Though he used the drug with a few patients in 1965 after leaving Powick his days of practising LSD psychotherapy were behind him.

  LSD psychotherapy was slowly but surely coming to an end in Britain. From early 1966 onwards the British and American media regularly featured lurid stories and exposés about the social use of LSD. Though LSD had caused no fatalities and there had been a surprisingly low number of episodes of mental illness, for the media LSD had become a social panic. Privately, medical professionals who were practising LSD psychotherapy became concerned that LSD was going to face trial by media. This would bring their activities into the public eye and they realised that if that were the case the notoriously conservative medical establishment would try to distance itself from the drug even though it was still legal to use in a medical context. As legislation to outlaw the drug other than for medical use loomed large, a number of those working with LSD began to openly express their concerns in the medical press.