Psychedelics and Psychological Based Services (e.g. Psycho-therapeutics & Sport/Performance Psychology Implications ):
When I received a rather recent copy of the quarterly published Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, I was fascinated to see a peer reviewed article on Psychedelics being applied to help athletes improve their mental health (Walton & Liknaitsky, 2022). One of the reasons why I was perplexed was because I had explored the idea of psychedelics and sport psychology research with my mentor (via Association of Applied Sport Psychology (AASP)) and our conversation basically went like this:
Me: “[Are there any sport & performance researchers looking at psychedelics in light of sport performance outcomes, mental health, etc..?]”
My mentor: “[I don’t think anyone in our field would want to have a reputation that is linked to sport performance and psychedelics].”
Since I grew up in the culture of skateboarding/surfing and then went on to study psychology in a region of California that has been very progressive towards cannabis and magic mushrooms legalization/decriminalization, I thought that my interest in this issue was more commonplace. However, I do think that in the last decade drug culture has subsided among competitive/pro surfers, but I am not so sure about skateboard culture. Despite all of this, I was again surprised to find out about Kelly Slater’s, the 11-World Champion of Surfing, endorsement of Psychedelics:
From what I understand, Kelly Slater has always been rumored to be a clean cut health nut. Kelly’s health can even be evidenced by his long-lasting professional career on the world tour where he continues to compete against the top 40 in the world even at the age of 50 years +. Thus, I was not necessarily expecting to hear of Slater being “experienced,” as Jimi Hendrix might say.
It is a fact that the field of mental health (e.g. The Veterans Administration (V.A.)) and performance psychology is experiencing a re-emergence and emergence of psychedelic research and application. I believe that Slater’s disciplined character and his choice to be “experienced” showcases a new era of re-calibrating how psychedelics can be utilized. Perhaps this recalibration is beneficial for societies/cultures that have struggled to glorify or demonize such substances. Scientific research reveals that these substances can be used in a thoughtful way rather than simply being reduced to mere useless street drugs that are deemed as only dangerous:
THE DARKSIDE OF PSYCHEDELICS
DANGERS: Research and statistics show that a pretty large percentage of people who take psychedelics report that at some time while intoxicated from these substances, they put themselves or someone else in danger. I believe these stats of endangering themselves or someone else are derived from recreational use rather than use in a clinical setting via the guidance of medical personnel. Newspaper articles have depicted the terrible things that can happen when a psychedelic “trip” goes bad—which have included death. I am not sure how these substances measure up against alcohol in regard to danger or total deaths per capita of consumption.
Brainwashing:
Please research the C.I.A.’s involvement in the use of LSD for mind control experiments.
It also is my personal opinion, and perhaps suspect via research findings, that psychedelics can be used for evil and to convert people into cult members. Various accounts have described cults leveraging psychedelics to “program” people into becoming followers: e.g. Aliester Crowley’s Satanic Cult of Thelema where accounts of drugs fueling ritual sexual abuse are a part of psychedelic’s Hx and let us not forget Charles Mason’s use of psychedelics with his followers.
Here is an American Psychological Association (APA) podcast that corroborates these anecdotal facts with scientific research findings. Although overall an advocate for the medical potentials of Psychedelics, Dr. Grffiths mentions that psychedelics have the ability to make personality more flexible than anything else known to mankind:
I tend to think that Psychedelics are not the main reason why these cults exist, but I do believe these evil psychopathic cults leveraged the effects that psychedelics can have on naive people along with a combination of other factors.
Sport and Performance Implications: From my understanding, the flexibility that is seen in personality via Psychedelics is perhaps a flexibility of neurons in general. Thus, this flexibility may even bring about a chance for performers (e.g. athletes) to be more pliable in learning a new set of neural pathways (e.g. motor performance, emotional response, decision making). I wonder if we will see research in the future around psychedelics and sport performance?
LEGALITY: by no means is this blog meant to Tx or Dx mental health issues. Nor does this blog act as a legal guideline. Please seek out licensed medical professionals for any real interest in such endeavors as psychedelic psycho-therapy. Safety first!!!
I am interested in any comments or concerns you may have about this blog. Please reach out or comment below.
Some Mentioned References:
Sport Psychology:
Advancing elite athlete mental health treatment with psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy: Journal of Applied Sport Psychology: Vol 34 , No 3 - Get Access (tandfonline.com)
Psycho-Therapeutics:
With great power comes great vulnerability: an ethical analysis of psychedelics' therapeutic mechanisms proposed by the REBUS hypothesis - PubMed (nih.gov)
The Dark Side of Psychedelics and Psycho-Active Drugs (Warning: this read has sexually explicit material and is disturbing)
Psychedelics as Tools for Belief Transmission. Set, Setting, Suggestibility, and Persuasion in the Ritual Use of Hallucinogens - PubMed (nih.gov)