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Ditman KS, Tietz W, Prince BS, Forgy E, Moss T. 
“Harmful aspects of the LSD experience”. 
J.nerv.ment.dis.. 1968;145:464-474.
Abstract
Why is it that some people, sometimes after only one lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) experience, become victims of the depression, paranoia, psychosis and even suicide, whereas others, even after numerous LSD sessions, appear to suffer no ill effects but often even claim substantial benefits in personal insights, functioning and creativity? Prolonged adverse reactions to LSD usage have been reported and classified by Cohen and Ditman (4), more recently by Frosch et al, (8) and by Ungerleider and Fisher (13). Conversely, there has been considerable interest in the use of LSD as an adjunct to psychotherapy and as a means to further creativity (1,2,5,12). How can this apparent paradox be explained? It occurred to the authors that an understanding might be found by exploring the nature of the drug experience in those people who suffered ill effects from their LSD sessions and comparing it with that of those people who claimed no harm. To this purposes, a standard card sort of 156 items descriptive of the LSD experience, a number that allows that experience to be evaluated quantitatively, was retrospectively administered to LSD users who required psychiatric care (either hospitalization or outpatient treatment) and to a number of other users of the drug who did not require treatment.
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