I firmly believe a lot of current mental health issues are worsened by living under capitalism, as do others. Some of the most obvious examples to me are:

  • Anxiety about being able to afford food and housing, having a stable job, not having emergency medical events, etc.
  • Depression from not having free time due to being overworked, or from not being able to afford entertainment and distraction, etc.

One potential remedy to mental health issues has been developing in the form of psychedelic therapy. Besides the issues related to restricting access by making the treatment prohibitively expensive (both the drug and the administering physician) that are seemingly unavoidable in profit-driven healthcare systems, I think there’s a massive danger in using psychedelics to effectively pacify people.

Psychedelics can be used maliciously, in that they can be used to help people accept their life as it is–this sounds fine, until you realize that it can be used to make people accept being exploited and being effectively destitute. I think the problem here is that the medical institutions (and probably most patients) are going to have the goal of: being less depressed, less anxious, etc. If psychedelics were actually used to “wake people up to their reality”, they’d probably become more depressed, more anxious, etc–counter to the stated goals. I think one of the first steps towards wanting to change the existing system is seeing the flaws in the existing system and how one is negatively affected by it.

Then, if psychedelics are (going to be) used to pacify people suffering under capitalism, is their widespread adoption not a bad thing? If people are willfully blinding themselves to their suffering, is any hint of revolutionary spirit being extinguished?

I don’t think these issues are unique to psychedelics, either. If existing depression treatments numb you to all emotion, good and bad, they can make existing while being exploited more bearable.

  • 133arc585@lemmy.mlOP
    01·
    1 year ago

    I see what you’re saying, and agree with the broad points. I still consider mental health treatment different than “physical” health issues, but I am struggling to clearly articulate the meaningful difference in this context.

    They are aimed primarily at alleviating suffering, otherwise people wouldn’t take them. People don’t want to be pacified, they just want to feel better.

    I agree completely. However, I think that given that–barring actually changing the underlying system–the only way to feel better is to obliviate yourself to the underlying issue or to do “palliative” treatment (eg, spending more time in nature, or getting more exercise). While I agree that someone deep in depression is unlikely to have much revolutionary drive, I also don’t think someone who is generally satisfied emotionally will have much revolutionary drive.

    I don’t think its a conspiracy; that is, I don’t think drug companies are pushing for psychedelic therapy because it diminishes revolutionary drive, or anything like that. I do believe that positive patient outcomes are probably the primary driver here (with profit-motive probably not far behind). I don’t think that means that there’s can’t be incidentals though, which could include what I’ve suggested could happen.