Anaclitic LSD therapy (historical)

Domain VII · Transpersonal, psychedelic & altered states · Joyce Martin, Pauline McCririck · 1954 · London

What it is

What it was. "Anaclitic" (literally "leaning on") LSD therapy was a psychoanalytic form of LSD treatment developed by Joyce Martin (1905–1969), a London psychiatrist and Freudian psychoanalyst, with her colleague Pauline McCririck. They worked at the Marlborough Day Hospital, London, and in…

Format

• Format: individual drug sessions, roughly weekly, within ongoing psychoanalytic therapy. The 1957 series gave between 2 and 20 sessions per patient. Each session ran during the day and was ended medically the same afternoon so the patient could go home.
• Grof's account: sessions were repeated at regular intervals, and "All the therapy is conducted during the sessions themselves".

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Scale and end of the programme. Martin is said to have treated 1,000–3,000 patients over about 15 years. Doctors trained at the hospital. The work was presented at conferences, including the Royal Medico-Psychological Association meeting in London in February 1961, whose proceedings Crocket, Sandison and Walk edited. A teaching film was made but is lost. No source used says exactly why or when Martin's own programme…
• Version followed: the London day-hospital and private-practice method of Joyce (A. J.) Martin and Pauline McCririck (c. 1954–late 1960s), as reconstructed from Martin's own papers, Grof's 1970 review, and historian Zoë Dubus (2020, 2023). Verified in this revision from full texts in the MAPS bibliography: Martin's 1957 day-hospital series, her 1962 Acta Psychotherapeutica paper on twelve homosexual men, and her 1961…
• Legal status today (2024–25 sources). LSD is in Schedule I of the 1971 UN Convention, Schedule I in the US (since 1970), Class A in the UK, Schedule III in Canada and S9 (prohibited) in Australia. Switzerland grants limited medical use by special authorisation. In 2024 the FDA gave an LSD product breakthrough-therapy designation for generalised anxiety disorder. None of the sources used describe any current…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• the client can name the red flags and their own limits.
• concerns are raised and logged. Video review is actually carried out.
• less idealisation of a rescuer figure and more capacity to self-soothe.
• the person can tell historical precedent apart from evidence and current standards.
• the participant declines or adjusts freely and shows no sign of complying to please.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.