Dr. Sidney Cohen is the one dispensing LSD to a patient in this 1950s video that was made at the Los Angeles Veterans Administration Hospital. *Thanks Reddit.) A decade later, in “Psychotherapy with LSD: Pro and Con,” Cohen was still largely singing the praises of acid. An excerpt:

“At a 1965 LSD conference Dr. Sidney Cohen, an American authority on LSD, summed up the claims made for LSD and LSD-like drugs by psychiatrists:

1. They reduce the patient’s defensiveness and allow repressed memories and conflictual material to come forth. The recall of these events is improved and the reaction is intense.

2. The emerging material is better understood because the patient sees the conflict as a visual image or in vivid visual symbols. It is accepted without being overwhelming because the detached state of awareness makes the emerging guilt feelings less devastating.

3. The patient feels closer to the therapist and it is easier for him to express his irrational feelings.

4. Alertness is not impaired and insights are retained after the drug has worn off.

Under skilled treatment procedures, the hallucinogens do seem to produce these effects and one more which is not often mentioned. That is a marked heightening of the patient’s suggestibility. Put in another way, the judgmental attitude of the patient toward the experience itself is diminished. This can be helpful, for insights are accepted without reservations and seem much more valid than under nondrug conditions.”