Making the invisible visible: …psychiatry, midwifery, and psychedelics
I draw on the records of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center LSD Training Program Study and the papers of Grof to explore the “unexpected entanglements” between psychiatry, midwifery, and psychedelics.
Grof observed “astounding parallels” between psychedelic experiences and the clinical stages of delivery, believing that the common denominator between the two was the trauma of birth. He proposed a “new cartography of the human psyche” grounded in this observation, calling it the Basic Perinatal Matrices (BPM.) Despite the fact that Psychologist Abraham Maslow declared Grof’s framework “the most important contribution to personality theory in several decades,” its influence has been largely ignored by medical historians.
Original Article (Wendy Kline & Purdue University & University of Oslo):
Making the invisible visible: the unexpected entanglements of psychiatry, midwifery, and psychedelics
Artwork Fair Use: Wellcomecollection
