Would you try a psychedelic drug to curve depression?

[Angrboda]

There are generally speaking six or seven main factors involved in assessing whether a person would take a medication and remain compliant on that medication. In no particular order these are: the degree of distress the symptoms being treated cause the person; how much one values whatever symptom relief is provided by the medication; how much one values the absence of whatever specific side effects the medication presents; which side effects are caused by the medication; what degree of symptom relief one obtains from the medication; overall health and wellness of the individual (people in a lot of distress may be more tolerant of side effects than someone experiencing few distressing complaints); general character traits affecting compliance with medication regiments in general; and contingent events related to a specific medication intervention (transitional side effects, poor timing relevant to life stressors, and so on). Given the broad and variegated nature of these factors, it's probably hopeless to try to generalize whether or not a class of drug with a specific side effect profile would or would not be well tolerated in a general patient population. Probably the only overall statement I think one could reasonably make is, if the hallucinatory or other mind altering properties of the psychedelic caused additional dysfunction or distress that is even remotely comparable to the distress or dysfunction of the original, presenting problem, historically such medications have not been very effective drug interventions as the relative presence of equally disturbing complaints tends to lead to uniformly low compliance in taking such drugs. But again, it's all relative. I was once on a drug which relieved my depression successfully, and I felt genuinely 'good' while on the medication. The side effects of the medication caused significant gross and fine motor control problems to the point that I experienced falls several times a day, and it could take several attempts for me to successfully sit down in a chair without falling. All in all, if the drug had continued to provide relief from my chronic depression, I would have likely remained on it despite all the side effects, and just learned ways of coping with them so I didn't fall as much.