Marijuana and

Because of marijuana's dramatic tendency to make the user more aware of emotional realities, some smokers are interested in its possible congruence with more formal kinds of psychotherapy. Smokers who are in therapy may find that cannabis is helpful in inducing spontaneous childhood memories. Others use it more deliberately. "I've often smoked to review specific events," notes an Atlanta woman, "because I find I'm able to recapture the visual parts of past events with a clarity that borders on reliving them."
    There is no consensus among patients in psychotherapy as to whether marijuana can be utilized constructively in the therapeutic process. A Vermont woman says she likes to smoke immediately after therapy sessions "when I come home with all sorts of stuff going on inside me, and I feel I'm on the brink of discovery." A Baltimore man believes that marijuana might be useful in getting past certain barriers in his treatment and in making him feel freer to talk about what they might be. A film critic notes that "smoking is like homework between appointments," while a woman in psychoanalysis observes:

When I'm working toward an insight, I usually begin with putting the pieces together intellectually, so that I might say "Oh yeah, that looks logical," although I might not yet feel it. But after working all week on a certain problem, I might get stoned Saturday night, and my mind will take me back to the issue I've been working on. This time, though, I might experience the feelings behind the insight. Then, when I go to my next session, it's as though I believe more strongly in the validity of the insight. In my case, smoking doesn't so much produce new insights as strengthen the ones I've already had.

    For Judy, who is both an analytic patient and a psychotherapist, marijuana actually points the way toward the healthy state to which she aspires. She calls the drug "an antineurotic":

In my daily life, my various neuroses thrive. Dope helps me get rid of the unfortunate, learned, superego "should" kinds of things that we carry around with us. By freeing us from these kinds of restraints, it helps us see reality more clearly. It also provides a vision, a foretaste of what it would be like to live without these restraints, and it gives us more incentive to keep working until they are dissolved.

    Other smokers are skeptical of the effects of smoking on the therapeutic process, regarding it as irrelevant or even counterproductive. A New York editor explains:

I make it a point not to smoke on days of therapy. I feel I want to be on my own as much as possible, and that's how I will fully comprehend what's going on. I don't want any interference in that process, and I think that pot sometimes does interfere. True, it's sometimes expansive, but I'd prefer to have the insight in its purer form.

    A chemist in a photography company elaborates on this point:

I'm critical about my own smoking because it reduces anxiety, which seems to me like shorting out the parts of yourself that you don't like.
    Marijuana and therapy don't go well together. Not that it isn't great to get rid of all that negative baggage, but it doesn't liberate you in a real sense. After all, when you're not stoned, these problems don't go away just because you felt good when you were.

    Among psychotherapists, there is a similar debate. In view of how frequently smokers speak of personal insights gained through their use of the drug, it is somewhat surprising how little attention has been paid by the mental health profession to marijuana's psychiatric implications and possible uses. A few psychotherapists who are themselves smokers have given some private thought to its therapeutic potential, but as yet there is no evidence of it in the professional literature.