D-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD 25) was first prepared in 1938 by Stoll and Hofmann. It is the synthetic amide of d-lysergic acid with a secondary amine, diethylamine and belongs to the ergonovine group of ergot alkaloids all of which have lysergic acid as a base. After its ingestion in minute doses, it induces psychic states in which the subject becomes aware of repressed memories and other unconscious material in a setting of clear consciousness. This preliminary paper describes the results obtained from the use of the drug in 36 psychoneurotic patients over a period of one year. We consider that the drug will find a significant place in the treatment of the psychoneuroses and allied mental illnesses.

This paper follows a preliminary communication to this Journal two years ago (Sandison, Spencer and Whitelaw, 1954) and gives an account of the fuller experience gained up to the present time with lysergic acid diethylamide in the treatment of mental illness.

Recent work by the author and his colleagues (Sandison, Spencer and Whitelaw, 1954) has established that lysergic acid diethylamide is of great value in the psychotherapy of the neuroses. This paper attempts to examine in rather more detail the possible mechanism of action of the drug in terms of dynamic psychology. It is now generally accepted that the psychoneuroses are the result of a faulty relationship between the conscious and the unconscious, leading to a one-sided or prejudiced conscious point of view. Any discussion which follows this observation must be preceded by a definition of the writer's conception of the unconscious, and in this paper the standpoint adopted by Jungian analytical psychology will be preferred.

The authors undertook to investigate the effects of two new phenothiazine derivatives on schizophrenic patients. Over a period of two years a series of clinical trials have been carried out on approximately 260 patients, some controlled, some uncontrolled. These drugs, known as Melleril (TP21) and KS75 are chemically related. Although Melleril was ultimately selected as the drug of choice we have, for statistical reasons, included some of the findings with KS75.

This article examines the roles which memory and remembering play in promoting the processes of individual and group psychotherapy. Some of the factors which distort and modify memory are examined. The processes of remembering history and stories are considered. The way in which therapist and patient work together creates a biography to which the psyches of both have contributed. The purpose of therapy is to give meaning to the biographical story. The relative importance of this biographical process in individual and group therapy respectively is explored. The therapy group tends to be concerned with the relationship of the individual to society and with dialogue in the here-and-now of the group. Persistence and later revival of the memory of group activities which took place in times and places charged with feeling is illustrated. That group events are remembered long afterwards is closely related to the memories of survivors of trauma. The false memory syndrome' is considered and the fact that time and memory are closely linked, with oral tradition kept alive throughout the group. Such tradition gives old memory a poetic quality. The conclusion is that memory per se should be trusted, provided we take into account the many factors that affect its linear reliability.