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<p>Medicalization has become the dominant, though still unproven, strategy for integrating psychedelics into late modern societies. It contrasts with Indigenous traditions, which administered these substances not to the sick but to the healer. Critical scholars have challenged psychedelic medicalization as depoliticizing inherently social problems. Yet these critiques often treat it as a monolithic and fully realized process. This article argues that psychedelic medicalization is nationally differentiated and more&#xa0;uncertain than typically portrayed. Drawing on long-term ethnographic engagement with the psychedelic research community, it presents two case studies: Switzerland’s Limited Medical Use Program and Australia’s Authorized Prescriber scheme. Both allow psychedelic therapies outside clinical trials, yet neither grants market access. Based on interviews, participant observation, and the published literature, I show that psychedelic medicalization remains provisional and improvisational—structured by bureaucratic exceptions and local therapeutic cultures rather than corporate capture. In both cases, psychedelic-assisted therapy complicates existing theories of medicalization. It diverges from biomedicalization narratives by reintroducing psychotherapy into neuropsychiatry and by incorporating existential, relational, and sometimes spiritual dimensions into psychiatric treatment. These empirical findings call for a more differentiated account of medicalization-in-practice.</p>

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Experiments in medicalization: psychedelic therapy in Switzerland and Australia

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年9月6日

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  • Nicolas Langlitz

摘要

Medicalization has become the dominant, though still unproven, strategy for integrating psychedelics into late modern societies. It contrasts with Indigenous traditions, which administered these substances not to the sick but to the healer. Critical scholars have challenged psychedelic medicalization as depoliticizing inherently social problems. Yet these critiques often treat it as a monolithic and fully realized process. This article argues that psychedelic medicalization is nationally differentiated and more uncertain than typically portrayed. Drawing on long-term ethnographic engagement with the psychedelic research community, it presents two case studies: Switzerland’s Limited Medical Use Program and Australia’s Authorized Prescriber scheme. Both allow psychedelic therapies outside clinical trials, yet neither grants market access. Based on interviews, participant observation, and the published literature, I show that psychedelic medicalization remains provisional and improvisational—structured by bureaucratic exceptions and local therapeutic cultures rather than corporate capture. In both cases, psychedelic-assisted therapy complicates existing theories of medicalization. It diverges from biomedicalization narratives by reintroducing psychotherapy into neuropsychiatry and by incorporating existential, relational, and sometimes spiritual dimensions into psychiatric treatment. These empirical findings call for a more differentiated account of medicalization-in-practice.