Today, amidst my own storm of emotions and a new surge of heartbreak, I’m just going to share an excerpt from the book ‘How to change your mind‘ by Michael Pollan on the various uses of psychedelics, particularly from a chapter about using psychedelics in therapy to alleviate existential distress for terminal cancer patients.
“[… ]The whole question of meaning is central to the approach of the NYU therapists*, and is perhaps especially helpful in understanding the experience of the cancer patients on psilocybin. For many of these patients, a diagnosis of terminal cancer constitutes, among other things, a crisis of meaning. ‘Why me? Why have I been singled out for this fate? Is there any sense to life and the universe?’ Under the weight of this existential crisis, one’s horizon shrinks, one’s emotional repertoire contracts, and one’s focus narrows as the mind turns in on itself, shutting out the world. Loops of rumination and worry come to occupy more of one’s mental time and space, reinforcing habits of thought it becomes ever more difficult to escape. […]”
*[Footnote] Several of the NYU therapists referred to the writing of Viktor E. Frankl, the Viennese psychoanalyst and the author of ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’. Frankl, who survived both Auschwitz and Dachau, believed that the crucial human drive is not for pleasure, as his teacher Freud maintained, or power, as Alfred Adler maintained, but meaning. Frankl concurs with Nietsche, who wrote, ‘He who has a Why to live can bear almost any How’.
Apart from the prevalent (& historical) use of “he” and “man”, I humbly but strongly concur with Frankl and Nietsche.
The Little Prince and the Fox 