Browsing by Author "Neitzke-Spruill, Logan"
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Item Integrating the ineffable: a social phenomenological analysis of the psychedelic experience(University of Delaware, 2019) Neitzke-Spruill, LoganThere has been a renewed and growing interest in psychedelic drugs in the 21st century. Drawing on social-phenomenology, cognitive sociology, and ‘set and setting’ theory, I delineate how individuals use socially defined frameworks of understanding to attribute meaning to psychedelic experiences. These frameworks refer to the ‘ready-made’ schemes that structure subjective experience of objects, people, and a variety of other phenomena. Hence, I investigate how experiences with psychedelic drugs are meaningfully integrated into everyday understandings of reality. The main question guiding this thesis is: How do users of psychedelic drugs reconcile the experience with everyday waking consciousness and social reality? I attempt to answer this question in three phases that will 1) describe the quality of the psychedelic experience, 2) identify how individuals integrate the experience into everyday life, and 3) outline what these experiences can tell us about the social construction of everyday reality in the United States. This study uses conventional and directed content analysis of accounts originally collected between the years 1960-1964 as part of the Harvard Psilocybin Project. Specifically, I analyze over 200 narrative reports from 100 individuals collected from the Timothy Leary Papers archival collection held at the New York Public Library. These reports recount experiences with psilocybin, mescaline, and LSD. Using this data to describe the character of psychedelic experiences, how individuals integrate these experiences into everyday life, and what constitutes valid knowledge in the United States, I hope to ‘demystify’ the psychedelic experience and generate more useful ways of thinking about psychoactive substances.Item Opioid-stimulant trends in overdose toxicology by race, ethnicity, & gender: An analysis in Delaware, 2013–2019(Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse, 2022-08-16) Gray, Andrew C.; Neitzke-Spruill, Logan; Hughes, Cresean; O’Connell, Daniel J.; Anderson, Tammy L.Recent upticks of stimulant presence in overdose deaths suggest the opioid epidemic is morphing, which raises questions about what drugs are involved and who is impacted. We investigate annual and growth rate trends in combined opioid-stimulant overdose toxicology between 2013 and 2019 for White, Black, and Hispanic male and female decedents in Delaware. During these years, toxicology shifted to illegal drugs for all with fentanyl leading the increase and opioid-cocaine combinations rising substantially. While combined opioid-cocaine toxicology grew among Black and Hispanic Delawareans, White males continue to report the highest rates overall. These findings depart from historical patterns and may challenge existing opioid epidemic policies.Item Psychedelic biomedicalization: mainstreaming a scientific revolution(University of Delaware, 2023) Neitzke-Spruill, LoganPsychedelic drugs have again become the subject of numerous scientific and scholarly investigations with much attention given to their viability as treatments for an array of mental health conditions. This dissertation explores the emergence of psychedelic science as a scientific movement and how this movement has been shaped by contemporary biomedicine. Within this framework, I critically interrogate the idea that psychedelic science constitutes a paradigm shift in mental health treatment and delve into the knowledge produced in this budding field with specific attention to explanatory mechanisms for psychedelics therapeutic effects, such as neuroplasticity. I draw on in-depth interviews with 56 psychedelic researchers from across the United States, participant observation of psychedelic conferences and virtual events, as well as popular media and the academic literature on psychedelics. I describe the formation of the movement, the qualities of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy that contribute to the premise that psychedelic science is a paradigm shift, and the diverse array of contributors to the movement. I outline the ways in which psychedelic science has been shaped by processes of biomedicalization, as well as how these processes have influenced scientific production in the field. Specifically, I focus on how biomedicine has influenced mechanistic explanations for psychedelics with a particular emphasis on their purported neuroplastic effects in the brain. I show how such neuroreductionism in psychedelic science has been identified as an issue among several researchers I spoke to and is entangled with financial commitments and incentives to garner support for research. The issues associated with the influence of biomedicine on psychedelics science have contributed to conflict within the field over theoretical issues pertaining to the therapeutic relevance of psychedelics subjective effects, as well as how the movement should progress in the face of financial interests and attempts to conform psychedelic therapies to the logic of pharmaceutical treatment. I conclude by making a theoretical case for the relevance of the subjective point of view and social-environmental phenomena in shaping psychedelics therapeutic effects. I argue that the psychedelic science movement can retain its revolutionary character by recentering the “person” when attempting administer psychedelics and evaluate therapeutic effects. This will require a recognition of the fundamental interrelationship between the social-environment, subjective experience, and the neurobiological effects of psychedelic drugs and a commitment to rigorous, ethical, and equitable research practices.