Psychedelics bring these issues to the forefront, but they don't necessarily cause mental health issues, as the same issues could happen without LSD. I understand what you're trying to express with your example of penicillin, but it's not the same thing.
In my opinion, it would be more accurate to compare psychedelic drugs to activities like meditation and fasting, which also have a risk of anxiety, discomfort, and bringing out dormant mental health issues in some people.
This is precisely what makes them such useful tools for things like PTSD and why it can be a bummer if someone does Molly at a rave and winds up with a memory of being molested and her friends are too busy doing K to talk with her.
In a safe and supportive setting, this is exactly what can help people heal.
It’s when things get uncovered but not fully released and processed they can occupy ones life.
A good psychedelic therapist or sitter should be able to help someone integrat a current or former bad trip.
I've done all 3 of these (meditation as in mindfulness), and I disagree.
Of these 3, meditation is the most harmless. It is relaxing, not discomforting (I'll hook into this again at the end of my post).
Someone can start meditating or fasting without guidance (though I recommend guidance in both cases, especially concerning fasting) and resume normal life whenever they feel like it. With psychedelics, that one doesn't fly and if you do meditation in a group such as a 10 day Vipassana course or are in a religion or cult being forced to fast then you might also feel the same pressure. But that's an outlier; in general, meditation doesn't have such -or any- pressure. It is relaxing.
Finally, I've followed a mindfulness course for people with autism and there is no such thing as that with regards to psychedelics. The psychedelics also affected my autism, and in some situations made it much worse. All of that while I wasn't aware I had autism!
Meditation practice is not relaxing at all. The effect after meditating might be in part feeling relaxed, but in general meditation is pretty hard work.
This is probably a very common misconception, you see all the pictures of people meditating at the beach in front of a beautiful sunset and think that meditating is like going to the spa, when in fact meditating is much more like the mental equivalent of going to the gym.
Also, in many occasions (especially during a 10 day retreat like Vipassana), it can be very uncomfortable if not outright physically painful (although usually never dangerous).
Especially the effect after it makes that work more fruitful, since for various hours I'll be less tense and more focused. For example, it'd make socializing more relaxing.
Those are 2 very valid reasons for me to call it relaxing. Then again, I find running and listening to certain music also relaxing. Because after a while, I get in an automated flow ("trance") akin to meditating.
The 3rd reason is that if I'm rather tired, mindfulness can potentially get me to sleep. I often (almost daily) do it before I go to sleep, and it aids me to get to sleep. I much prefer it over: overthinking, fantasizing, or masturbating/sex.
Its already painful for me to meditate whilst sitting instead of lying but one gets used to that. Its just untrained muscles getting trained. As long as you don't strain yourself, you're fine.
If I prescribe penicillin to a patient with a pcn allergy, the fact that I “uncovered an underlying flaw” is irrelevant. Pcn is dangerous to them and should not be prescribed to them.
This is true, in one sense or another, of the majority of adverse effects people have from medications given in therapeutic ranges. It’s basically what having an adverse effect -means-.
It doesn’t mean that medication shouldn’t be given when appropriate, but it’s not a rationale for deflecting attention from the risks of the medication.