A search for neurotic in my copy of the DSM V turned up a lot of mentions as a 
"risk factor". But is there a diagnosis? As I understand it, they tend to treat 
everything as a continuum and you only get diagnosed if the tendency/trait is 
bad enough to interfere with regular activities ... you know the things normies 
do. So, you may be a heavy drinker, but you're not diagnosed with a dependency 
until you start missing work or black out or somesuch.

My guess would be the *setting* in which one takes a high dose of a psychedelic 
would strongly regulate the impact of neurotic tendencies on one's trip. Since 
I get very antsy in crowds, I'd never load up on shrooms or acid and go to a 
rave or somesuch. But if I had a "guide" help me do it in a calm, low density, 
environment, I'd be all over it. The thing that worries me is that my highs 
always involve lots of work ... running, intense concentration, etc. ... more 
akin to Csikszentmihalyi's flow maybe ... I'm not puritanical like Nick. But I 
worry about succumbing to "cheap thrills". My friends from across the pond are 
appalled by my advocacy of hand guns. >8^D But at least one of them agrees with 
me. The difference being that in the US, any idiot can walk into a Walmart and 
buy one, whereas he had to train and be certified (somewhat) competent before 
he could take one home with him. Drugs are like guns ... or should be, anyway. 
The point being that the correlation between neuroticism and bad trips 
mentioned in the article *might* simply be the too easily accessed high. The 
"work for it" part can take the place of (or is in the same category as) the 
*ritual* that helps regulate us. So, neurotics might be the most capable of 
efficient use of psychedelics.

On 3/9/20 2:34 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> Ah.  Neuroticism is something like a tendency to be neurotic.  Neurotic is 
> actually a good diagnosis in psychoanalytic therapy.  It means you're 
> treatable.  Also it's essentially universal so it's a question of degree.

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