DR RONALD SANDISON

Dr Ronald Sandison, who has died aged 94, was a well-known
psychiatrist and an early pioneer in Britain of the clinical use of
LSD; although he later abandoned using the drug in treatments, he
remained convinced of its benefits to the end of his life.

He and his colleagues turned the hospital round, creating a centre of
clinical excellence with an international reputation. He also
established a branch of the Samaritans in nearby Worcester.

In 1952 Sandison visited Switzerland, where he was introduced to the
clinical use of lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD. This had been
synthesised by the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz
laboratories in Basle in 1938. Sandison met Hofmann and brought back
from Sandoz a supply of the drug which he began to use at Powick as a
tool in psychotherapy. He used only small amounts of LSD to prepare
patients for investigation of their subconscious.

Over the next 12 years Sandison treated thousands of patients with
LSD. These were principally those whose treatment had hitherto failed
to help them combat neurosis or depression.

Sandison's aim was to unlock parts of the mind that were repressed,
allowing his patients to explore material to which they had previously
had no access. For example one young woman he treated, "tormented by
evil thoughts", had found "no remedy" through traditional means.

Sandison started her on LSD sessions, during which "she experienced
herself as the devil and saw her long pointed tail curled around me.
It was one of those powerful moments which characterised LSD therapy."
Her visions, Sandison was careful to point out, marked the "beginning,
rather than the end" of the therapeutic process. Months of follow-up
psychotherapy would be needed. "But the process," he noted, "had started."

Sandison considered LSD therapy highly successful. In 1954, with two
of his colleagues, he published a paper showing that he had made great
breakthroughs with a majority of his patients.

Medical trials in the 1950s were less rigorous than they are today,
and Sandison's results would now be considered somewhat anecdotal. But
the project aroused worldwide interest, and in 1955 a
government-funded, purpose-built LSD unit was established at Powick.
The new building could accommodate five patients to receive LSD
therapy simultaneously; each had his own room with a couch, a chair, a
blackboard for recording images and a record player.

Sandison and his team would oversee the sessions and at the end of the
day patients would attend a group session to discuss their
experiences.

By 1964 Sandison was ready to move on. He left Powick, and never again
explored treatment with LSD. Two years later, when LSD had begun to be
widely abused as a recreational drug, it was banned; a negative press
contributed to its loss of scientific credibility, and it became
increasingly difficult to obtain a licence for its use. This was a
development that greatly disheartened Sandison, who never lost faith
in LSD's therapeutic value in a clinical setting.

Ronald Arthur Sandison was born in the Shetland Islands on April 1
1916 . Not long after his birth his father, Arthur, moved to London
and joined the civil service, where he was responsible for ancient
monuments.

From King's College School, Wimbledon, Ronald won a scholarship to
study Medicine at King's College Hospital in London, qualifying with
excellent results in 1940. The following year he joined the RAF, and
was based at the physiological laboratory at Farnborough studying the
medical problems of flight. One of these was the effects of oxygen
deficiency; another was the sight aspects of night flying.

In the weeks before D-Day Sandison visited all the RAF stations
involved in order to brief the (often very young) pilots on oxygen
uptake at altitude and on the light levels they could expect during
the airborne night assault. In 1946 he was demobbed in the rank of
wing commander, having been mentioned in despatches - an unusual award
for a non-combatant.

A promising career in medicine or surgery seemed certain. But Sandison
had lost enthusiasm for conventional medicine and become interested in
the working of people's minds. He turned to psychiatry and joined the
staff of Warlingham Park Hospital, Surrey, as a trainee, qualifying
with a diploma in Psychological Medicine in 1948.

From 1964 to 1975 he worked at Southampton, developing group therapy
for the treatment of schizophrenic patients and helping to build the
new medical school at the university.

For much of his life Sandison had considered himself a Shetlander in
exile, and in 1975 he returned to his roots. From childhood he had
visited the Islands on summer holidays, and in 1969 he had bought a
derelict croft-house there. In 1975 he accepted the post of resident
psychiatrist, having persuaded the Health Board that it was cheaper to
employ him than to fly their psychiatric patients down to Aberdeen for
treatment.

While working in Lerwick, he helped institute an alcohol resource
centre for the Shetlands and took on family planning work.

Sandison's final 10 years of work - "the most satisfying of my whole
career" - were spent in London on a variety of projects. He worked
with the Group Analytic Society, which explores the theories of group
psychotherapy, and for some years edited its journal.

He also worked on family planning with the Margaret Pyke Centre. He
had a busy private practice and was consultant to St Luke's Hospital.
In addition he was consultant to the London Pastoral Support Group,
established by the Bishop of London for his clergy. Sandison, a man of
faith, had promoted links between the Churches and psychiatric centres
throughout his career and was involved with two Cistercian
monasteries: one at Portglenone near Belfast, the other on Caldey
Island, Pembrokeshire.

Sandison was a member of the scientific advisory board of the Beckley
Foundation, established in 1998 to investigate consciousness and its
altered states and to research into public policy on drugs.

He was also the author of numerous articles and books. A Century of
Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Group Analysis (2001) combines the story
of his career as a psychiatrist with a very personal account of his
own emotional development and dreams.

Ronald Sandison, who died on June 18, was thrice married. With his
first wife, Evelyn Oppen, a friend from his school days, he had two
sons . In 1965 he married Margaret Godfrey, but this marriage too
ended in divorce. In 1982 he married Beth Almond, with whom he moved
to Ledbury, in Herefordshire, on his retirement in 1992. She survives
him.