The label "bad trip" has a loaded connotation. People think of a bad trip as something to flee from or as the negative outcome of a psychedelic. I've had multiple challenging trips (all lsd), and yet there was a time in my life I went back every 6 months or so.

When you frame them not as a risk or as a thing to flee from, but as a chance for uncomfortable growth it doesn't make it less uncomfortable, but it can make it significantly more productive even than the good trips. You don't control where it takes you, but you do control how you interpret it and how you respond.

So when the drug sits you down and shows you the bullshit you've been on you have a choice: do you hide from it, internalize it, or otherwise interpret it as disparaging you, or do you take it like an honest conversation from a trusted friend or mentor and accept that you need to change. It's similar for trauma, psychedelics aren't used in treatment of trauma because it's a nice easy fun time, no it's a guided challenging trip through your traumatic experiences to help you confront them in a productive manner.

I personally don't like saying there's no such thing as a bad trip, I think it's entirely possible that psychedelics can lead you into uncomfortable places where you either have nothing to learn or aren't yet able to deal with it. But I do think the vast majority of "bad trips" could benefit from being reframed as challenging so that people's response to them is to attempt to grow from them rather than to pop a xanax. Though of course the pre trip check in is also invaluable, double check that you're in the right mood before taking the drug and remember that it's always better to bail than go in when you aren't prepared.

There's a broad push in the therapeutic psychedelic community to use the term "challenging" instead of "bad" because semantics and framing matter. I know it can be annoying, but some words carry an unfortunate connotation that's best subverted by using a different word altogether.

I do take issue with the words "bad" and "good" in general, but I wouldn't say that there are no experiences which can be described as bad. (I'm also an amoralist and believe nothing is inherently "bad," so at least I'm consistent, however unpopular)

I recommend Frankl because I realize this sounds inherently invalidating, but if anyone is allowed to say it, it's a holocaust survivor. I'd recommend "Man's Search for Meaning", which he wrote shortly after being liberated from a concentration camp.