Working titles included Love Is a Four-Letter Word, The Love Children, and Love in Haight, according to items in the 19 May 1967 DV and 7 Jan 1968 LAT.
       Psych-Out marked the first feature film produced by radio and television personality Dick Clark. In an interview published in the 10 Nov 1967 DV, Clark claimed he wanted to make a film about “hippies” because they were “the most influential, most important and most talked-about group of kids in America.” He noted that the picture would not deliver preachments but would accurately depict hippie culture, which he described as “great” in theory but ultimately ruined by drug abuse. An item in the 19 May 1967 DV stated that Jack Nicholson had been hired to write the script. However, Nicholson was credited only as an actor in the final film, and the 21 Jun 1967 DV announced that Betty Ulius had been brought on to write the screenplay. Conflicting writing credits appeared in reviews. The 13 Mar 1968 Var and 25 Apr 1968 LAT credited the screenplay to Betty Ulius and E. Hunter Willett, with story credit going to Willett, while the 28 Mar 1968 NYT stated that the screenplay was written by Betty Tusher and Betty Ulius, based on a story by Tusher.
       The 1 Nov 1967 DV announced that American International Pictures (AIP) would distribute. Filming took place sometime in the summer or fall of 1967 in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, CA, and at locations in and around Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles, CA. Director of photography Laszlo Kovacs was credited as "Leslie Kovacs."
       The 3 Jul 1968 Var referred to Psych-Out as a “sleeper critical success.” Reviews in the 13 Mar 1968 Var, 28 Mar 1968 NYT, and 25 Apr 1968 LAT were largely favorable. LAT’S Kevin Thomas lamented that director Richard Rush did not have final cut, which resulted in the removal of thirteen minutes of footage that reportedly contained some “crucial” material, according to Rush. The NYT review referred to a climactic house burning sequence that had no conclusion, likely due to the edits.