MAPS My Journey Through PTSD: Healing with MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy

Research like this both encourages me and distresses me a little. I understand the need not to dose in a clinical office setting, but the pseudo-religious/new age description of many of these therapy sessions is a little creepy to me. I would think that an ideal session would be in a park or at home with old photographs; laying on a couch with eye shades, weirdly smiley clinicians, and incense with what is probably a very low dose of mdma seems...unproductive? Waiting 18 months and three sessions and all that B.S. and this lady, (whose traumatic experiences I do not want to downplay but sound mild compared to even people I personally know) she even admits that her life is no easier. Just more fulfulling. Which anybody who has dropped a pill in a club has probably experienced to some degree.

Like the I.V. ketamine trials (which I took part in earlier this year), I'm getting the feeling like it's a way to legally capitalize on drugs we already know make people happier. I am a trained biochemist. I understand why research is desperately needed in these fields. But for most people, I fear these will be nothing but more disappointment and false hope and wasted money. Many of us already have extensive experience with MDA, MDMA, psilocybin, LSD, ketamine, etc. And many of the same people are the ones who need breakthrough therapy the most desperately. So it almost seems like those people are fucked because they weren't straight-edge in college. Eh, mixed feelings.

Yeah, my parents fucked my mind up as well, but life fucked me harder. My suggestion to prospective patients: don't cling to MDMA or other psychedelic therapy like it's some holy grail. It will not fix things. You will likely not be accepted into a legal study, and if you do, you will wait years for about five bucks worth of MDMA. And....um...not advocating any illegal activity, but even for you professionals with friends who prefer martinis to MDMA...it's really not hard to get either way.

MDMA was always fun but a very forced and artificial feeling of euphoria and loviness you know will fade in a couple measly hours. Different treatments are necessary for different people and circumstances obviously, but I always envisioned MDMA as more useful in couples/marriage counseling like it was originally used instead of depression/anxiety/PTSD. For me, ketamine and related dissociatives have lifted my depression and anxiety for weeks at a time after the drug has worn off, something I doubt as many can claim about MDMA. I feel that people with very little experience and knowledge with psychoactive drugs are being pushed into therapies that make little sense because those Nature publications don't author themselves ya know.
 
^ MDMA assisted psychotherapy is the most effective and longest lasting PTSD treatment to date.

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The Medical Journal of Psychopharmacology said:
J Psychopharmacol. 2013 Jan; 27(1): 28–39.
doi: 10.1177/0269881112456611
PMCID: PMC3573678
Durability of improvement in post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms and absence of harmful effects or drug dependency after 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine-assisted psychotherapy: a prospective long-term follow-up study

Michael C Mithoefer,1,2 Mark T Wagner,3 Ann T Mithoefer,1,2 Lisa Jerome,4 Scott F Martin,5 Berra Yazar-Klosinski,6 Yvonne Michel,7 Timothy D Brewerton,1,8 and Rick Doblin9


Abstract

We report follow-up data evaluating the long-term outcomes for the first completed trial of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)-assisted psychotherapy for chronic, treatment-resistant post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Mithoefer et al., 2011). All of the 19 subjects who received MDMA-assisted treatment in the original trial participated in the long-term follow-up (LTFU), with 16 out of 19 completing all of the long-term outcome measures, which were administered from 17 to 74 months after the original study’s final MDMA session (mean = 45.4; SD = 17.3). Our primary outcome measure used was the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS). Secondary outcome measures were the Impact of Events Scale-Revised (IES-R) and the Neuroticism Extroversion Oppenness Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO PI-R) Personality Inventory. We also collected a long-term follow-up questionnaire. Results for the 16 CAPS completers showed there were no statistical differences between mean CAPS score at LTFU (mean = 23.7; SD = 22.8) (tmatched = 0.1; df = 15, p = 0.91) and the mean CAPS score previously obtained at Study Exit (mean = 24.6, SD = 18.6). On average, subjects maintained statistically and clinically-significant gains in symptom relief, although two of these subjects did relapse. It was promising that we found the majority of these subjects with previously severe PTSD who were unresponsive to existing treatments had symptomatic relief provided by MDMA-assisted psychotherapy that persisted over time, with no subjects reporting harm from participation in the study.



Keywords: MDMA, post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, psychedelic drugs, ecstasy, mental health, victimization, long-term outcome, treatment resistance, psychotherapy methods, pharmacotherapy

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More research is justified.
 
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