Final phase of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy trials to kick off in Vancouver

[Nitro Fun]

http://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn...f-in-vancouver

VANCOUVER — Ed Thompson remembers the helplessness he felt each of the thousands of times his twin daughters would turn blue and go lifeless in his arms.

The young girls suffered from acute breath-holding spells, an involuntary condition that causes children to pass out, in their case up to 40 times a day.

“Having your kids die in your arms 7,500 times kind of sucks,” he said.

The girls’ conditions eventually improved, but the experience compounded earlier trauma Thompson had witnessed as a firefighter in South Carolina, sending him into a spiral of post-traumatic stress, substance abuse and thoughts of suicide.

That all changed in 2015 after Thompson enrolled in an experimental psychotherapy trial that used clinical-grade MDMA, also known as the party drug ecstasy, to treat patients suffering from severe cases of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Thompson said the experience saved his life and kept his family together.

Now, researchers across North America, including British Columbia, are gearing up for the third and final stage of trials ahead of plans to legalize psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy in Canada and the United States by 2021.

I wonder what kind of effects this could have on the efficacy of psychotherapy.

[MardestyGSOG]

Small amounts can be incredibly helpful to your psychic state, and in a lot of people you don't even get the high from small amounts, just an increase in mood and alertness. Now it's bound to cause severe dependency and the long term effects of daily use could be really bad, it won't drain your endorphins like when you take it to get high and will create a real dependency, and it could have irreversible damage on your brains ability to produce dopamine, but that is yet to be seen

[Deleted]

It's a step forward. Now we only need LSD to get the same treatment.

[Lynarii]

Small amounts can be incredibly helpful to your psychic state, and in a lot of people you don't even get the high from small amounts, just an increase in mood and alertness. Now it's bound to cause severe dependency and the long term effects of daily use could be really bad, it won't drain your endorphins like when you take it to get high and will create a real dependency, and it could have irreversible damage on your brains ability to produce dopamine, but that is yet to be seen

This isn't a daily use thing. The idea behind it, from what I understand, is that they use it in a clinical setting just prior to a psychotherapy session to reduce the amount of anxiety and panic that people feel when discussing past traumatic events. That way they can analyze the event and how it affects them without having to emotionally relive it. In particular they're hoping to be able to better assist people like military veterans with PTSD, people who were abused as children, or anyone else dealing with long term effects of emotional trauma.

[bbr]

Drugs alter the brain, and their condition would thus appear to be mind related,.
The drug pushes a "reset" button, that traditional medicine does not touch?