Can someone share any relevant experience with this? Best would be if you did it properly under supervision of clinical professional, or if you are a professional here, by any chance. Doesn’t matter if it’s US or not.
She eventually was accepted into a limited program in Victoria, BC for ketamine treatments. 3 large doses rendering intense trips that lasted the course of hours in a clinic under the supervision of doctors and therapists. After the first session she was fundamentally changed. After the third she looked back wondering how she ever could have felt so low.
It’s not a silver bullet, she required some therapeutic work afterward and may do another session in the future. But it still stands that the person she is today (travelling, seeing friends, seeing family, etc) is radically different and restored compared to just a few years ago. She full heartedly credits those sessions, but also doesn’t feel a strong need to return-just to get on with life while she’s still in possession of her functioning body.
I’ve come to think it’s very important that we re-integrate these plants/practices/visions/what have you into society and we stand to benefit from a deeper level down than just salving creature comforts. Some people never forgot that matter and I’m sure are relieved to see some more “rational” people like myself coming around!
Honestly though, I'm not convinced about it in a clinical setting, unless there's a particularly severe issue that needs addressing.
I reckon most people are best off just buying some, getting together with a couple of very good mates on a nice day, rolling out into the country with some very good speakers, and just working it all out by yourselves. Sure-fire cure for what ails ya.
On a sensible note: don't drink alcohol with it, titrate your dose up to ~150mg, if possible get it from a Tor-enabled marketplace so you can be relatively confident in quality.
I don't think it's a terrible start, but yes, of course, YMMV and one should never go doing such things without a bit of reading about.
Mainly I fear people will read this and mistake it for a defense of MDMA as a drug for going out with your mates. I think this can be helpful for some and very helpful for others but not as helpful as a clinical setting. Where a clinical setting is a therapists office and not a cold clinic room.
I do think people would do just as well or better with a couple good mates, a nice set and setting like you described, and some intentionality (vaguely even) about why they are going on the trip. The problem is many don’t have a couple good mates, or don’t know how to talk things through with themselves or otherwise, and would benefit from guidance. Better if people go into it with an agenda like a therapist would have.
Edit: The reason this bothers me is because I’ve tried to think through what gave the few old hippies I’ve met burnout. And maybe they were just high but I fear it was psychedelics too often and for people on message boards to assume MDMA discussions are the same as psychedelic discussions when the dosing patterns I’ve heard discussed are very different.
This is I’m content with these synthetic drugs remaining prescription only. Having a system about it supports cultural expectations. The MAPS guys are really doing it right. The only problem is our system that doesn’t get approval for drugs out of patent. e.g. ketamine/s-ketamine
Naturally, not applicable in all cases, but I guess my point is you can get a lot of benefit in that context.
I suspect the clinically depressed/ptsd impacted folks don't have "a couple good mates" who are appropriate trip sitters.
1) Human recall is imperfect. The act of remembering an event actively modifies the memory for future recall, which can be tinted by other thoughts and experiences someone is having while doing the recollection.
2) It's rather difficult to feel strong negative emotion while on MDMA. While under the effects, the baseline is somewhere between "happy" and "downright euphoric".
Combine those two ideas, and you have a pretty compelling groundwork for how MDMA would help those with traumatic memories, particularly PTSD. Dose them with feel-good drugs, have them recall and talk through their traumatic memories without the usual, extreme negative emotional response, and the new memories are less associated with extreme negative emotion. Rinse, repeat, until someone can remember a traumatic experience without setting off an extreme stress response.
I am floored by this assertion, as it's completely contrary to my experience. My reaction to MDMA was a nightmare of disorientation, fear, and anxiety. I don't remember the dosage, but the setting was my own home, among friends and acquaintances at my own birthday party.
I don't know if my strongly negative memories of this event constitute "trauma," but they are certainly neither warm nor fuzzy.
Actual, pure MDMA can only ever make you feel good.
This is patently incorrect.
My experience is that MDMA makes one feel emotions much more intensely, with a bias towards positive emotions.
I've personally felt a number of negative emotions on MDMA as well, primarily loneliness when I've taken it alone, or ended up alone after taking it. This makes sense because it makes one strongly desire physical intimacy and physical touch of various kinds (hugs, shoulder rubs, compliments, deep expressions of love, etc)
Even the negative emotions I've experienced on it have however generally occurred at the same time of very positive physical sensations, and a strong sense of connection with myself.
We happened to take MDMA for the first time(at home) and we talked about the TV situation. We figured out a way to have both of them in the living room and make it look good.
We were so impressed that we ended up designing our backyard landscaping after that.
That's not to say that medications can't be useful in tackling the root cause, they can be, but not uncommonly, the negative side effects outweigh the benefits of taking them versus just resolving the problems in your life. CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) can be very effective for a lot of problems.
But the problem I am having in mind is not war-related PTSR. I don't imagine how to heal from problem when you are a massacre survivor. Especially if you were mobilized against your will.
What kind of pain may block even talking about it? I have built an idea while reading those PTSR-witnessers that mobilization for males is an analog of rape for females and the pain is not from killing and seeing kills but from being enslaved. I have a lot of friends who use to kill Russians in Russo-Ukrainian war, or use to be a medic, and everybody is totally happy to discuss at least some analytical problems (equipment, strategy, caveats, how to avoid being killed in combat, etc). I am just trying not to be jerk and listen more than talk to them and those people even do not claim they heavily suffer from anything like PTSR.
What kind of questions were asked to patients and participants of what military group were the patients? If my theory is wrong, then the questions is always about killing and seeing massacre. I really want to know criterions of being chosen to mdma-assisted therapy instead of other antidepressant.
in the context of MDMA assisted psychotherapy, people objectively use it to discuss painful topics and memories to deal with root causes
I'm not sure how to answer some of the psychology specific details, and so apologize, but given that MDMA does indeed seem to be one of those drugs that helps people deal with the root causes of their issues, I'm sure the info is out there for someone determined to learn it
I wish you luck with your business idea
I think that the appropriate substance depends on the nature of the problem. If the nature of the problem is a lack of empathy and interpersonal connection, I think MDMA could be a good fit. It can provide biological and experiential practice in dropping the barriers people put up between themselves and others.
Mushrooms, LSD, and hallucinogen seem better suited for addressing motivation and control issues as well as cognitive dissonance within an individual.
MDMA is used as therapeutic grease. People with PTSD frequently can’t talk about or otherwise process what happened to them without reliving the event(s) and re-traumatizing them. MDMA tamps down the fear response and makes them more open to communication. It frequently makes people want to connect to someone else which also helps with therapy. MDMA isn’t what relives the PTSD, it is the therapy.
If I recall the MAPS study, patients were given 2-3 doses of MDMA over 8 months of therapy.
If you anesthetize me, I will protest less when you do something that would otherwise cause me pain, but you haven't taken away my ability to feel pain in the long-term.
If you get me high, I'll be less anxious in the short-term, but the root cause of my anxiety hasn't been solved.
Tools are tools. My inability to ram a nail into a wall with my thumb isn't being "masked" by my use of a hammer, and while I might get better at it with practice and better thumb technique that wouldn't be a more valid solution.
No, it's a tool. Nobody is saying you should take casual MDMA to discuss every day solutions. But it does highlight the power of allowing people to express things that they might otherwise have difficulty expressing.
And maybe you learn something about your partner in the process.
This is why it's a powerful therapeutic tool. People with PTSD can talk through their most troubled experiences and lift that weight from their shoulders. Something they may be incapable of doing in a sober context.
In that sense, it's not just "anesthetizing" as you so lovingly put it, there is therapeutic value beyond a a momentary high.
Obviously, self medicating to perpetuate avoidant or maladaptive behavior is generally considered drug abuse and never recommended.
This occurred prior to the official training that's occurring now but after the decriminalization of drugs in Oregon. The guide was not a licensed clinician, but she had guided 100s of clients.
My mother-in-law found it incredibly helpful in processing traumas from childhood and in getting "unstuck" in thinking patterns. She described the experience as a seismic shift.
She had been in therapy for her entire life. I suspect that her prior therapy had laid the groundwork for understanding the thinking patterns that weren't serving her.
My wife and I have noticed a subtle personality change. She seems happier and more open to new ideas. This personality change seems to have faded slightly with time. These are of course just our observations, which could be completely off.
Psilocybin mushrooms grow everywhere here in the Pacific Northwest-- I see them all of the time in mulch around our city. I've had many friends take them recreationally, and none of these friends have had such an impactful experience. All of this is anecdotal of course, but it leads me to believe that working with a therapist might be essential for efficacy of the therapy.
I'm a neuroscience researcher, and I'm hopeful that these treatments will be helpful for many people. It is tragic that there haven't been more clinical trials. I'm hesitant to try them myself until there's more data. If I was suffering from intractable depression or anxiety, I'd feel differently.
With MDMA I certainly had lovely time talking with friends but again without a therapeutic goal it was just a good time.
By the time I took Ketamine in a clinical setting (legalized in California), I was spending 80% of my time fighting negative narratives inside my head. "I want to die" (not really, but my engineering brain had decided this was eventually a solution to every problem... Louis CK has a bit that is basically identical to the way my brain was thinking)... "this person hates me so I should hate them"... "all I ever do is fail". I only had 20% of my brain left for interacting with others. I was not a nice person to be around for any period of time. I would be withdrawn a lot because I was in my head.
My therapist asked me once "what would it feel like to wake up and not immediately feel defeated?" and I legitimately had no idea.
After a series of ketamine treatments the narratives calmed down immensely. 80%->10% to some periods in a day of 0%.
I truly despise the actual act of taking ketamine. If you're doing lozenges it tastes like shit, I always felt very nauseous after the trip. I found the trips weird and not therapeutic. Like weird patterns, sometimes seeing things gloopy, sometimes odd experiences that sound fun but just felt strange and disconcerting like flying through hyperspace with Gandalf. But the long-term results have been life-changing.
I would recommend ketamine to anyone who has gone for 2+ years or 2+ psychiatrists and haven't seen the results they had hoped for.
FWIW, I haven't hade the same effect from other psychedelics.
Tucker Max wrote at length about mdma therapy. [1]
Vice News had a piece on mdma therapy and ptsd. [2]
Therapeutic doses aren’t designed to be fun, they are there to stop you from being afraid and willing to talk to someone. In addition, the subjects are only occasionally using MDMA in context of extended therapy. It’s not like they give you molly and see how you feel afterwards. MDMA is a tool for making therapy better or even possible for people with entrenched issues that couldn’t be solved with conventional treatments.