MDMA therapy - any discussion?

Started by Oakridge, October 19, 2015, 01:40:30 PM

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Oakridge

Being new to this website, I was wondering if there has been any discussion concerning MDMA therapy for CPTSD. I have been reading about the success that the use of hullucinagenic drugs in guided medical settings has been having with PTSD patients/veterans.

Dutch Uncle

There used to be one, but I see the person who started it has left, and presumably deleted the thread before retiring from the site.
"MDMA" doesn't give any search-results, so I'm pretty sure the thread is gone.

For what it's worth: I advocated for great care with it. I have been a recreational user, and I can't see any therapeutical value in it. (discarding the fact that having a good time due to drugs/medicine can very well be of a 'therapeutic value', but that's not really the issue at hand, now is it? In any case, MDMA-use is not an offense/crime where I live, but other jurisdictions across the Globe are not so 'lenient', so I'm not advocating recreational use either. You can get terrible hangovers in any case: "handle with care" is a due warning.)
Some links were provided in the thread that I personally found dodgy. The few 'reasonable' links were largely of the nature: "the jury is still out on the verdict if it's a viable therapy or not".

Laynelove

I heard about this not so long ago, I'd love to participate in a trial but

A) I live in a country where trials haven't reached yet
B) I don't have a diagnosis from a psychiatrist for cptsd
C) I'm not a war veteran

I know that not every therapy works for every single person but I think we should keep an open mind about anything new coming out that might help. I saw a youtube video where they did a study on war vets and about 80% no longer met the criteria for ptsd or cptsd. One lady who advocates for it was a victim of childhood sexual abuse and she no longer met the criteria for cptsd.

I don't think the point of it is to get high and have a great time in the therapy room, it's more about being able to talk through issues/memories you previously suppressed and didn't have access to. It's supposed to be really exhausting and emotional.

I agree with Dutch uncle about the links being dodgy though...the study was carried out by one company called maps who are trying to legalise medicinal mdma, lsd and cannibis. If the stuff legit works then I'm all for it...but I'd find it easier to beleive if it was conducted by a university or something.

One thing I thought about later as well was how well would it work for those of us who never developed a sense of self? Those of is who don't know who we are, struggle to understand what our own interests are etc. War veterans have a core personality, a previous self to try and regain. I think for those of us whose development was cut off during childhood by narcissistic abuse and bullying, even if it could reduce our symptoms significantly, I think we would still have to do quite a bit of work after that to develop an identity, get to know ourselves and then get used to and accept the new us. I'm no psychologist, scientist or expert tho...just a theory.

We can hold out hope though, if they keep doing studies and having such great results then I can't wait to give it a go lol.

Kizzie

Welcome Oakridge, there's some discussion here about MDMA - http://outofthefog.net/C-PTSD/forum/index.php?topic=185.0.

Unfortunately as Dutch said there was another good thread but the owner deleted it.

Oakridge

It would have been interesting to see the past discussion, but it also might be irrelevant since there are new trial studies underway nationally. Sadly, none of them include CPTSD or PTSD for regular citizens suffering from these illnesses. I do think that Laylelove opened an interesting question which i haven't seen discussed in any of the MDMA trials underway or completed, though I might have missed it, concerning patients that have not developed a clear sense of self in life.  And concerning Dutch's comment, I want to emphasize that in this discussion i do not in anyway advocate recreational use for people with CPTSD. The studies underway are done in therapeutic settings with appropriate support personnel overseeing the patients during the process. I think use of MDMA for CPTSD folks who were abused early in life would need much support and guidance if it was appropriate at all. I have been impressed the the extremely high levels of success with veterans in these trials suffering from PTSD. Of course, some of these folks might have also been able to be classified as CPTSD due to their life before war.