News Ecstasy... A Possible Treatment For PTSD

[snugglepuss]

There is a difference between MDMA and Ecstasy. MDMA is made in labs, under tight controls, and by people who have a crapload of education in chemistry. Ecstasy can be made by Joe Blow who lives next to you, and might include anything from speed to heroin to aspirin.

MDMA has been used for years now, and it was actually initially developed as a tool to be used by clinicians for therapy. MDMA falls into the category of empathogen or entactogen. It helps people to open up. MDMA was actually initially used BY the clinician so that they would be able to connect more fully with their clients. Then it was discovered that it helped to removed a lot of the fear that clients felt when talking to therapists and dealing with strong emotions.

I was in active addiction for years. My first and foremost addiction was to alcohol. I started drinking and using when I was 12/13. I tried a lot of different drugs. I know that I was trying to cope with cPTSD. I can honestly say for myself that the first time I tried ecstasy (which was tested and contained MDMA, not other contaminants), was the first time I ever felt alive. Those carefully constructed walls I spent years building had some incredibly important holes poked in them that night. I started talking about my trauma for the first time in my life.

Obviously it's not for everyone. And using it for partying is not using it responsibly. But from my own personal experiences with it, I can see how it has a valid place in the counselling rooms.

 

[Philippa]

Most of us with PTSD have severe trust issues and need to relearn how to build trust with another person. This is actually part of the therapy! To have a therapist use a drug to skip that part is irresponsible and I wouldn't consider this therapist very unknowledgeable about PTSD. Skipping vital steps in therapy is a very bad thing. A quick fix is not ideal. Scary stuff there.

bec

I understand what you are saying here.

Maybe I could have been more clear. I did not say that she worked with people who suffer from PTSD specifically, although I know this thread is in relation to PTSD. I just thought I would mention that she has worked with people who have issues (though I don't know, and didn't ask what they were)...not to skip the trust building process as such, but more as a way of holding an open hearted space. Many people have difficulty with closed hearts, and although I agree that drugs aren't the answer, E's can definately help to open a persons heart centre...somehow?

Anyway, I am not making any sort of judgement about her credibility here. Obviously you have made your mind up, and that's fine. I honestly don't know what sort of counsellor she is or if she doesn't more damage than good? It's possible! There are many well meaning people out there, who aren't really very helpful, and can infact cause more damage. I'm just not sure if using substances like this which are known to open the heart centre, are actually a bad thing or not...and from what she said, there were no complaints from the client, only amazement at how much it helped in that session.

Each to their own though. What works for one person may not be the answer for someone else.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Yes, even Oprah's jumped on this bandwagon!

Link Removed

Honestly, this scares me. Waaay too many people want that "quick-fix" pill that will take away all of their troubles. And to have someone from The Oprah Magazine write an article such as this? Well, as everyone knows, whatever Oprah touches turns to gold, and no doubt that people are going to be seeking out this treatment in droves simply because of this article written by one of her staff members.

Yes, pharmaceutical grade MDMA may be different than "Ecstasy", but are there really people out there who are so incredibly stupid as to risk EVERYTHING (and I do mean everything) by taking some drug which has NOT been through rigorous drug trials in order to determine effectiveness, safety, and side effects? I know that many are to a point of desperation, but no matter how bad things are, they could always get worse due to an adverse drug reaction or effect. Not worth it IMHO, but to each their own.

 

[anthony]

Yes, there are a lot of people who just don't care... then those willing to sell the crap in the first place.

It is like marijuana, you can tell me how good it is for you until your black and blue in the face, but the HUGE fact many miss, is that marijuana is a hallucinogen, and with PTSD, that actually re-traumatizes you over and over, knowingly or not. So whilst you get a relief in one aspect, your symptoms will get progressively worse over the years due to the re-traumatization that is occurring when getting high in the first place.

I mention this because it doesn't matter how you achieve it with which drug, any type of drug that puts you at the level of hallucination, you are being re-traumatized subconsciously, which eventually works its way to the conscious brain.

Moral of the story: Quick fixes have more devastating results further down the track. This is why there is still so much skepticism with SGB... because its a quick fix. It works, but they don't understand the longevity results, which is the problem. If the trauma is still within the brain, then that means it is self manifesting and being masked vs. being dealt with, then only masking the residual symptoms.

The kicker: If used correctly in only the trauma session, then this has been proven effective in clinical trials, and even CBT studies, where MRI's have proven the neural pathways operate more effectively with a combination of psychotherapy and drug. Basically, if taken just before the trauma session, the patient relaxes better, they disclose more and they can readily access greater information due to how it affects the brains neural pathways and basically, helps unblock them from the conscious to subconscious brain for information retrieval.

If used outside of the trauma session, then as per stated.

 

[mamachick]

I thought ecstacy often caused chronic and permenant depression that does not respond to anti-depressants. Im not at all in favor of trading one problem for another. I think Ill wait....

 

[anthony]

Ecstacy is nothing but bad... MDMA in a therapy only environment, in controlled prescribed tablet dosage for therapeutic relaxation purposes only, is very very different.

It would never be something given to every client in therapy, and only more so used for clients who are avoiding revisiting traumatic memories in order to process them and put them behind themselves, as the past, instead of constantly reliving them in the present.

 

[KrazyKat]

MDMA in a therapy only environment,...for clients who are avoiding revisiting traumatic memories in order to process them and put them behind themselves.

Exactly. I think very well guided sessions could help me tremendously. Not as a "quick fix", but with therapy and as a another way to get at things. I had some intuition about this a year ago.
Just recently my PTSD was re-triggered. So there is plenty of work to do!
I just have no idea who does this work or where to begin to find out.

 

[anthony]

It would have to be psychologist, minimum, due to the use of drugs being used, and you're right, I think it would be difficult to find one who will just jump straight for it before trying other methods first. I would imagine it would be a process to being used with extremely difficult clients who just won't talk about their true emotions or thoughts.

 

[KrazyKat]

I would imagine it would be a process to being used with extremely difficult clients who just won't talk about their true emotions or thoughts.

Or possibly like me, who don't easily access the event. I've been getting group therapy on and off for years, but the connection to the sexual assault was never made. I guess that's the upside of having this situational/body-triggering event at the hands of the TSA. Thank you for the forum -- I know I will learn a lot here!

 

[anthony]

Not many people really want to access their trauma, so what you are saying is perfectly normal actually. A majority actually never face their fears at all by revisiting the trauma, they just go along in life trying to put it out of their mind or denial and ignore it.

There is no "difficulty" in accessing traumatic memories in actual fact, that is a distinction between perception and reality. Memories are either there or repressed. No amount of drugs will access repressed memory, that is the sub-conscious, and MDMA won't achieve that. MDMA only relaxes the person to face their fears by talking about their memories, that's what it does.

Call it access if you want, call it fear being more appropriate. Normal, and very natural, again, most the fear will control them because the moment you start to think about it, all these symptoms overwhelm you, so you use all your effort to force it back down again. Yes, MDMA will relax you to bring it all up, however; you are still going to have to deal with the fallout, which is what the initial fear is about in "accessing" and "discussing" the memories in the first place.

Again, MDMA DOES NOT allow you to access anything that you don't already have in your conscious and can already access, it just suppresses the fear within a controlled environment to actually relax past the fear to discuss.

If that is what you need though in order to talk about your trauma, then that is still very normal... I hope you tell us about your experience when you fine a person who uses this. It is more used in countries that have quite open drug policies vs. most Western cultures. The US have done studies on it, though they have been quite controlled. Not sure if they prescribe MDMA to therapists yet in the US for this use, being such a heavily controlled substance.

 

[heidi]

Great. The year is 2011. Where am I going to find ecstasy?

 

[Girl3]

One of the experimental studies I participated in used ketamine in the active treatment arm. Ketamine is also an NMDA antagonist - like MDMA - but not as much a shotgun approach to extinction of the fear wrought by the amygdala. The ketamine doses were modest and given over the course of an hour and gauged not to do any permanent damage. MDMA on the other hand can cause permanent damage to receptors due to toxic levels of glutamate release. No one should think that doing Ecstasy is going to cure them.