MDMA and Psychotherapy
I'm very excited at the possibility of psychiatrists using MDMA in therapeutic settings to treat patients with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Prof David Nutt, director of the neuropsychopharmacology unit at Imperial College London who is working on the use of MDMA for alcoholism following trauma, called the research a very significant development. “It could revolutionise the treatment of PTSD, for which there has been almost no progress in the past 20 years,” he said. (1)Considering that progress in the field of PTSD treatment hasn't progressed in two decades, I think we can revel a bit in this relatively new research. Aside from the positive impacts of those with PTSD, I think that culturally shifting our orientation towards mind-altering substance could radicalize our relationship to ourselves and the natural world. In Cartesian fashion, (I think, therefore I am) we consider the body to be a mechanical result of the willfulness of our minds. To consider the healing power of psychedelic substances would lead us to an ontological outlook recognizing our porousness and inseparability with our surroundings. If "drugs" can bring us into more wholeness with ourselves, we can also consider the psychoactive functions of things such as sunlight, the anti-inflammatory effect of walking barefoot on the earth, or the self produced oxytocin resulting from being with loved ones. Everything is a drug to some extent. The line between medicine and poison is dependent on the needs of the one consuming any substance.
1. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/may/01/ecstasy-ingredient-could-help-ease-ptsd-symptoms-study-finds
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