MDMA-assisted couples therapy investigated in pilot trial
newatlas.com
newatlas.com
I took a fair amount of MDMA in my late teens/early twenties. Mostly in nightclubs and music festivals. It was cool at the time (great memories and the music 100% was better).
In my late twenties (after 5+ years without MDMA), my partner and I decided to roll after getting some MDMA off the dark web. We went to a bar, which was my past go-to, and had an OK night. We left pretty early and went home.
When we got home, we had 100mg left each and decided to roll in the peace of our house. We both dropped a cap and spent the next 6 hours having very deep conversations and just caressing each other (I especially enjoyed touching her hair).
We didn't have any major issues in our relationship leading up to that night, but we did have a bit of friction over our future plans. After that one night, our relationship was at least 30% more pleasant and we both felt significantly closer to each other.
We still have a great relationship 2 years later. Obviously, the MDMA isn't the only factor, but it helped to dramatically strengthen our feelings towards each other.
One downside was sex. She was very in the mood and I was unable to perform on MDMA.
YMMV.
Nothing opens the soul (figuratively) as much as this substance. I still can't even begin to comprehend why MDMA is still illegal.
With (huge) caution, I would recommend anyone who struggles with PTSD and trauma related couple issues to first seek professional counseling, second, read as much as they can and then consider using MDMA on a therapy setting.
They have to quite careful though, because it's not totally impossible to run into liability issues.
Also there are dangers with psychedelics or other psychoactive drugs and psychiatric illnesses. It's not all a rosy picture...
YMMV as well, but +1 to the comments here wondering how this medicine can be illegal for therapeutic use.
Two caveats: always test your stuff (DanceSafe sells test kits), and remember that the drug is just some extra help/horsepower behind whatever therapy you do and the intention to treat yourself right.
If you want to enjoy an activity under the influence of MDMA try to time it so you're already doing it when it hits you.
That being said of the psychedelics I researched it is one of the ones were the body feelings don't impair penile sexual function.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5-MeO-MiPT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5-Methoxy-N,N-diisopropyltrypt...
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwTqlw8yGnI
But don't ever take Viagra (I don't know about Cialis) with MDMA alternatives like 6APB - that's supposed to be a particularly cardiotoxic combination.
In general, combining drugs is a bit like playing Russian Roulette. Very few such combinations have been thoroughly studied (or sometimes not studied at all), so people rarely have any idea what effects these combinations will have long-term, or sometimes even short term.
Mostly, people take them based on rumors, hearsay, and anecdotes, which is kind of sad. They've heard some random guy on the internet say it was a good combo, or their buddy told them it worked for them, and somehow in their mind that makes it a good idea to try it.
Given ~15 years of experience using it in myself and many friends I would bet big money piracetam makes a huge difference (in many situations, not just MDMA) and usually is a great thing to combine with anything (I don't know if it's always the case though, perhaps there is a combination which may be deadly) and it's been invented half a century ago but FDA wouldn't even bother to approve it safe, let alone useful.
I wish some scientists could go through all the reports found on the Internet and study every one of repeatedly described effects.
Which is not necessarily bad. They might schedule it as a prescription drug (as in many, although not in all countries) if they confirmed it works.
Basically take 2 grams or more a day for a few weeks then stop for a day and try E .
Dont take back with mdma since it seems to reduce some of the good effects
By the way it's worth mentioning NAC is the same exact substance like in the ACC cough pills but can be bought in bulk powder 10 times cheaper.
Many people take it (as an extremely potent antioxidant) regularly but it's not clear if prolonged supplementation can prevent cancer or cause it.
As usual, it's important to emphasize that this research is about therapy, with MDMA as an additional modulator on top of the therapy. In this case, 15 therapy sessions over a period of 7 weeks. MDMA was only involved in 2 of the 15 sessions. If I'm reading the paper correctly, patients received 3 therapy sessions before MDMA was introduced and the bulk of reported improvements happened prior to MDMA being added. Looking at the graphs, there aren't any obvious score increases around the MDMA sessions. In fact, I couldn't tell when the MDMA was introduced without reading the methodology section.
The study was also limited to 6 couples, with no control group. Note that the control group in this case doesn't have to be a placebo group, because it's too obvious if someone has taken a powerful drug. Instead, the control group would simply receive therapy without MDMA and results would be compared. The difference would begin to show the benefit of therapy+MDMA over therapy alone, which is critically important in these trials. You can't just give people 15 therapy sessions and then attribute the benefits to 2 doses of MDMA.
People tend to see these headlines and assume that the drug is doing all the work, or that they can simply replicate the results by taking the drug and seeing what happens. This is usually backed up by a couple of random positive anecdotes in the comment section while anyone with negative experiences is downvoted or dismissed.
Please don't assume you can replicate these results with ad-hoc experimentation with street drugs. If you browse Reddit, it's not hard to find anecdotes from people who have mistaken the short-term effects of these drugs for long-term healing, which usually results in them reaching out for more drugs the next time they have problems. Once people convince themselves that the drug is the easy solution to their problems, they're on their way to low-level addiction.
It's not, actually. I've heard interviews with researchers in other MDMA studies saying that there were subjects who were absolutely convinced they got MDMA, and acted like they were on it, but when the double-blind study was over it was revealed that they didn't.
Never underestimate the power of placebos or of the human mind.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17484949/
His blood pressure crashed (80/40 initally, 100/62 after several hours of IV fluids) and his heart rate was over 100 bpm. When he found out the pills he had taken were inert, he bounced back almost immediately.
- Blood pressure tends to shoot up, rather than down, during a panic attack.
- Four hours would be incredibly long; they're usually more like 20 minutes
But if you've ever done MDMA you'd certainly know it was a placebo, so it feels like these are people who never had, but imagined what they thought it ought to be like.
I'd actually be incredibly curious to hear their description of it? Especially since everyone knows what people act like when drunk or on cocaine... but I'm not quite sure people have as definite an idea of MDMA?
I don't know about this couples therapy thing, but remember that in most of this trials researchers are dealing with somehow of an "unstable" brain chemistry. Individuals with PTSD or ASD tend to dissociate even when sober and to be very sensitive to mindset and setting and believing they took a pill that is going to make their struggles go away while talking with a therapist can be a very warm and welcoming setting.
That being said, I also would like to point out that how people act on cocaine is usually heavily misunderstood and most of the stereotype of someone under the influence of cocaine is usually how people act on cocaine+some other strong stimulant like pseudo-efedrine. Cocaine was used medically for a long while and it's effects are very well understood and not similar to the usual "that person is on coke" stereotype.
I think it's like hypnosis - they say that just allows people to do what they want to do anyways. It's just permission to act differently and that be OK.
What's the dose used in the experiment? Similar to a recreational dose, or much smaller? If it was much smaller, i could imagine people not really being able to tell.
EDIT: The paper [1] says there are two MDMA 'sessions', about three weeks apart, and:
> Each partner was given 75 mg MDMA in the first MDMA session, and 100 mg in the second MDMA session, with an optional supplemental half-dose 1.5 hours later in both sessions (participants were informed that the supplemental half-doses could prolong the therapeutic window of MDMA effects).
I am told that a typical recreational dose of MDMA is 100 mg. More concretely, an Orange Tesla is ~250 mg, so make of that what you will.
[1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20008198.2020.1...
There have been times when the effect of coffee or marijauna hits me after a few sips/a bite of an edible, which feels placebo-y. But then I'm aware that it seems to be too fast, even as I start to feel it so fast, so could that still be a placebo effect?
I don't know, but it confuses me.
My only guess is that some of the THC is absorbed orally, but in a small quantity. That might explain the high feeling. Can't say I would know what the mechanism for this is, just a guess.
Experiencing an unusual taste in the mouth is common. I've heard of some people feeling a need to vacate their bowels when they are anticipating taking a drug.
So it's not at all surprising that when you actually take a drug you experience something right away, even before the drug has had time to work.
The mind is a powerful thing.
This is a completely untested hypothesis, but I wonder if these kinds of effects are somehow related to hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD). People experience some really powerful effects under the influence, and maybe the mind somehow learns to reproduce some of these effects on its own.
Not sure how based in reality that is, but seems to imply a similar effect for other drugs might be real.
I strongly suggest with little evidence that if you took 10 people who had previously taken MDMA and gave them placebos at least 9 would know it if not all 10. A single digit percentage of the control who don't know they got a placebo probably renders it pretty useless.
The BBC did a doco [1] on MDMA as a symptom mitigator for parkinson's disease with a stuntman who had it bad but liked to party at music festivals and saw it completely alleivated the symptoms. They did the two trials thing with him, take a pill (once mdma, another time placebo) and try to perform specific tasks in a gym and grade how well he could do it. The cameras got him saying something like this to the boffins in white coats: "I know this is the real thing because I can do it all easily and THE MUSIC ISN'T LOUD ENOUGH!!!"
[1]https://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2000/ecstasyagony.shtm...
The same happens when you take a paracetamol, you always feel better as soon as you've taken it, but it's because previously it did really work.
A similar thing happens with cursing - you can put up with more pain while shouting swear words than normal words, it is believed that is because you associate all those swear words with previously painful/traumatic times in your life and you're kind of drawing on those for extra strength.
The brain is strange and marvellous.
The problem then becomes the "nocebo" effect, wherein the patients who know they haven't been dosed with a powerful psychoactive substance assume that their treatment will be ineffective, and therefore stop giving it the required effort.
With therapy, it's important that the patient be onboard with and believe in the therapy. Giving people obvious placebos is a reliable way to lower expectations and instill doubt.
My best guess is that it was at a video of a talk or interview given on the Aware Project[1], or on an episode of the Psychedelic Salon[2]
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0oErWkP157InE47YAuhzPg
What's the difference between this and being prescribed an antidepressant? I'd argue there is no difference except that self-medicating is much less likely to work.
I don’t mean to attack MDMA. I think it’s great, and a lot of people could benefit from it. But I think this is a real issue if it’s easily available outside of a therapeutic context.
Does that mean you are now doing it more frequently than every 4 months? If so, how often are you taking it?
Antidepressants don't provide immediate relief. In fact, one of the major challenges with antidepressants is that they require time to work, some times as much as a month or more for full effect. They also don't directly induce "good" feelings, rather they work to dampen negative feedback loops and give the patient space to sort out their problems.
Another challenge with antidepressant treatment is that patients frequently fail to associate their improvements with the medication. It's very common for patients to discontinue their medication because they think they don't need it any more, only to discover that the medication was part of their recovery all along.
MDMA treatment, on the other hand, is solely about immediate effects. The patient feels the effects very quickly and there is no question about where those good feelings came from. The trap is that those drug-induced feelings are entirely unsustainable. MDMA is even notorious for extreme rebound effects, known as "suicide Tuesday". People who attempt to use MDMA frequently will quickly succumb to tolerance and dependence, becoming mentally far worse than when they started. The only reason it's being considered for therapy is that they're using lower doses relative to what most recreational users use, and the administration is limited to two therapy sessions under strict control. Users go into this with the expectation that they must use the drug as a tool to help their therapy work, not that they can use the drug as a go-to to fix their problems.
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."
— Hunter S. Thompson
That's why these successful programs are always therapy-first, rather than drug-first. The focus is first on identifying and fixing problems, using drugs to potentially amplify the therapy rather than avoid the problems.
Sadly, most of these studies lack any control groups (e.g. therapy-only) to compare against. If you look at the graphs in the study, patients were already reporting massive improvements after the first 3 therapy sessions, before taking any MDMA at all. Unfortunately, I don't think we can draw any conclusions about the MDMA in this study other than it didn't appear to make things worse when it was introduced.
Morphine is a medicine until you take like a drug. MDMA is a psychedelic at a rave and a medicine on a therapist's couch. By all reports, there's no possible way to abuse ayahuasca.
You will have more mileage with someone experienced, and more still with a professional, just like you would with other therapy practices that you can teach yourself, like meditation and yoga.
AFAIK addiction is mostly about a person's life, and not the things they ingest. That's why rehab clinic success is so heavily dependent on the support network (or lack thereof) the person returns to. You have to have something to avoid in the first place to turn to substances to avoid them.
I don't know where you heard this, but this is a highly dubious assertion.
I know people who have in fact abused ayahuasca, take it compulsively, and have had negative impacts on their life from taking it.
There's a long and sad history of various drugs being claimed to be harmless or even beneficial, only to have it revealed later that they aren't.
Cocaine was such a drug, with Freud being a huge fan of it, claiming it as a miracle cure with no potential for abuse. In fact it was used to treat morphine addiction.
Heroin was also initially used as a treatment for morphine addiction.
The methadone came around, and was used to treat heroin addiction. But, surprise! It turns out that just like heroin and cocaine, methadone itself can be addictive.
Marijuana was widely hyped as completely harmless, but it turns out that some people can get (psychologically) addicted to it, abuse it, and suffer negative effects.
Anything (whether drug, activity, object, or food) that is highly desirable can be abused.
That's a little unfair to methadone. It is less addictive than heroin and morphine. But users figured out how to combine it with other drugs to get a stronger high, which led to some recreational abuse. It's sad that these maintenance programs are so widely disparaged when they are in fact valuable treatments for opioid use disorder supported by extensive medical evidence that are underutilized due to popular misconceptions and paranoia.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/18289...
I am super interested in hearing more details. Can you share?
The other person was a compulsive liar and kept on jumping from cult to cult until they landed in an Ayahuasca christian sect saying they were very experienced trip guides. After a few months of "secretly" doing it I assume to understand how it worked to be able to deliver on their promises they got discovered and kicked out.
Psychedelic mania or psychedelic psychosis is a thing. I don't think any substance that affects your perception in such a way will ever be free from that nasty side effect. There's people that actually binge smoke DMT multiple times per week because they really believe they are in contact with spirits and start acting that narrative with life changing consequences. The incorrect social circle or antisocial tendencies will turn that person into a monster living in hell. And if you don't know about smoking DMT let's say that making sense of the experience requires a great deal of... interpretation. Of the psychedelics it's one of the ones that will on most cases hardly create anything that is even mildly similar to reality in the "breakthrough" world.
Speaking from personal experience, microdosing was something that I wanted to push to the limits of being a microdose until it became a "minidose". I was a bit relieved when I lost my stash (due to my own drugged up incompetence), it was becoming a way to just slightly trip out two times a week. As strong as a full blown DMT experience can be, people abuse all sorts of substances with scary effects from solvents, to cough syrup, to Salvia.
It absolutely was not. I'm a caffeine addict and my life is a lot better for it, as far as I can tell.
There's a continuous gradient between "medicine", "habit", "functional addiction", and "rock bottom addiction". It's hard to draw defining lines on other peoples' spectra.
False equivalency is a massive problem in online drug discourse. It's not helpful to lump all substances into a single "drugs" category and then draw conclusions by cherry-picking specific substances like caffeine. We have plenty of evidence that caffeine is safe to consume regularly over the long term. Trying to consume MDMA at a similar frequency would provided disastrous long-term effects. It's disingenuous to try to equate the two substances.
> There's a continuous gradient between "medicine", "habit", "functional addiction", and "rock bottom addiction". It's hard to draw defining lines on other peoples' spectra.
It's not really as arbitrary as you make it sound.
The bigger problem is that addicts almost always fail to categorize their own usage, especially in the early phases. It's frighteningly common to hear addicts rationalize their escalating addictions as self-medication, or for alcoholics to convince themselves that they are functional alcoholics as their lives slowly fall apart.
Everyone on this planet does things to alter their mental state and status, from running, to masturbation, to coffee, to meditation, to SSRIs from the pharmacy, to drink, to cigarettes, to recreational illicit stimulants like cocaine, to intravenous heroin from the streetcorner. I could plot a continuous curve between the extremes, and it isn't any of our place to say where "therapy" ends and "addiction" starts for any other person, because of the wide range of procedures, practices, frequencies, dosages, and effects, both positive and negative.
I can definitely see how it could help couples talk through their difficulties and it seems to bond people closer together.
As an aside I know a guy who completely fucked himself by doing mdma farvto much. It was really sad to meet him after a few years, he'd gone from happy outgoing to a paranoid mess.
> As an aside I know a guy who completely fucked himself by doing mdma farvto much. It was really sad to meet him after a few years, he'd gone from happy outgoing to a paranoid mess.
The public discourse on MDMA is in a strange place. Many people desperately want to believe that it doesn't have negative consequences, but anyone who has watched acquaintances go downhill with repeated MDMA use knows that it's hardly free of side effects. The problem is that internet commenters will quickly come up with any and every excuse to dismiss negative studies, anecdotes, and evidence. The usual strategy is to blame polydrug abuse or imply that the drugs were somehow impure.
People can fuck themselves up on any substance if abused, that friend may be able to undo the damage done with MDMA via Ayahuasca ceremonies - perhaps via the neurogenesis that is seen with Ayahuasca use to recreate pathways that may have been lost due to excessive MDMA use. Not a doctor.
That’s a recipe for addiction, more so than anything else.
MAPS does pretty much all of the coordination with the FDA and other regulatory bodies for making these studies possible.
This happens with any substance if a person isn't actually working through the issues that lead to them wanting to "escape" temporarily. However MDMA does have the function of actually giving people access to suppressed-repressed trauma/stress, and once having access makes it easier to process/heal - this is why it's powerful to eliminate PTSD.
This false equivalency is a common trap for people who end up with chemical dependencies. Just because people can get addicted to less addictive substances doesn't mean that we can ignore the fact that some substances are more addictive than others.
What I mean by abuse is use over multiple days.
This is your threadly reminder to practice harm reduction if you plan to take neuro- and cardiotoxic drugs like MDMA =)
This is not at all to scaremonger - just to encourage people to always research things very carefully before they consume them. https://rollsafe.org/how-to-take-mdma/ is an excellent resource.
I've used it, had a great time, not much comedown, and would probably use it again, but I was cautious to follow all of the advice on https://rollsafe.org/how-to-take-mdma/ If you're popping moderate or large doses every few days as if it were Adderall, you're potentially risking the chance of long-term or permanent brain damage.
They are only recommended and it's usually preloading and not postloading.
The most common side effect on people with ASD is anxiety and difficulty concentrating, and on people with PTSD it's anxiety or depression. They happen in around 50% to 25% of the population and they also happen on people taking placebo. Here we are talking about people _with an actual serious mental condition_ that is leading to chronic social anxiety or dissociative episodes even when not under the influence of any drug.
That's all data from MAPS sponsored published research studies. I'm not sure where you got the idea that supplements are mandatory to prevent a really large comedown period, but I think you might have confused yourself from reading too much anecdotal data, or you have been lied to.
Data gathered from surveys on recreational users point out that depression happens only in something like 10% to 15% of the population but it's tricky to get conclusions from self reported studies.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10619665/
Here is the basing study - and the neurotoxic effects of MDMA being metabolized to MDA in vitro are well documented:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2457659/
Yes - these are rat models. But it’s not like we are allowed to test for toxicity in humans at these levels.
Are you sure your sample for your conclusions on depression on the comedown is not biases by selection from a group that:
- Used recreationally
- Also took other drugs, like alcohol
- Didn't get good sleep after using, probably sleeping through daylight
Because the last two will cause depression even without MDMA use and it's well srablished by lots of studies. And of recreational use was done on a Friday or Saturday they could have been getting Sunday/Monday depression which is also well studied and normal in people with a day job...
The neurotoxicity of MDA in the amounts you metabolize after taking pure MDMA is not well established. We don't know how bad it is, it may be even less neurotoxic than a glass of wine.
I want more studies, certainly. IMO it has huge amounts of promise for getting people to emotionally open up and reconcile with themselves in a way therapy alone can be less effective.
Also to repeat myself, I did not say that people suffer from depression afterwards. Feeling “drained” is part and parcel of the experience of MDMA and supplementation absolutely reduces that negative side effect.
The two links you posted are studies from 30 years ago, on rats and looking at a very constrained amount of variables from a very simplified model of human brain chemistry.
And I'm restraining myself to studies because I don't want to sound like a drug apologist or speak about illegal drugs so openly on an account with my name. But I'm pretty sure that if you actually talk to whoever you know that has experience administering MDMA on communities for recreational or religious or whatever purposes and ask them for their numbers on "drainage" and "depression" you will be surprised. I really doubt that you actually have too much experience, and I'm 100% sure you have less experience than some actual MAPS psychs that administer this and do tell their patients that supplements are as effective as placebo and that depression happens to less than half of the patients. It's controversial that they would do that but honestly it's were the data points. Luckily.
If research evolves and we do discover that MDMA was more dangerous than we thought for mental health then that's a pity. Of we discover a diet of supplements that reduces the I'll effects that would be great, specially because the mechanisms by which it's believed MDMA causes depression are also present on many conditions so you would be striking gold here.
Matter of fact is I'm completely sure both academic and urban shamanistic knowledge point in the opposite direction of what you are saying.
I’m sorry to say that you’ve ignored the evidence I’ve already put forward and your “biases” are that I’m wrong and you’re right based on your feelings. Give me a source where MAPS scientists are saying supplements are as effective as placebo - you’ve just invented that.
I will give you one point - I believe that in a controlled environment that after effects of pure MDMA will not be as burdensome as someone dancing for 12 hours straight, and in fact are less about the MDMA itself and more about the other actions. I’ll still posit that neurotoxicity is a potential thing and therefore supplementation is advisable based on the studies I linked above.
Given however that are continuously stuck on the idea that I’m talking about “depression” and still use that word - I don’t even think you’re reading what I’m saying. Frankly, buzz off.
I read your studies and as other three other comments here say I don't really understand how they say supplements are necessary. They are old, on very simplified models that are no longer used in modern psychiatric or neuroscience research, and about brain chemistry effects on rats and not psychological effects on humans. There are a lot of studies with MDMA on humans now, and they point in a different direction. The type of research you are pointing to is what was used as an excuse among the scientific community for making it illegal in the first place.
Also I don't dispute it's neurotoxic, as most data points say it is. I'm just saying that the supplementation doesn't really help with that. Yeah they help with neurogenesis and so does meditation, eating healthy, learning a musical instrument, sleeping well, getting sunlight, etc... That doesn't mean it will "cancel out" or help with MDMA neurotoxicity particularly.
You are spreading new age pseudo-religious unverified magic cures for MDMA side-effects only that it's in the form of capsules instead of lifestyle changes. That's not bad, but it's what you are doing.
That being said, ketamine__, I do agree with your general statement about some drug users thinking their use makes them smarter or wiser, it's a common indication of addiction though. Specially among people that are highly functional among society or in disciplines like engineering or the sciences.
There are NO large population scientific studies on MDMA usage. The scientific data that does exist absolutely supports supplementation. I am not a current user of MDMA, but I attribute an enormous amount of my personal growth to its occasional use in conjunction with therapy in my 20s.
Specially because just taking supplements to get the neurogenesis effects is shaky at best. Lifestyle changes are probably more important.
From what I understand, ALA is rather unstable and degrades quickly, so for accurate dosing using stablized r-ala.
Anyway, about 1000mg and you'll be in ketosis a couple hours later!
https://rollsafe.org/mdma-supplements/#alpha-lipoic-acid-ala
Yes, the above is a "community" site but there are not better sources as it has schedule-1 and not extensively studied. The sources for studies they use are the same that therapists working in MDMA therapy use to create their treatment plans. The entire point is harm reduction here.
The annoyance of many of studies about ALA is that they use ALA, not R-ALA, and since ALA is so unstable, I'd have to go through each study one by one to see what they did to account for that.
Ugh.
All that said, I'm guessing no one is trying to sell R-ALA for Keto since R-ALA seems to be rather expensive and most of the fake keto supplements are super low cost supplements with jacked up prices applied.
For more information look into "pre-loading" for MDMA experiences.
This is not true at all.
Serotonin turnover in the brain is measured in hours, not days or weeks (Reference: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10543... ) 5-HTP also has a half-life of around 4 hours, so you're not going to have any 5-HTP or Serotonin build-up.
The rebound from drugs like MDMA isn't simply about "using up" your serotonin. When you take a drug and induce a huge spike of activity, the brain's negative feedback loops are put into overdrive in an attempt to steer things back to normal. When the drug leaves your system, it takes some time for these feedback loops to move back toward a more normal state. It's basically "paying back" the highs with some rebound lows.
It's possible that taking 5-HTP in the days after the drug could maybe counteract some of the lows, but it's not a magic bullet.
It is recommended as post-loading by psychiatrists but also based on their anecdotal experience with patients.
Prolonged use of 5-HTP will also cause heart problems, same reason fen-phen does. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenfluramine/phentermine#Adver...
I don't know of any studies of exactly how much is needed to cause problems, before taking 5-htp one might want to look into that!
I am always rather concerned that 5-htp is available OTC, and is even added to energy drinks, when it is known to have such harmful effects.
While studies of this kind are still very hard to make and very limited in scope (in this case, uncontrolled and with a very small sample size), I'm glad to see that we are lifting the unnecessary taboos around things like MDMA so that proper research can begin to get done (with 6-8 decades of delay compared to what we could have had, but still).
Props to MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) in the US for paving the way to that change.
It's a shame that research has been hampered by the war on drugs. Some day our descendants will look back on the prohibition on research towards such therapies as one of the great own-goals of our species.
I can see how this might help in couples therapy.
I cannot look at this and not say "slippery slope."
This is not biochemistry, this is not a medical condition, this is couples counseling. There isn't a condition you need to use drugs to get yourself back to the center to be able to act normally. This is more like thinking you need to drink alcohol to ask a girl out.
I literally wonder what is next. It keeps getting worse every time I see posts here.
Apart from that, MDMA was used in couples therapy before it was banned, because it just makes sense when you try it. For many people, they can talk about stuff they otherwise can't, they can process it, which is why it's also used in PTSD / trauma therapy. It can cure PTSD where there is no other known cure (there are already studies for that) so why not try it for couples too?
She went kind of crazy, yelling and running around in the hotel room we were staying. At some point she went on her knees and asked her to marry her, I said no so she started crying for a few seconds, then went into another thought. Sexually it got pretty wild also, things that she would never accept doing ever since. Unfortunately, I was unable to keep it up.
I met a couple who was breaking up. A friend of mine noticed this and mentioned how good it was. What she said caught me off guard, but I was young and didn't ask why. Later on that night someone gave them mdma which turned into a kind of unofficial couples therapy. They got back together and 10+ years later they're still in a long loving relationship today. Great, right?
Well.. it turned out he was enabling her, and she was the breadwinner, but she desperately needed some therapy, unable to keep a job due to personality reasons. If he wasn't around to enable her, she would have have grown, and things probably would have ended up pretty well. Instead, for at least the last 5 years they've been homeless living together in a vehicle.
Love is a wonderful and beautiful thing, but not all relationships are good ones. A therapist, even a professional, blindly mending a falling apart relationship should exceed caution. Sometimes it's better when people go their own way.
However, there's no guarantee that letting them "go their own way" would have actually resulted in a better outcome. People in abusive relationships often bounce from one abusive relationship to another, not to mention the potential trauma of a break up.
It's hard for outsiders who have no insight in to the relationship to judge its worth. Yeah, maybe this couple you speak of is homeless, but that doesn't mean they're not happy. Not everything is about money, financial or material security. And maybe there are things about their relationship that make it all worth while. It's impossible to guess, given so little information, and I'd hesitate on judging.
Also, the same argument you use against intervention with MDMA therapy could be used against any intervention of any kind.
Using the same argument you could argue that maybe it's better for a doctor to let an injured person die, because, well, maybe they're a bad person and the world would be better off without them.
A doctor in an ER doesn't really know the person they're treating, but they generally try to help anyway. Could such help wind up causing more problems? Sure. But we as a society have generally decided that help for those in need, even if we don't know who they are and even if we can't foresee the ultimate consequences.
>Also, the same argument you use against intervention with MDMA therapy could be used against any intervention of any kind.
Kind of. Without MDMA, normal couples therapy would have have taken time, and during that time the therapist would have had to identify the challenges creating problems for that relationship and then addressed them, improving the relationship and healing the psychological problems within the individuals of that relationship. The therapist would have identified abuse and addressed that too. With MDMA in a couple of hours the relationship can be mended with no oversight or addressing issues that can become pervasive.
We live in a world that demands quick fixes, and insurance companies rarely want to pay for long-term therapy. That's the reality.
To my eyes some therapy is better than no therapy, and MDMA-assisted therapy is likely to be much more effective than therapy alone.
If you have health insurance it pays for it.
FYI, a much more common and less ambiguous phrase is "exude caution". To exceed caution might mean to go proceed beyond where you feel comfortable.
Includes psilocybin research