[ad_1]
To begin the treatment, I gave Sophie two MDMA capsules, then helped her slip the eye shadow and headphones to encourage her to deal with the images, associations, or emotions created by the medication. Since the effects of the drug can be disorienting or intense, I stayed close. About an hour later, Sophie reported that she was in a booth where her father had started playing for the first time. He said he was smiling in his bed when his alcoholic father suddenly blinded him. The blow landed on the ground, where he lost control of his bladder and was briefly blackened. He reproduced this scene hundreds of times, but when the images were once overwhelming and chaotic, they now felt safe enough to study them with the drug. He described the strange relaxation that had come to him. Where the horrible terror once consumed him, he could discuss this fact with clarity and deep insight.
In the end he not only reviewed and processed a traumatic memory, he was able to express the grief of the 7-year-old girl there, who had given him a lifetime of pain. Usually judgmental and disappointing, the descriptions of Sophie’s memory were astonishing, compassionate to herself and her father. He talked about the fishing trip they made together when they were young, and told them that his father himself had been abused, something he had never talked about before. After spending nearly seven hours on drugs, the discussion turned away from the abuse and shifted to a clearer reflection of his life’s journey. This was no ordinary med-check visit; it was an indisputable advance. Reflecting on the session, Sophie said she was finally able to deal with and resurrect her abuse without fear, digested it and went deeper to understand how it changed. She cried. His father forgave him. Then, most importantly, he forgave himself.
The profound experience seemed to have lasting effects. After the third and final treatment, Sophie’s PTSD score went from being severe to not. “This incident in the cabin doesn’t make me cry,” he told me recently. “Now the tearful things that have happened to me over the years have made me cry.”
Not all experiences with MDMA, of course, are like Sophie’s. Some patients have had so many traumas that, as a result of fighting, parent or spouse, just a few sessions with the medication are enough. We need to continue to diminish memories — both when you’re on drugs and in more conventional psychotherapy — slowly building the self-compassion and acceptance needed to digest trauma. Some patients scream when the images return to them. Others dance or sing while taking a more positive view of their lives. No session is the same, and what little happens inside or outside the office doesn’t match your usual psychiatric practice. On the one hand, the sessions are their own much longer, eight hours or more for MDMA. The biggest challenges within the study may be the placebo-controlled nature of the study (half of people take a sugar pill) and the need to reduce almost all psychiatric medications in participants who could be seriously ill for a decade. bi. Other weird effects of this new paradigm also arise: when psychiatrists used to make phone calls to colleagues to ask for medication doses and side effects, I now receive information about the best playlists or how to contact someone when they are traumatized in a traumatic memory. .
The only thing I can say for sure about MDMA is that, for the first time in many years, the waiting room is no longer a revolving door with a solemn face; he lives with the chances of recovery. When I was a young medical student, one of the reasons I was attracted to psychiatry was that psychiatrists and patients together could help to source and heal deeper depths of the psyche. I worked with patients to decode the memories, dreams, and reflections that arose from the unconscious, and I appreciated the ability to transform the therapy I spoke to. Then, apparently overnight, psychopharmacology changed a lot. Concerned about resolving “chemical imbalances,” psychiatrists had to abandon therapeutic cooperation and turn to the role of a disbanded expert who solves biochemistry. Sometimes I felt like I was doing a scam, often prescribing drugs that didn’t work, because I was trying to improve because of illnesses.
[ad_2]
Source link
