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Trip of Compassion
This Israeli documentary is about a clinical case study that used MDMA (Ecstasy, Molly, etc) as a treatment for PTSD.
This Israeli documentary is about a clinical case study that used MDMA (Ecstasy, Molly, etc) as a treatment for PTSD.
I’ve written about psychedelics before, but this is the first unbiased and positive film about the topic that I’ve run across.
About 18 months ago a friend of mine sent me the Ayelet Waldman book, A Really Good Day, about her experience micro-dosing with LSD. And thus began my journey researching the world of modern psychedelics. I even managed about half of the Michael Pollen book How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence (in case the title doesn’t give it away, it’s a rather exhaustive book).
Through those two books, I happily discovered there is a whole therapeutic environment around LSD, MDMA, and Psilocybin (those three primarily) where those drugs are being both medically studied and used as a treatment (albeit, underground).
As the Pollen book details, some of the things being studied are:
PTSD
Depression
Anxiety
Drug addiction
Alcoholism
Smoking cessation
Assisting terminally ill patients to accept their diagnosis
Sometimes they’re academic studies at colleges like NYU, St. Johns and Yale. Sometimes they’re privately funded studies by groups like MAPS and Compass Pathways.
Sometimes they’re clandestine and private. :)
I’ve been nattering about the controlled and therapeutic use of these drugs for a while now. My own experience with micro-dosing and macro-dosing has led me to believe that the times are-a-changing.
Yes, I’m an ardent supporter of psychedelics.
Recently, entrepreneur and author Tim Ferriss wrote about Trip of Compassion. The documentary chronicles three out of ten participants in this Israeli study who suffered from PTSD and were given the drug MDMA. One participant was a sex abuse survivor, one a kidnap survivor and one a first responder survivor.
All three presented crippling PTSD symptoms.
As is typical with a clinical study, there was a protocol that was followed. In this case, three talk therapy sessions, two MDMA sessions and a fourth and final therapy session. No time frame was provided for the study, but it appears to have been relatively quick.
Woven into the film are re-enactments of the three participants inciting events. While these add an Investigation Discovery vibe to the film, they’re hardly distracting.
The three participants in the film were bold enough to have all of their therapy sessions videotaped, including their MDMA sessions.
THE ONLY WAY OVER IT IS TO GO THROUGH IT
What makes the film particularly interesting is that for the first time in years we get to see how patients react to the clinical use of psychedelics. Certainly, these scenes are both emotionally draining and jarring but you will come to see the therapeutic power of the MDMA as each patient works through their trauma.
However, this is still a film.
Which means there is at least one question worth asking — were all ten participants videotaped and these three the most cinematic/dramatic? I don’t know.
Ultimately, that’s not the point…but it was a question I returned to more than once.
Nonetheless, we’re at an interesting place with psychedelics. The drugs are inching their way back to their true origin, help.
Academic and clinical evidence continues to mount that these drugs provide real relief, and in a few, actual cures. Psychedelics shouldn’t be considered a “cure” in the purest form but more as something that may provide relief from a number of psychological maladies and in some cases, addictions.
But here in America, the drugs remain naively vilified and harshly criminalized. Make no mistake, I can only surmise that the reasons for this are ignorance and greed.
In a controlled and therapeutic environment these drugs can be very beneficial. Properly used, you’re not going to jump off a building because you think you can fly. You’re more likely to find pleasure in the Grateful Dead or house music or may want to hug someone.
None of those things are harbingers of doom or evil.
These drugs are not for everyone and they’re not for every ailment. But they are for some. And for those people where psychedelics can work, we need to let them.
Oh, wait a minute.
All three of these psychedelics (LSD, MDMA, and psilocybin) are off-patent. So the motivation of Big Pharma is nil. They can’t get a stranglehold on the drugs in order to rape the public. And then there is the pesky fact that they may actually cure an illness.
We all know there’s no money to be made in curing people.
As a result of their participation in the study, all three of the participants in Trip of Compassion have had their symptoms of PTSD eliminated. ELIMINATED!
Of the ten participants in the clinical study? Eight have been seen all of their symptoms evaporate and no longer require medication.
Yes, small study. Still, promising results. In fact, the results helped lead Israel to approve MDMA for the treatment of PTSD.
You should really watch this movie. — you will need a Vimeo account.
These are not your parents' psychedelics.
“Life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves.” — Bill Hicksmedium.com
7 Things I Learned Microdosing LSD
Did it change my life? It certainly added value.medium.com
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