The evidence showing that MDMA (aka pure Ecstasy) helps people living with PTSD:
How the therapy works:
In the study looking at how MDMA could treat PTSD, the drug was given in conjunction with talk therapy. Patients lay down in a therapist’s office and listened to soothing music with headphones, wearing eyeshades.
They had the option of talking about what they were experiencing, and received counseling before and afterwards to integrate what happened to them while on the drug into their everyday lives. According to [research organization Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)], 83 percent of the 19 people treated in a recent group had breakthroughs in this MDMA-assisted therapy and showed significant improvement in their PTSD symptoms.
“The MDMA allowed me to be my very, very, very best self, and I got to take care of my most broken self with my best self,” says Rachel Hope, a sexual-abuse survivor who participated in the study. MAPS’ results from this study were encouraging enough to the FDA that it was able to expand its efforts into what’s known in drug-trial parlance as “Phase 2 studies.” It’s now doing the same study with four new groups of patients in South Carolina, Colorado, Israel, and Vancouver.
Previous Dish on the therapeutic promise of MDMA here, here, here, and here.
The Dish 