From April 7 to 12, Michael Mithoefer, M.D., and Annie Mithoefer B.S.N. led an MDMA/PTSD therapist-training program with eight attendees in South Carolina. The group reviewed our treatment manual in order to learn how to conduct therapy in accordance with our treatment method. A major portion of the training was reviewing videos from past experimental psychotherapy sessions from our first U.S. MDMA/PTSD study. This training program, and those planned for the future, will be used to teach applicants to conduct our future research projects. Applicants who complete the non-drug training program and satisfy screening criteria may have the opportunity to take MDMA in a therapeutic setting as part of our Phase 1 study to investigate the effects of MDMA on healthy volunteers; this study is also designed to give therapists subjective experiences of what MDMA therapy is like.
We are anticipating that we will need more therapist teams in approximately three years, if and when we start our Phase 3 studies. Since the training program can take a long time, we are currently soliciting more applications from qualified therapists interested in conducting clinical research with MAPS. If interested please contact Berra Yazar-Klosinski, Ph.D. at: berra@maps.org
