From January 23-27, 2001, co-therapists Michael Mithoefer, M.D., and Annie Mithoefer, B.S.N., will conduct a therapist training program for the new Israeli clinical team. The meeting will appropriately take place in the basement of the first three-story house in Tel Aviv, a historical landmark built by Rick Doblin’s great-grandfather in 1923. The Canadian HESEG Foundation, which now owns the house, has given MAPS permission to do aboveground MDMA research several floors underground.
In a refinement to our previous Israeli MDMA/PTSD study, which used traditional psychiatrists at Beer Yaakov Mental Health Center to conduct the therapy sessions, the new study pairs the traditional psychiatrists with Israeli therapists from outside Beer Yaakov who have more direct experience with PTSD and transpersonal psychology. One of the therapists for the present study is an Israeli who was trained at the California Institute for Integral Studies (CIIS), and another is a mind-body practitioner who works with an Israeli medical team in disaster areas doing PTSD counseling. Another big difference between the present and previous Israeli studies is that the Israeli Defense Force has now agreed to help recruit subjects for the study.
