The Diane Rehm Show on NPR features a special segment on psychedelic therapy research, featuring Acid Test author Tom Shroder, neuroethicist Dr. James Giordano, MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) researcher Dr. Michael Mithoefer, and study participant Nicholas Blackston. During the hour-long discussion, Dr. Mithoefer discusses the results from MAPS’ pilot and long-term follow-up studies of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD, Blackston describes his personal experience of overcoming PTSD after receiving MDMA as an adjunct to psychotherapy in a clinical study, and Shroder talks about his own process investigating the history of psychedelic research while writing Acid Test. "They're doing Indiegogo campaigns to raise tens of thousands of dollars when the Pentagon has enough money in its couch cushions to fund this research,” explains Shroder.
Listen to the segment here.
Millions of Americans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, including hundreds of thousands of veterans. Yet standard drug and therapy treatments have mixed success rates. Some cases of PTSD are considered untreatable. But researchers are seeing dramatic results from therapy that uses psychedelic drugs to treat PTSD, depression and addiction. Therapy involving substances like Psilocybin and MDMA, better known as ecstasy, show 80 percent success rates years after treatment. Diane and a panel of guests discuss new research on drugs that have long been considered dangerous and illicit.
