Feeling is so subtle. You cannot reject its coming, neither can you keep it back, however you try, when it ebbs. My soul faints with longing for your salvation, but I have put my hope in your word. I have done what is righteous and just; do not leave me to my oppressors Ensure your servant’s well-being; let not the arrogant oppress me. Your statues are wonderful; therefore, I obey them. The unfolding of your words gives me light; it gives understanding to the simple. I open my mouth and pant, longing for your commands. Turn to me and have mercy on me, as you always do to those who love your name. Direct my footsteps according to you word; let no sin rule over me. Redeem me from the oppression of me, that I may obey your precepts. Make your face shine upon your servant and teach me your decrees. Streams of tears flow from my eyes, for your law is not obeyed. My zeal wears me out, for my enemies ignore your words.   

 When I was a medical student, I spent the Summer working for Jan Bastiaans, a professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands who was known for his work treating Holocaust survivors with Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). He claimed to have achieved spectacular results, but when colleagues inspected his archives, they found few data to support his claims. The potential of mind altering substances for trauma treatment was subsequently neglected until 2000, when Michael Mithoefer and his colleagues in Southern Carolina received Federal Drug Administration (FDA) permission to conduct an experiment with Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA or ecstasy). MDMA was classified as a schedule I controlled substance in 1985 after having been used for years as a recreational drug. As with Prozac and other psychotropic agents, we do not know exactly how MDMA works, but it is known to increase concentrations of a number of important hormones including oxytocin, vasopressin, cortisol, and prolactin. (Never used drugs, unless prescribed to you by a trained medical profession.)  

Most relevant for trauma treatment, MDMA increases people’s awareness of themselves; they frequently report a heightened sense of compassionate energy, accompanied by curiosity, clarity, confidence, creativity, and connectedness. Michael Mithoefer and his colleagues were looking for medication that would enhance the effectiveness of psychotherapy, and they became interested in MDMA because it decreased fear, defensiveness, and numbing, as well as helping to access inner experience. They thought that MDMA might enable patents to stay within the window of tolerance so they could revisit their traumatic memories without suffering overwhelming physiological and emotional arousal. In 2013, between 9 to 28 million people between the ages 15 and 65 used ecstasy (0.2% to 0.6% of the World’s population). MDMA is generally illegal in most countries. Limited exceptions are sometime made for research. 

The initial pilot studies have supported that expectation. The first study, involving combat veterans, firefighters, and police officers with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has beneficial results. In the next study, of a group of twenty victims of assault who had been unresponsive to previous forms of therapy, twelve subjects received MDMA and eight received an inactive placebo. Sitting or laying in a comfortable room, they then all received two eight-hour psychotherapy session, mainly using internal family systems (IFS) therapy. Two months later 83 percent of the patients who received the MDMA plus psychotherapy were considered completely cured, compared to the 25 percent with the placebo group. None of the patients has adverse side effects. Perhaps most interesting, when the participants were interviewed more than a year after the study was completed, they had maintained their gains.  

By being able to observe the trauma from the calm, mindful states that IFS calls Self, mind and brain are in a position to integrate the trauma into the overall fabric of life. This is very different from traditional desensitization techniques, which are about blunting a person’s response to past horrors. This is about association and integration—making a horrendous event that overwhelmed you in the past into a memory of something that happened a long time ago. Nonetheless, psychedelic substances are powerful agents with a troubled history. They can easily be misused through careless administration and poor maintenance of therapeutic boundaries. It is to be hoped that MDMA will not be another magic cure released from Pandora’s box.  It is time for you to act, O LORD; your law is being broken. Because I love your commands more than gold, more than pure gold, and because I consider all your precepts right, I hate every wrong path.