Andrew Feldmar: MDMA for PTSD

Psychologist Andrew Feldmar, Ph.D. talks about the importance of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy research for PTSD. Dr. Feldmar is working with MAPS and Health Canada to start a new study in Vancouver.

To learn more, visit www.mdmaptsd.org.

I am Andrew Feldmar.
I am a psychologist.

I have practised psychotherapy for about 40 years in Vancouver, Canada.

I belong to the Canadian Psychological Association and right now I'm involved in a study

with the help of MAPS.
Ingrid Pacey, a Vancouver Psychiatrist, and myself

are starting a study about the effectiveness of MDMA as an adjunct to psychotherapy.

So why MDMA? Why are we studying MDMA?
Well, studies that have been already completed

way before it became an illegal substance and now recently with a change in the attitude of the times

it looks like MDMA allows one to enter into a state of consciousness where suddenly maybe for some people

for the very first time in their lives they find themselves without shame.

They find themselves with an open heart, where maybe for decades their heart has been closed

and they haven't even noticed it.
So it allows for connection.

The major effect of PTSD is inability to make meaningful connections.

Judith Lewis Herman, a Harvard psychiatrist, actually argues that all the syndromes listed

and catalogued, in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual that the American Psychiatric Association uses

all of it really boils down to PTSD.

So if we can make headway with an efficient way of relieving people

from the after effects of trauma or traumas then in a way we alleviate the entire field of mental distress,

not just what is now strictly believed to be PTSD.

Interview courtesy of "From Neurons to Nirvana: The Great Medicines" by Oliver Hockenhull.

Film to be released later in 2012.

The Multidsciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies
maps.org