MDMA has a fairly interesting history. Only recently has it really begun getting the attention that it deserves as a powerful therapeutic agent. Throughout most of its existence, MDMA has either been completely ignored or demonized as a dangerous party drug.
Nowadays, people are beginning to really appreciate the therapeutic value of MDMA and other drugs such as ketamine. This substance will likely play an important part in the future of psychotherapy. Learn how and why this is happening today.
What Is MDMA?
MDMA, short for methylenedioxymethamphetamine, is a drug that has gained popularity in the party scene across the globe. It remains most popular in Europe and North America, where it is often sold under the name of ecstasy.
MDMA is a stimulant drug in the phenethylamine family that is also part of a class of substances called empathogens. Empathogens are drugs that produce significant feelings of love, bliss, connection, acceptance, and unity. MDMA is also entactogenic, meaning that it greatly accentuates tactile sensations. This lends credence to its reputation as a drug that leads to reckless sexual activity.
This collection of MDMA effects is unique to MDMA meaning that – despite the repeated attempts of numerous chemists – no other drug will perfectly recreate the experience of ecstasy. It has remained one of the world’s most popular party drugs for decades, and for good reason.
The MDMA Experience: MDMA Effects & Benefits
MDMA, like alcohol, is great social fuel. However, unlike alcohol, MDMA reliably produces in people the desire to connect with others in an intimate and vulnerable way. Whereas alcohol produces bonds that are often sloppy and vulgar, perhaps cheesily romantic at best, users of MDMA speak directly from the deepest regions of their hearts. This often results in the sharing of personal details that would normally be hidden out of fear of being judged.
This allows people to develop strong bonds when using MDMA together. Although the tactile and euphoric sensations may disappear as the drug wears off, the connections that were formed – as long as users can remember the details – remain. The bonds formed between someone using MDMA and someone entirely sober will most likely result in the sober individual slowly backing away.
This enhanced willingness to allow oneself to be vulnerable is a large part of the reason that MDMA therapy is so appealing. It helps people uncover and come to terms with aspects of themselves that they would generally be unwilling or unable to share or even recognize. This interpersonal blockage is one of the greatest challenges faced by an individual and is certainly one of the most challenging things for a therapist to help their patients overcome
Why People Are Turning to MDMA for Therapy
As mentioned, MDMA possesses the unique ability to help people open up and learn about themselves and others. MDMA causes people to experience intense feelings of love and empathy, not just towards others, but toward themselves as well.
This experience is tremendously valuable, although in a party setting much of the value of the experience is lost once the moment itself has expired.
Who Needs MDMA Therapy?
MDMA therapy can be beneficial for pretty much everyone. It’s especially helpful for people who desire to be more open and honest, whether that means with themselves or with other people. It’s useful for people who want to forgive themselves or their loved ones but don’t know how. For those who want to overcome PTSD but can’t find the strength to face their past.
So, in that sense, MDMA therapy can basically be useful for anybody. It’s quite rare to find somebody so truly grounded and honest with themselves that they understand their own psyche entirely. MDMA can bring to the surface all sorts of interesting psychological and emotional wounds, experiences, or memories that an individual would normally be unable or unwilling to address.
MDMA is especially helpful for people who struggle with low self-esteem or a distorted self-image, or some form of self-hatred, many of which are symptoms of depression. The drug may allow somebody a chance to look at themselves from a loving and compassionate perspective, addressing their deepest wounds, traumas, worries, and fears for the first time.
But there are lots of ways to do that, most of which don’t require consuming psychedelics. The thing that makes MDMA especially useful is its ability to fill people with such great compassion and empathy that they find themselves able to comfort and reassure themselves – something often referred to as self-parenting and the goal of many therapists and clients interested in pushing through long-term depression and anxiety.
MDMA and Emotional Health
Some people are capable of reassuring and supporting themselves. It comes naturally. These people were often raised in loving and supporting environments. They live rich emotional lives, unafraid to grieve, cry, shout for joy, or wallow in shame, knowing that they can always pick themselves up after.
Many others, however, were raised in less loving environments and thus learned differently. Instead of being openly expressive, they learned to repress or hide certain emotions. Often they grew up believing that relationships were intrinsically painful and best avoided. Those few relationships that they did allow themselves to form were often codependent, in which they sought to have the needs they were afraid to fill on their own, filled by another person.
Men, especially, were taught never to show any emotional signs that could be perceived as weakness. Crying is off the table, and even smaller emotional indications like discouragement, embarrassment, or sadness are often repressed.
Since these people never learned how to integrate their emotions and show themselves love, each emotional wound, setback, insult, attack, and jab that they experience buries itself under the skin and waits, dormant until they eventually ‘blow their top.’
Incapable of holding in any more repressed emotions, these people will explode seemingly irrationally at something small. In reality, it was just this one last emotional experience that shattered the bottle where they repressed all their negative feelings and unleashed them on the unfortunate souls nearby.
MDMA, Therapy & Self-Acceptance
MDMA allows many people, for the first time, to validate and accept themselves the way that they are, feelings and all. On their own, or even with a therapist, these experiences can be so overwhelming that they’re challenging to cope with.However, a therapist at least helps to guide people through these tremendously valuable moments.
People may be willing to look at memories that they have repressed for years, for example, or they may be willing to finally consider the root cause of their anxiety. Perhaps they might realize that they’ve been bullying themselves for years and begin to feel really upset with themselves. Although this might feel unpleasant at first, this is good. You’d be upset with somebody else who was bullying you. Why not get upset at the bully that’s been living in your head all these years?
It’s often said that one should never say anything to themselves that they would never say to a friend, and yet this is what most of us do. Our internal dialogues can be so harsh that if we spoke them aloud then we would certainly have very few friends. In fact, most of us can conjure up the image of a “crazy street tramp” who wanders around muttering constantly. They’re labeled crazy, but the only thing different between them and us is that these people unabashedly express their inner dialogue.
Something as simple as a small jab – saying, “ah, I’m such an idiot,” after dropping a pencil, for example – might seem like nothing when you say it to yourself. But imagine the difference if you called somebody else an idiot for dropping their pencil. It’s insulting, rude, and uncalled for – so why is it okay to say it to yourself?
It’s not. But most of us don’t realize that we’re doing it. If you’ve ever had a friend or a loved one tell you that you’re being too hard on yourself, it’s because they see you treating yourself in a way that you wouldn’t treat a friend.
MDMA in conjunction with therapy can give people the chance to look at themselves through the eyes of someone who loves them. This could mean being more compassionate, or it could mean tough love: putting your foot down and saying, “enough is enough! I will treat myself with the love and respect I deserve!”
Then, even if only for part of the experience or, perhaps, a few hours or days following, you’ll understand what it feels like to be free of the pathologies that may contribute to anxiety or depression. This alone could be inspiration enough for people to put in the effort to regain their mental health.
Those with addictive personalities should be monitored to ensure that they don’t drop MDMA in a non-therapeutic form of “self-medication.” This can easily lead down the path to addiction.
Remember, MDMA is not a permanent solution to these issues. That’s how addictions get started. It can only serve as a temporary tool that, with the aid of a therapist, has immense potential for helping people maximize their own capabilities.
Specific Indications for the Use of MDMA Therapy
So by now, hopefully, you’ve been able to adjust to the idea of MDMA being used as a tool for therapy instead of just a drug. Now that you know this, you’re probably wondering what, exactly, it can be used for. Here are a few of the most effective and well-understood uses of MDMA.
MDMA for Helping People Through Depression
Recreational drug users might be disappointed to find out that the therapeutic use of MDMA for treating depression doesn’t just involve getting high and enjoying the chemical-induced rush of serotonin.
This pleasant and blissful experience is certainly part of the treatment, however, it’s not the main focus. If anybody becomes attached to the euphoria, their treatment will ultimately end in disappointment. No, the goal of treatment with MDMA is to use this enhanced appreciation for life as a sort of placeholder.
MDMA shows you a glimpse of the happiness and bliss that is rightfully yours. Now, you should find yourself more inspired to identify and uproot anything that’s preventing you from feeling connected to yourself and your friends the rest of the time!
MDMA tends to promote honesty and self-awareness in the individual. Thoughts, experiences, beliefs, and ideas that one generally hides – not only others but from themselves as well – can be safely looked at and accepted.
Many people struggle with mental health disorders for years simply because they’re unable to bundle together the courage required to look at the root cause of these conditions. Painful childhood memories repressed grief, trauma… none of these things are pleasant to re-explore. However, if we ignore them, they’ll continue to manifest as depression, anxiety, and fear.
With the help of a therapist who can guide the discussion into areas that may be unfamiliar for their clients, MDMA assisted therapy can be tremendously useful. People may learn more about themselves and the way that they relate to the world in a single session of MDMA therapy than they would after seeing a different counselor for several years.
MDMA for Helping Unpack Grief
Grief is one of the most difficult emotions for a person to suffer through and people often go to extreme lengths to avoid it. Many feel that when they are grieving, they will be consumed by their tears and weeping, never to come out again. While this is obviously not true, the gnawing and clawing sensation of grief tearing at your chest can certainly lock you into a fear of permanent discomfort.
Many don’t realize that when someone’s grieving, they’re usually grieving for themselves. Grief could be interpreted as the ultimate form of self-pity, although self-pity itself is more often considered one of the many stages of grief.
In either case, grief is a complicated and multifaceted sensation of complete loss and abandonment from something or someone that the individual had sorely loved and enjoyed. Grief symbolizes the loss of something or someone that the patient was strongly attached to. When an attachment is suddenly or unexpectedly severed, the pain is usually so intense that people immediately suppress it. They may continue to hide it for days, weeks, or even years.
MDMA can help people move through the grieving process much quicker. Because MDMA fills the user’s heart with an abundance of love, they may find themselves capable of supporting themselves through a grieving process.
To many, the idea of using MDMA to grieve, cry, and release emotional pain might sound counterintuitive. However, the long-term effects of releasing grief include a significant increase in one’s overall appreciation for and engagement with life and the people in it.
MDMA for Treating Anxiety
Anxiety is an interesting condition with many potential causes and forms.
- Generalized anxiety affects an individual throughout the day and doesn’t necessarily have any specific triggers.
- Panic disorder is a condition marked by extreme and overwhelming bursts of anxiety resulting from specific triggers and situations.
- Social anxiety affects people when they engage with others, oftentimes preventing them from attending social gatherings. Extreme social anxiety can even lead to agoraphobia, a field of going outside.
These different types of anxieties can emerge for any number of different reasons. Unfortunately, it’s just as tricky to discover the reasons underlying an anxiety disorder as it is for anything. With the assistance of a therapist, clients can be guided through a process that helps them to discover the history and cause of their anxiety. Encouraged by the empathy and raw honesty provided by the MDMA, patients can explore parts of their psyche or unconscious mind that they hardly knew existed.
MDMA Therapy for PTSD
Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD for shorts, is a condition that affects people who have survived extremely intense situations that left them traumatized. Trauma is a term used to describe the residual emotional effects of an experience that has not yet been processed.
These emotions, which could not be properly expressed due to overwhelming the individual’s current coping mechanisms and level of maturity, are then stored in the psyche, psychologically, and in the body, physiologically. Here, the trauma will remain until it is brought into awareness and the emotions can be properly processed.
Studies have shown that MDMA-assisted psychotherapy can be tremendously useful for people struggling with PTSD. In fact, the results from studies that used MDMA in conjunction with talk therapy showed that three-quarters of the patients no longer met the criteria for PTSD after a year of treatment.
MDMA therapy for PTSD can be extremely useful. Trauma can leave a number of different emotional and psychological wounds, many of which adversely affect someone’s ability to love and respect themselves.
MDMA, the powerful empathogen it is, will produce these feelings of self-love in an individual whether or not they believe themselves capable of it. In some cases, the simple act of feeling love and self-respect can be enough to catalyze the necessary inner work that will lead one to overcome their traumatic memories.
These sensations could fill a void that the person may have been trying to fill with drugs, alcohol, sex and relationships, food, or mind-numbing entertainment. As long as they strictly limit themselves to using MDMA therapy for PTSD and refuse to develop a recreational habit, they should be able to see significant improvements.
Relationships
Being the most effective “love drug” that we have, MDMA is a great tool for helping people work through relationship problems. Here are a few ways that MDMA can help couples or partners.
Encouraging Open & Honest Communication
Open and honest communication is the foundation of any successful relationship. Without it, things will inevitably suffer. If you’re not already at a stage where you’re communicating openly and honestly with your partner, it can be hard to know – after all, unless you’re deliberately lying to be manipulative, you probably don’t even realize that you’re not being fully open.
Taking a dose of MDMA with your partner will change that quickly. You’ll find yourself pouring your deepest thoughts and feelings into your partner. Even issues that seemed like they were long-standing, impossible obstacles to overcome can be discussed from a loving and accepting perspective (although, in practice, insurmountable obstacles tend to return to being insurmountable after the MDMA has worn off).
Caution must be taken in this regard, though, because it can be easy to develop a dependence on MDMA. Because it does encourage such profound and effective communication among couples, they may come to rely on it to solve their problems. This should never be the case. Instead, use these experiences and consider seeking a marriage or relationship counselor to help you figure out your issues together.
Also, someone would advise against having sex on MDMA. While most people who have done this agree that it’s phenomenal, there are nearly as many precautionary anecdotes about people who found themselves unable to enjoy sober sex afterward. This can quickly lead to either drug addiction or complete disinterest in sex.
MDMA for Encouraging Forgiveness
MDMA is also fantastic for encouraging forgiveness and helping people overcome grudges. The enhanced empathy allows people to step into another’s shoes temporarily.
People who have held grudges or resentment towards other people for years may immediately, following a dose, find themselves seeing the world through the eyes of the person that they had an issue with. They may even be able to understand and accept from a loving perspective the reasons why such a person doesn’t like them. “Ahh,” one might think. “I suppose what I did could certainly be seen as rude or aggressive. I’d best apologize next time I can.”
As soon as you open yourself up to the perspective of another, you realize that their actions were not meant to be taken personally. Through this realization, forgiveness naturally emerges. Seeing the world through another person’s eyes allows you to forgive them for everything because, you’ll start to see, there’s no other way that they could have acted given their circumstances and life history.
Microdosing MDMA
Any recreational users of MDMA will probably tell you that microdosing isn’t in your best interest unless you want to feel slightly stimulated. A microdose of MDMA does very little in terms of providing the euphoria, stimulation, or intoxication that precedes therapeutic work.
A microdose is generally a sub-threshold dose – one that you can’t really feel at all. Microdosing psychedelics is tremendously popular because people can take advantage of the increased neuroplasticity associated with these drugs. At present, there’s no evidence that suggests MDMA can lead to similar improvements
However, research seems to suggest, at least, that low-dose MDMA can provide similar benefits as a regular dose.
The study linked to earlier regarding the use of MDMA for PTSD, for example, also evaluated the effects of therapy using a 40mg dose instead of the standard breakthrough dose of 100-125mg.
Even though 40mg is far from a microdose, the results of the therapy were quite similar among both the 100-125mg groups and the 40mg group, both of which were much more significant than treatment without MDMA at all.
Is MDMA safe?
Users might fondly remember the experiences and connections that they shared whilst under the influence of MDMA. Perhaps they’ll even recall and begin practicing some healthy habits or hobbies that they discovered or decided upon under its influence.
Or perhaps they’ll wake up drained of serotonin, their supply of the sensitive neurotransmitter so thoroughly depleted that they spend the next morning hugging the toilet.
Wait, the toilet? Absolutely! Most people are surprised to learn that the vast majority of the body’s serotonin supply is located in the gut. The other 5-10% of the serotonin system is found in the brain and nervous system.
Regardless of where it’s located, taking MDMA causes a bombardment of serotonin. Instead of being soothed by your regular, daily levels of serotonin, MDMA blasts your body with a megadose. This produces many changes, both physical and mental.
Fortunately, at standard doses (around 100-125 mg), side effects are mild and tend to include little more than frequent urination, dehydration, slightly elevated blood pressure, and jaw clenching.
As you can see in the chemical name for MDMA (methylenedioxymethamphetamine), it is technically an amphetamine. Amphetamines are a class of stimulant drugs notorious for their toxicity. Amphetamine drugs can cause toxic effects in various parts of the body depending on how often they are used, how much is taken, and the responsibilities taken by the user to ensure a healthy experience.
Compared to drugs like methamphetamine, MDMA is relatively benign. While repeated usage at high doses can certainly cause health problems over time, occasional recreational or therapeutic usage should be fine (occasional meaning once every couple of weeks, at most.) Most people find that a single dose is enough to leave them with some unpleasant hangover effects; daily use can certainly cause destructive changes in the brain, some of which can be permanent.
One thing to be cautious of is serotonin syndrome. This is especially important for anyone who is taking any medications or supplements that interfere with serotonin production or metabolism. Prescribed drugs, like SSRIs, are off-limits. So are herbal supplements that can alter serotonin production such as St. John’s Wort.
Serotonin syndrome can be serious and permanent, so it’s best avoided. Some of the symptoms include agitation, restlessness, confusion, dilated pupils, loss of muscle tissue and coordination, sweating, diarrhea, and so on.
Serotonin sensitivity is not necessarily likely to cause serotonin syndrome. However, it can exacerbate some of the side effects associated with MDMA usage. Some of these side effects include:
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Diarrhea
- Clenching teeth
- Sweating
- High blood pressure
- Confusion
- Dehydration or the overcompensatory overhydration (there have been cases of people dying from drinking too much water in an attempt to prevent MDMA related dehydration.
- Dizziness
- Strange tactile sensations
- Visual and audio distortions
- Decreased inhibitions and making risky sexual choices
- Loss of appetite
How Long Does MDMA Stay In Your System?
Drugs can be detected in your body for different amounts of time depending on what areas are tested.
Generally, it can be tested in liquids for 3-5 days after your last dose.
Drugs can be detected in the hair for several months following a single dose, and for quite a bit longer if you were a regular drug user. This is because the capillaries (small blood vessels) that feed the scalp will leave behind bits of MDMA residue. However, this won’t be detectable until around 5-10 days after your last dose.
Blood tests can detect MDMA for up to 24 hours after it’s been taken. These tests are usually only useful when people have taken a cocktail of substances and doctors need to understand what they’ve taken.
If you’re concerned about using MDMA for therapy and then losing a job over it thanks to a drug test, then you may want to avoid it for now. However, as this approach to therapy becomes more and more socially acceptable, and clinics begin to cure more patients using these drugs, there’s bound to be some changes in legislation that allow for the legal use of therapeutic MDMA.
Conclusion
MDMA has been used historically for recreational purposes, mostly as a party drug in Europe and North America. By the time it makes it down South, the stuff has been cut and buffed so much that it’s hardly recognizable – at least for now. However, with the advent of MDMA-assisted therapy, more and more professionals are beginning to consider the value of using MDMA as a therapeutic agent.
MDMA can help people to open up about things that they generally keep hidden, both from themselves and from others. It allows people the first glimpse into their inner world that they may have been too scared to step into for so many years.
If you’re interested in learning more about MDMA-assisted therapy, don’t hesitate to read up more on the medical information available.
