Interview with a Military Psychologist about MDMA Therapy for PTSD

Edit: see post following this one for caveats

“I Think I Can Leave Afghanistan in the Past” : Interview with a Military Psychologist about MDMA Therapy for PTSD

Wesley Thoricatha

The subject of this interview is an anonymous military psychologist and Afghanistan war veteran. In addition to his role as a psychologist helping soldiers, many of whom have post traumatic stress disorder, he himself dealt with years of severe PTSD and suicidal ideation after returning home from Afghanistan. When an opportunity arose to participate in the MAPS Phase 2 clinical trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, he went through the study and was among the 76% of subjects who were completely cured of their PTSD. In this interview we discuss how trauma impacted his life, the incredible success of the MDMA treatment, and how important it is to bring this therapy to those who are verging on breakdown and suicide.

One of the problems with treating PTSD is that avoidance is one of the symptoms, so people drop out of traditional treatment very frequently. It’s so difficult for them to deal with the trauma that they cant handle it, but MDMA it seems to reduce the activity in the amygdala so they are able to think about the trauma without getting overwhelmed by it.

So for me in the first treatment session, I was able to think about what happened in a logical way without getting overwhelmed and shutting down. And when I did that I was able to realize “Wow, I see now that my buddies would have died no matter what I did”, which was really relieving. When I realized it wasn’t my fault, a lot of guilt went away.

The second treatment, I was able to focus on a mass casualty situation. A psychologist’s role is triage for mass cal downrange. I was very angry about it, for being put in that position. I’m not a physician, I’m not a nurse, I was like “What was I doing?” I felt like I was incompetent. But under the medication I was able to think about it and realize, actually I was competent, and nobody died because I didn’t know what I was doing, I was just doing what any combat medic was trained to do in the military- whether you are a physician or whether you are just infantry, everybody gets that basic level of combat medic training, which was basically stopping bleeding, dealing with chest wounds, things like that that. All that sense of horror and helplessness downrange went away, as well as the guilt.

The third medication session I was able to focus on my experience working with torture victims in Afghanistan, and just the sense of horror related to that. After that, I had no symptoms anymore of PTSD, other than occasional hypervigilance, but in my mind that’s just situational awareness. On a scale of 1-10 where 10 would be hypervigilant, I was like a 13 all the time before treatment. But now if I get any hypervigilance at all, it’s like a 2 or 3 on that same scale. I’m able to recognize and say “Ok, it’s probably a good thing to be extra aware in this situation” so I don’t have to freak out anymore or be stressed.

Just to be clear this isn't some Ecstacy you buy off the streets which has all sorts of dangers - see the free documentary What's In my Baggie? for more info on how dealers easily fool people into taking the wrong drug sometimes w/ fatal results.