MDMA and Me

Cool news - I am enrolled in the official certification/training program to learn how to do MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. This training is sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and begins in the Fall.

Even as our knowledge base for understanding trauma and PTSD has grown exponentially in recent decades, thanks to the work of scholars like Judith Herman and Bessel Van Der Kolk, treating trauma remains a stubborn business. In my career I have always been focused on the study and treatment of trauma. Probably it’s because the existence of trauma - the fact that the world is, for some people, a dark and dangerous place - represents a reality that Jewish people have always had to coexist with. Much of our ethics and philosophy concerns itself with making sense of this dialectic: that this life is simultaneously amazing and terrible, full of possibilities for both transcendent enlightenment and abject suffering.

According to the available data, MDMA appears to represent the possibility of a breakthrough in the treatment of PTSD, compared to current available treatments. There is much hope within the psychedelics community that the FDA will reschedule this medicine in 2022, making it available by prescription.

I look forward to partnering with MAPS to bring the use of MDMA back into the mainstream of PTSD treatment. Ultimately, my goal is to use MDMA in couples therapy - where it enjoyed a strong reputation before it was made illegal in 1985 - in order to help individuals with a history of trauma exposure gain access to the healing power of secure romantic attachment.