STUDY: Using Ecstasy to treat PTSD: ‘I felt like my soul snapped back into place’

PTSD has garnered attention as a problem that plagues returning war veterans, but the majority of those with the disorder are civilians. The National Center for PTSD says that nearly one in 15 Americans, including one in 10 women, will be afflicted at some point in their life. PTSD can be triggered by a single, terrifying incident or by repeated abuse. In effect, the brain and body get stuck in a loop of overreaction to normal stimuli; symptoms may include nightmares, panic attacks and avoidance of normal situations or interactions that remind the patient of their initial trauma.

“It comes out of the fundamental terror part of the brain,” says Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, a psychiatrist and trauma researcher in Boston. “It doesn’t allow you to focus on anything new, because you’re preoccupied with the past threat.” To break the cycle, van der Kolk says, a patient needs to get beyond the ongoing sense of visceral terror. For some patients, talking about the trauma, even thinking about it, is too much.

That’s where MDMA seems to come in. “What we see in the sessions is that it seems to kind of bring people down from being overwhelmed by emotions,” says Dr. Michael Mithoefer, a psychotherapist who led the first MAPS-funded studies using drug-assisted therapy for PTSD. “At the same time, it also kind of brings them up from being numb or disconnected from those emotions.”

That’s how Appleton describes it, too. “PTSD is always distracting you from facing your problems, because it’s terrifying. On the MDMA, you’re finally able to face the stuff that you’ve been pushing down for so many years.”

Like any cure for any disease or disorder, I hope this pans out.