Is there any evidence that accessing innermost thoughts and feelings through using substances like Ecstasy and LSD in controlled and supervised doses can help someone as part of the psychotherapeutic process? I would be grateful for any information.

Please explain how this is directly relevant to the topics discussed at this message board.

Someone who was very close to me is having therapy from a psychotherapist who is based in Europe. This Dr uses Ecstasy and Lsd and I think mushroom derived substances in controlled, supervised doses to awaken very deep thoughts and forgotton memories.

I feel out of my depth with it all so please excuse any clumsy wording.

This Dr is head of a community. Outsiders like the person I know visit the community for therapy, but they have to be selected first.

I understand this Dr's practices and his community to be entirely above board and legal in Europe. I believe he truly provides this person I know with love and support and the companionship of others with problems.

But this person I know

Quote

went looking for monsters and found them within

. This person has changed their whole life based on a sad and unhappy memory founded by using Ecstasy which may not have any basis in reality.

This Dr preaches love and peace and enlightenment - perhaps he does have something to offer the world. But I feel I am a casualty of these noble aims having lost the person I care about.

Thank you for reading this.

See [www.culteducation.com]

These "warning signs" may be helpful in sorthing through the community, leader and its dynamics.

Also see [www.culteducation.com]

These are the most frequently asked questions about groups considered to be "cults" or "cult-like."

See [www.amazon.com]

This is a book by a clinical psychologist about "crazy therapies."

My naturopath was very much into psychadelics, MDMA, LSD, Ahuasca, etc. He didn't bring up the use of such in the office, but after I began working for him and continued with symptoms, he suggested MDMA.

I can tell you, A LOT of "mainstream" therapists are into this. I attended one of The Prophets conferences and the entire audience was like a bunch of junior high students bragging about their drug experiences and the results of "guiding" their clients through altered states of consciousness with their drugs. Ram Dass and Stan Grof were presenters and reprimanded the people coming up to the microphone that the conference wasn't about drug escapades (but it was). I guess they needed that disclaimer on audiotape.

Many of the Landmarkians I met shocked me with their casual references to hallucinogenic use. One was a "sex therapist" who taught tantra and if emotions were "too deeply embedded" he recommended the use of MDMA. As part of their "being unreasonable", many had gone or were planning on going to various jungles to partake with indigenous groups in ceremonies and rituals that utilized mind-altering plants.

I have found this particular drug scene very well connected in the world of LGATs, especially Landmark.

There is an organization called MAPS.org that is researching and trying to change policy on the use of Ecstasy and other drugs for use in therapy. A university in Spain was carrying on research into the use of MDMA in therapy. Their website boasts nothing but positive results.

There is no place in europe where doctors or communities can use extasy, lsd or mushrooms in a legal way. What community are you talking about ?

Re my post above, my tongue-in-cheek tone might have been lost on my comments regarding MAPS.org. They are hardly objective in their quest to prove the value of psychadelics in therapy.

The use of Ecstasy and LSD and other mids is widespread in Switzerland where it has been 'legalised' as therapeutic. I dont know how many of these groups operate as 'families' but I do know that there are such groups that also apparently depend on patient 'donations'. I have no direct involvement and only aware through reading and a reported tale here and there.
Some definite input would be interesting.

As Switzerland is the only country where such therapy is legally accepted I wondered whether this person is a patient of Dr. Samuel Widmer, administrator of the MDMA psychedelic therapy research project in Switzerland, and whether he/she has spent time as part of SW family.
I only ask because a german friend of mine showed me a video in which a researching journalist was interviewing SW critically abut his views on mads and incest - unfortunately, although I could pick some of it up it was in German.
Perhaps someone else who can understand German has seen this - it is on the net but I know not where - and could elucidate.

From MAPS.org - This is THE organization that is helping to get more research on substances like MDMA. MDMA is only used legally under research settings and its efficacy is still being studied.

Dr. Mithoefer's MDMA/PTSD protocol was initially approved by FDA on November 2, 2001. This is the first ever FDA-approved protocol designed to investigate any therapeutic potential of MDMA. A revised protocol, which shifted the location of the study, was approved by FDA on June 14, 2002. The protocol was approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB) on September 23, 2003. The DEA inspected the research facility on October 28, 2003 as part of its review of Dr. Mithoefer's application for a Schedule I license, and on Dec. 11, 2003, we learned that the South Carolina DEA recommended to DEA headquarters that Dr. Mithoefer receive his Schedule I license. On February 23, 2004, DEA issued Dr. Mithoefer his Schedule I license and the study was fully approved to begin. Here is the current version of Dr. Michael Mithoefer's MDMA/PTSD study protocol (PDF) and informed consent forms for the study, (PDF) and for Stage 2 (PDF).

For a discussion of the therapeutic approach used in the study, we've created a treatment manual describing MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder in PDF or HTML formats.

MAPS has been working since it was founded in 1986 to initiate research into the therapeutic use of MDMA. The final approval of Dr. Mithoefer's MDMA/PTSD protocol marks the culmination of almost eighteen years of struggle. Approval is also a beginning of what we hope is a 5 year, $5 million plan to develop MDMA into a prescription medicine for the treatment of PTSD.

MAPS is also co-sponsoring, with the Swiss Medical Association for Psycholytic Therapy (SAePT), an MDMA/PTSD pilot study in Switzerland. This study began enrolling subjects in late 2006. MAPS has also obtained final approval for a study in Israel into the use of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in subjects with war and terrorism-related PTSD with the study to begin enrolling subjects in early 2007.

MAPS was supporting a pilot dose-response study in Spain into the use of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in the treatment of PTSD, but that study was halted due to political pressure from the Spanish Anti-Drug Authority. MAPS is working to obtain permission to restart that study.

MAPS coordinated the design, approval and funding of a study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in subjects with anxiety associated with advanced-stage cancer, to take place at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School. The study is being sponsored directly by Peter Lewis and began seeking to enroll subjects in January 2007.