Last week during the Psychedelic Science 2017 conference in Oakland, California, results from trials involving patients with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) were revealed to have interesting findings.
According to a story by Scientific American, researchers presented results from trial treatments that used psychotherapy and MDMA (3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine otherwise known as ecstasy) as a means of combatting major side-effects of PTSD, such as frequent nightmares and heightened anxiety levels.
It was found that 67% of patients who received two or three sessions of MDMA-assisted therapy had completely overcome the illness roughly a year later. This number, as compared to the 23% of patients who got the same result after receiving psychotherapy and a placebo drug, could be the catalyst for an increased number of trials involving psychedelic drugs in the future.
Historically, psychedelic therapy has been used on patients suffering from anxiety, depression and PTSD, amongst other things, in calm and controlled environments. This way, researchers are better able to monitor patients induced into such altered states, after which point the traditional psychotherapy begins.