Yesterday the Psychopharmacologic Committee of the U.S.Food & Drug Administration voted 9-2 to decisively reject purported effectiveness of MDMA "treatment" for PTSD, and 10-1 to overwhelmingly find that any benefits of such "treatment" are outweighed by the risks.
I put quotation marks around "treatment" because the committee's findings highlight the embarrassing fact that the people pushing this whole thing never did figure out what MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, or any other psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, actually is to begin with.
Some like to believe it's the pill that actually cures PTSD. The drugs are catalysts to scramble a brain/mind in such a way as may effectively force a new and better point of view in a patient, who realizes that his/her past trauma is unimportant in light of the vast existential connectedness experienced while tripping, which would surely save the world if only enough people could turn on, tune in, and drop out.
Oddly perhaps, the only apparent theory behind electroshock treatment is similar: a patient gets hit with force violent and painful enough to make him/her look differently at less impressive things.
But recall (if you're old enough) the dramatic appearance of three huge letters on a hillside in Berkeley, California where high school classes had traditionally painted the name of their school or class year. As 1967 opened, the only message on that hill was: "L... S... D". Psychedelics were mystical messianism from the beginning, never scientific medicine. Flowers and amazing music came with the drugs, so the whole thing had an aesthetic appeal which ECT severely lacked.
And these days, bureaucrats at government agencies are prone to think the drugs do little or nothing by themselves without some talk therapy (although they can't say what kind) or psychological work. The preparation before tripping, and the integration sessions afterward, are essential. Without the psychotherapy element it's not safe or effective.
The FDA monitors and regulates food and drugs, not psychotherapy. They also had to notice certain implications of data (and omissions of data) from the trials cited in the presentation to their committee yesterday. These might make them very happy that they don't regulate psychotherapy. Boundary violations are a larger problem when patients are so suggestible on drugs like MDMA.
But the truth is it has been more than a generation since psychiatrists even tried to be any good at talking therapy. If they're going to get back into it now because the "decade of the brain" was bullshit and all the antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs failed to solve the problems of humanity, they'll have to start almost from scratch. Handling the patient who's freaking out on LSD or confronting demonic entities on psilocybin is more or less the opposite of starting from scratch!
These guys don't even know not to evaluate patients' conclusions and thoughts for them (they think that's what they're supposed to do as the experts!), and they don't even realize that acknowledgement is a critical part of two-way communication. They're just as likely to kill productive therapeutic realizations with veiled criticism or skepticism, as to enable them by appropriately professional manners.
So at best they end up controlling people, not helping them. Psychedelic drugs certainly assist with (vicious, covert) control, basically by wiping out people's self control.
The MAPS/Lykos/Doblin crowd will hate yesterday's FDA hearing result, and they'll moan sadly about the urgent need to advance new and better therapies for the terrible problem of PTSD. I on the other hand will hope that yesterday was the first sign of the complete demise of the celebrated "psychedelic renaissance"!
These guys want money and control; they have no clue how to help, and psychedelic drugs will never be better therapy.
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