3 ms·

I'm all for MDMA PTSD therapy. It's a godsend for those who need it, but for couples therapy, it's not as straight forward. I met a couple who was breaking up

I'm all for MDMA PTSD therapy. It's a godsend for those who need it, but for couples therapy, it's not as straight forward. I met a couple who was breaking up. A friend of mine noticed this and mentioned how good it was. What she said caught me off guard, but I was young and didn't ask why. Later on that night someone gave them mdma which turned into a kind of unofficial couples therapy. They got back together and 10+ years later they're still in a long loving relationship today. Great, right? Well.. it turned out he was enabling her, and she was the breadwinner, but she desperately needed some therapy, unable to keep a job due to personality reasons. If he wasn't around to enable her, she would have have grown, and things probably would have ended up pretty well. Instead, for at least the last 5 years they've been homeless living together in a vehicle. Love is a wonderful and beautiful thing, but not all relationships are good ones. A therapist, even a professional, blindly mending a falling apart relationship should exceed caution. Sometimes it's better when people go their own way.

pmoriarty 6y ago
A really interesting point. However, there's no guarantee that letting them "go their own way" would have actually resulted in a better outcome. People in abusive relationships often bounce from one abusive relationship to another, not to mention the potential trauma of a break up. It's hard for outsiders who have no insight in to the relationship to judge its worth. Yeah, maybe this couple you speak of is homeless, but that doesn't mean they're not happy. Not everything is about money, financial or material security. And maybe there are things about their relationship that make it all worth while. It's impossible to guess, given so little information, and I'd hesitate on judging. Also, the same argument you use against intervention with MDMA therapy could be used against any intervention of any kind. Using the same argument you could argue that maybe it's better for a doctor to let an injured person die, because, well, maybe they're a bad person and the world would be better off without them. A doctor in an ER doesn't really know the person they're treating, but they generally try to help anyway. Could such help wind up causing more problems? Sure. But we as a society have generally decided that help for those in need, even if we don't know who they are and even if we can't foresee the ultimate consequences.
- proverbialbunny 6y ago
  I agree. The point is it's a complex topic and therapists should exceed caution. >Also, the same argument you use against intervention with MDMA therapy could be used against any intervention of any kind. Kind of. Without MDMA, normal couples therapy would have have taken time, and during that time the therapist would have had to identify the challenges creating problems for that relationship and then addressed them, improving the relationship and healing the psychological problems within the individuals of that relationship. The therapist would have identified abuse and addressed that too. With MDMA in a couple of hours the relationship can be mended with no oversight or addressing issues that can become pervasive.
  - pmoriarty 6y ago
    I'm a big fan of long-term therapy, but the reality is that not everyone can afford it in either time, money, or (frankly) interest. We live in a world that demands quick fixes, and insurance companies rarely want to pay for long-term therapy. That's the reality. To my eyes some therapy is better than no therapy, and MDMA-assisted therapy is likely to be much more effective than therapy alone.
    - proverbialbunny 6y ago
      "Long-term" being a few months. If you have health insurance it pays for it.
KMag 6y ago
> exceed caution FYI, a much more common and less ambiguous phrase is "exude caution". To exceed caution might mean to go proceed beyond where you feel comfortable.

pmoriarty 6y ago

A really interesting point. However, there's no guarantee that letting them "go their own way" would have actually resulted in a better outcome. People in abusive relationships often bounce from one abusive relationship to another, not to mention the potential trauma of a break up. It's hard for outsiders who have no insight in to the relationship to judge its worth. Yeah, maybe this couple you speak of is homeless, but that doesn't mean they're not happy. Not everything is about money, financial or material security. And maybe there are things about their relationship that make it all worth while. It's impossible to guess, given so little information, and I'd hesitate on judging. Also, the same argument you use against intervention with MDMA therapy could be used against any intervention of any kind. Using the same argument you could argue that maybe it's better for a doctor to let an injured person die, because, well, maybe they're a bad person and the world would be better off without them. A doctor in an ER doesn't really know the person they're treating, but they generally try to help anyway. Could such help wind up causing more problems? Sure. But we as a society have generally decided that help for those in need, even if we don't know who they are and even if we can't foresee the ultimate consequences.

proverbialbunny 6y ago
I agree. The point is it's a complex topic and therapists should exceed caution. >Also, the same argument you use against intervention with MDMA therapy could be used against any intervention of any kind. Kind of. Without MDMA, normal couples therapy would have have taken time, and during that time the therapist would have had to identify the challenges creating problems for that relationship and then addressed them, improving the relationship and healing the psychological problems within the individuals of that relationship. The therapist would have identified abuse and addressed that too. With MDMA in a couple of hours the relationship can be mended with no oversight or addressing issues that can become pervasive.
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  I'm a big fan of long-term therapy, but the reality is that not everyone can afford it in either time, money, or (frankly) interest. We live in a world that demands quick fixes, and insurance companies rarely want to pay for long-term therapy. That's the reality. To my eyes some therapy is better than no therapy, and MDMA-assisted therapy is likely to be much more effective than therapy alone.
  - proverbialbunny 6y ago
    "Long-term" being a few months. If you have health insurance it pays for it.

KMag 6y ago

> exceed caution FYI, a much more common and less ambiguous phrase is "exude caution". To exceed caution might mean to go proceed beyond where you feel comfortable.