SPEAKERS

MDMA-assisted psychotherapy provides a novel approach for combining medication and psychotherapy.  With MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, a medication that dramatically alters a cognitive state is administered for the purpose of facilitating a deeper psychotherapeutic process (5). This well-integrated approach offers a contrast to current use of medications and psychotherapy which are often not well integrated and/or provided under the auspices of a single clinician. The fewer in number, but lengthier sessions in the presence of MDMA also redefine concepts regarding the appropriate approach and length of a therapy session involving engagement with traumatic material.  Given the large effects in Phase II trials for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, an important question arises of trying to understand the effects of this treatment, which likely will entail developing new models that go beyond traditional pharmacologic effects of drugs.  This presentation will describe ways that conventional psychiatry and neuroscience are grappling with changing the paradigms in classic neuropsychopharmacology in order to understand resilience-enhancing mechanisms associated with MDMA-assisted psychotherapy.  Applications for trauma-related indications such as intergenerational trauma effects will also be discussed.