Treating Trauma - A Discussion with Richard Rockefeller, M.D. and Larry Brilliant, M.D., MPH

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) presents a serious, layered medical and societal challenge in our modern world. Traditional therapeutic modalities, while essential, sometimes reach their limits in treating severe, long-term conditions. In this conversation, MDMA-assisted psychotherapy emerges as a promising, evidence-based treatment option currently in research, with high rates of durable remission in difficult-to-treat PTSD cases. MDMA-assisted therapy involves a 14-week course with eight hours of psychotherapy sessions. The therapy requires a detailed recall of traumatic events within a setting characterized by extreme safety, providing an opportunity to process long-buried memories without retriggering the stress-response pathways. This structured approach, combined with the neurochemical properties of MDMA, offers hope for those who have found little success with conventional treatments.