On September 21, 2015 the fifth subject received their first experimental session in our ongoing study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for anxiety associated with life-threatening illness. Led by Principal Investigator Phil Wolfson, M.D., with co-therapist Julane Andries, LMFT, in Marin, Calif., this study will treat 18 subjects suffering from anxiety related to a life-threatening disease that is either ongoing or in remission with a possibility of recurrence. “With this much commitment of time, you get to know the people with whom you are working, and they get to know you,” writes Dr. Wolfson in his upcoming Winter 2014 MAPS Bulletin article. “Unlike with traditional psychotherapies, there is time for process; for handling transference and counter-transference; for meeting partners and friends; for staying in the trench and not pressuring to get out of it; for rectification, reframing, validation, and for the spirit to emerge; for agony and ecstasy…I am so pleased to have the time and the openness that MDMA-assisted psychotherapy engenders to know and feel, at a deep level, the people coming into our study.” We currently expect all experimental sessions in this study will be completed by late 2016.
