Posts tagged "MAPS"
Sitting, Not Guiding: The Power of Non-Directive Support
This post by Erica Zelfand, N.D. and Timothy Crespi, L.P.C., C.A.D.C was first published in the MAPS Bulletin and appears here with permission. An hour after eating psilocybin mushrooms at a festival, Olivia notices her left hand is shaking. She can stop it with effort, but prefers to just let it do its thing. She isn’t angry, yet it feels strangely good to shout fragmented thoughts and hum Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five.” The hand-shaking has progressed; now she’s flapping her whole left arm like a hemiplegic bird trying to take flight. The people around her have noticed and are keeping...
Why Dr. Bronner’s Soaps Is Donating $5 Million to MAPS
This essay by David Bronner, CEO of Dr. Bronner’s and Board Member of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, was first published in the MAPS Bulletin and on drbronner.com. Our family company, Dr. Bronner’s, donates a lot of resources to social justice NGOs and campaigns, including over $1 million to various state-level cannabis legalization campaigns in 2016. Collectively, well north of $40 million was raised in the 2016 election cycle alone to end prohibition and stop the enormous waste of taxpayer and law enforcement resources from ruining the lives of upstanding citizens and their families. Even with the Trump...
Hand in Hand: How Psychedelic Harm Reduction Is Making a Difference Now
This essay by Shannon Clare Petitt was originally published in the MAPS Bulletin, Winter 2016 edition. If you believe in MAPS’ mission of furthering psychedelic medicine while promoting harm reduction, please donate to their cause. The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) continues to make huge strides towards the goal of establishing psychedelics as legal medicines. In advancing the cause of psychedelic therapy, the organization has also become a repository for experience and techniques essential for assisting people journeying through difficult psychedelic experiences. Psychedelic harm reduction is the practice of creating safe spaces in environments where the use...
The Walls Come Tumbling Down My First MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy Session
This story by Andy Gold first appeared in the MAPS Bulletin, Winter 2016 edition. I went for my first MDMA-assisted psychotherapy session on November 30, 2015, the Monday after Thanksgiving. Was it really a coincidence that the colonoscopy which found a malignant tumor in my colon some years earlier had also taken place on the Monday after Thanksgiving? I think not. Full circle, indeed. I arrived at the site in Marin County, Calif., where the session was to take place, at 9:30 in the morning. One of the study requirements is that you do the sessions while fasting. Someone also...
Fantastic New Trip-Sitting Guide: The Manual of Psychedelic Support
Even the hardiest, most vocal psychedelic enthusiasts recognize that trip experiences can be intense and sometimes difficult. Especially when taken in unfamiliar surroundings — such as crowded music festivals or in the desert heat of Black Rock City — psychedelics can cause untimely emotional meltdowns. Now there’s an excellent guide for handling psychedelic crises, produced by some of foremost experts on harm reduction techniques. It’s called “The Manual of Psychedelic Support,” and its laundry list of contributors includes the Erowids, Rick Doblin, Jon Hanna (the founder of Mind States), Linnae Ponté (who runs MAPS’ excellent Zendo harm reduction tent), five members of Kosmicare UK, Dave...
New Video from Jason Silva: ‘Drugs As Tools For Spirituality’
“The new space is inner space,” says Jason Silva in his new video. It’s the latest edition in his series of thought-provoking short-films called Shots of Awe, which continues to live up to its name. This episode focuses on MAPS — the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies — and the importance of set and setting in maximizing the potential of a psychedelic session. He name-drops Timothy Leary, who stressed the importance of preparing a positive tripping environment for yourself. “You are immediately plunged into a dialogue with your own subconscious,” Silva says. Meanwhile, “The world becomes like a sensurround system. The...
Veteran Explains How MDMA Therapy Helped Him Overcome PTSD
In a recent “Ask Me Anything” session on Reddit, Iraq War veteran Tony Macie opened up about how he overcame his treatment-resistant PTSD through experimental MDMA-assisted therapy. Here’s his introduction: My name is Tony Macie, and I am a retired Sergeant of the U.S. Army. I spent 15 long months in Iraq during the surge in 2006 and 2007. When I returned home from the war, I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) resulting from a lot of issues ranging from what I experienced during combat and some of the disconnect with my brothers in arms when...
My Interview with Rick Doblin, Psychedelic Pioneer Founder of MAPS Discusses MDMA Therapy, a Crazy Personal LSD Trip, and More
I recently had the good fortune of meeting my psychedelic hero, Rick Doblin, the founder and president of the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies. What’s more, he graciously agreed to an on-camera interview. I asked him about the origins of MAPS, the Russian ban of methadone in Crimean addiction clinics, New Zealand’s new regulatory framework for legal highs, MAPS’ recent partnership with the military to research MDMA as a treatment for PTSD, and much more. My favorite part is when Rick tells the story of taking LSD on his twenty-first birthday. He heard a siren and became convinced that the Russians were...
MAPS Completes First New Therapeutic LSD Study in 40 Years
Update 5 March 2014: The study has been published, and the final copy is available here. Rick Doblin, the founder and president of MAPS, said this in a recent “Ask Me Anything” interview on Reddit: We’ve just completed the world’s first study of the therapeutic use of LSD in over 40 years, in Switzerland to treat anxiety associated with end-of-life issues. Eleven of the 12 subjects had never done LSD before and there were no serious adverse events, even in people facing death. This recently completed Swiss study is truly momentous — it’s the first “double-blind, placebo-controlled investigation of LSD-assisted...
“Ask Me Anything” Reddit Interview with Rick Doblin & MAPS
Yesterday, Rick Doblin and ten other MAPS staff members engaged in an online “Ask Me Anything” session on Reddit. The turnout was phenomenal. Questions ran the gamut from personal (“Have you ever tried psychedelics?”) to political (“Will the legalization of psychedelics will come next after marijuana?”) and much more. Several posters asked about minimizing the risk of MDMA toxicity, while others were curious about treatments for cluster headaches, depression, autism, and other conditions. A couple people even asked if MAPS accepts Bitcoin (as of yesterday, they do). As you might expect, the answers from MAPS staff were incredibly...
Help Heal Trauma Survivors by Supporting MDMA Research
MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, has been an instrumental force in psychedelic research and advocacy since its formation in 1986. In my opinion, this non-profit organization has done more to establish psychedelics as legitimate medicines than anyone else in the world. Their biggest project is proving the safety and effectiveness of MDMA-assisted therapy as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They have performed a number of studies around the world indicating its effectiveness — even with the one-third of PTSD patients who do not respond adequately to other treatments. As you can imagine, MAPS does...