r/mdmatherapy

I’ve just finished a second dose of MDMA for trauma with an experienced guide. Both sessions were very healing. My question is, I also have MDA aka Love Drops in a liquid tincture. What’s the difference? Will it have the same effect on my brain? I plan to wait a long time (several months at least) before dosing again, but curious if there’s an advantage or disadvantage to using MDA instead of MDMA next time.
Thanks for feedback!

I started psychedelic assisted therapy at the beginning of this year. It has completely changed my inner world for the better. I did my first session with MDMA in January and it relieved me of many of the PTSD symptoms that have been controlling my life for years.

The first session re-tuned my nervous system—it's been so incredibly powerful to not jump out of my skin when I hear a loud noise or feel a "weight" that drops in my chest when a car swerves toward mine. The medicine covered me in loving-safety and gave me a new emotional baseline as a guide/reference point.

I feel so so so so grateful for getting to have this experience. For months not a today went by that I didn't feel totally overcome with gratitude. I knew I didn't have to suffer so much! Life could been more fun—I could explore more and take more healthy risks with an open, brave, courageous heart that wasn't being crow-barred shut with PTSD and all the traumas of the past looming around my spirit.

After my first session I started microdosing psilocybin. The safety that the first MDMA session gave me revealed the massive amount of shame that I have been carrying around and the psilocybin reallllly brought it to the surface. It was so strong that I backed off the psilocybin till I was stable and then resumed. So when I was preparing for my second MDMA session my intent was to work with my shame and guilt.

The second session was about 4 months after the first one, which felt like a great rhythm. In my second session my guide gave me MDMA and then Psilocybin. WOW! I started out this journey quite chatty, but when the MDMA came on I got quiet and just enjoyed regulated my body with deep breathing. Breathe has become an important tool and theme as a result from my journey work. Then I drank psilocybin tea...holy shit. I was transported into a storm in the ocean with my shame and guilt. There is almost no way to explain what this was like, but it was tough and not in a bad way. The MDMA gave me a safe enough base to explore the tumultuous, black oceanic storm of my own shame. I came out of this journey with a profound sense of calm that was different than the first. I accepted my shame self as just part of me and had a vision of these two parts of me merging. I experienced wholeness and integration in a way that I don't think I ever have. It helped heal a lot of family wounding between my parents and I.

I just have two say that these two journeys have changed my life forever. There has been a natural expansion and subsequent contraction after each journey, which I think is normal/to be expected. I have done a lot of integration work and plan on doing more journeys with my therapist, because they have been so deeply transformational. The 'work' continues!

My questions to the group is: Is there any scientific literature that explicitly states how long a person should wait between MDMA journeys? I hear different things from different people and I'm wondering if there are any definitive neurological/cognitive findings that suggest an appropriate break between sessions. My next journey will be over 5 months from my second journey and I'd like to do this about once a quarter, but want to be safe and responsible to my health.

TLDR: How long should you wait between MDMA sessions?

Thanks for reading. I hope everyone suffering can experience the wide, deep sweeping love and safety that MDMA has provided me. The healing process has not been easy, it's been really tough actually, but totally worth it. Sending you all love!

This is something I’m not really sure how to gauge- how long it will take for my nervous system to stabilize. I carry moral injury and it has makes me nearly dysfunctional in my day to day life.

Im planning on taking a a hiatus of 1-3 months and I hope that’s enough. Ive been carrying this stuff for most of my life and it needs to come out.

I know not all cases are the same, but if you could share your experience and the time it took you before you were able to function again, that would be helpful.

TLDR - using MDMA to heal from anxiety, depression, PTSD, trauma following years of cancer fighting and the associated pressure it brought. Sessions have been amazing. Session 3 last week left me exhausted and flat despite having a therapist support this part. Anyone experienced it?

Longer contact and report:

Hi, this group has been really useful for me. Briefly, I had a very stressful life in London, left corporate safety to set up my own business and had years of struggle and burnout. My passion was Muay Thai and I was also competing professionally at times but trained at that level consistently. I was basically running my life on fumes and after quitting caffeine recently can see I was tired and wired through it all.

Fast forward to covid, rescued a business, went for months without paying myself so others could get paid, did my last pro fight Jan 2020 in Bangkok (didn’t know it would be my last). August 2021, business was back and doing really well, years of struggle starting to pay off and then got diagnosed with testicular cancer. NHS made 8 weeks of mistakes and had to self fund private treatment, was selling the company and managing that process, all the staff, etc. Exhausted. Tried natural treatments but relapsed after 18 months whilst funding a top oncologist’s scans and bloodwork every 3 months. Needed super heavy inpatient chemo living in the ward for a week at a time then home for a few days rest then back, lost the business, lost all fitness and strength, took me to the edge of life where my 80 year old dad had to push me up a flight of stairs and my girlfriend picked me up off the bathroom floor. I had no financial help and only got HMRC bills for the period before when I was earning well.

I had felt depression during the first diagnosis but the career gone, savings gone, tax bills being chased, no direction, no work, socially isolated, huge ancestry, no energy, brain fog and back into 3 months scans crushed me. Back into depression.

MDMA: I had researched psychedelic therapy and had also tried normal psychotherapy, it just felt like an intellectualisation of it all, not core wound healing. My friend pointed out I was living in fear of recurrence and was hyper vigilant about everything in my environment that could cause cancer. I didn’t eat sugar for years, 5 years without drinking out of plastic water, all plastic removed from our house and wardrobe…living in a prison I had created in my mind. I couldn’t relax and nobody could relate since it started at 37 and I was the healthiest out of all my friends before.

I decided to try MDMA gently first in Ibiza with a close friend, partly to see if it would do anything, partly to see if my body and heart could handle it (potential CV system damage from chemo), partly to try and celebrate being alive. Day out dancing all day, amazing next day, hyper vigilance GONE! Anxiety much lower. Felt calm for the first time since I could remember. It had somehow broken the mental prison. It was there at times but it wasn’t forefront and controlling and now I could just see it as a bubble of thought to follow if I wanted, it was no longer driving. I couldn’t believe it! We drunk electrolytes and water all day, ate food (difficult) after about 5 hours and took magnesium.

I doubled down. 6 weeks later I had read as many studies as I could and did a solo session - 70mg followed by a 40mg booster 90 mins in. Took accompanying supplements (from here, not MAPS), water, fan, electrolytes, my playlist with eye mask and tried to focus on my cancer journey and unlock the trauma surrounding each painful memory. Amazing session, felt amazing since. Those memories are there but the emotional shard of glass scraping raw across my soul isn’t when I think of them. It was really healing me so I went again 6 weeks later.

Session 3 last Tuesday - found the highest purity reagent tested product, 70mg, 50mg booster, fasting, supplements. This time with a traditional therapist who works with abuse victims but is also generally trained and who is interested in the healing capacity of this. We had a session before I dosed, framed the session as ‘surrender’, ‘teach me how things really are’, ‘teach me how to feel love’ (I have felt numb for as long as I can remember). This time I also used the MAPS sound track instead of my own and it was a much more internal journey. Journalled all the way through it.

Since session 3 I have felt completely exhausted and not sure why. A bit tired and grumpy, flat mood, exhausted mentally and physically. Feels like it’s really taken it out of me and not the lightness and connection of the other sessions.

I’d love insights from others that have done this journey and thanks again for everyone that makes this group happen.

I recently took MDMA at a festival and found the effects on my body incredible. Especially regarding my breathing: I felt my entire respiratory system opening up—like I could truly breathe, taking long, deep breaths that relaxed my nervous system and impacted my whole body. It was almost as if I were breathing properly for the first time; it was amazing, like having a superpower where I could use my breath to relax, connect better, and handle difficult emotions more easily. I didn't experience big effects (no hallucinations or big waves of love), just a deep physical relaxation that allowed me to connect with others and the music.

In my daily life I feel that when I’m sitting or standing I have a ball in the center of my belly that block my respiratory system and that’s very very annoying, it make me take short breath and feeling often very anxious and rushed.

I was wondering if you could explain how this works—what changes occur in my body, and what MDMA does to unlock my respiratory system, allowing me to breathe freely and achieve such deep physical relaxation.
Thanks :))

The relaxed state i reach in a mdma session, while i feel loved and supported by the entire unvierse and my own life, is extrememely precious but of course it vanishes within hours or days.

Yet i wish i could feel that relaxed in daily life. Not tensed, anxious dissociated or down even when there is no trigger, because my system only knows it needs to be on guard etc.

Are there people who can feel such a deep, somatic, trust in life and the world, as their ordinary state? Can we reach that level of regulation?

MAPS just posted a press release regarding the status of their legalization efforts with the FDA around MDMA assisted therapy. See the link for more info, but I think this is good news. I'm hoping and praying they will legalize this therapy as soon as possible.

"The reported resubmission of the New Drug Application will initiate a new evaluation of the treatment’s safety and efficacy for potential FDA approval"

https://maps.org/2026/08/10/maps-responds-to-report-of-progress-for-mdma-assisted-therapy-for-ptsd-with-fda/

Hello community.

I’ve been on a healing path with mdma for around 4 years now. Around 15 sessions. Almost all of them solo.
It changed me. The thing is I’m in the closet. Most of the people around me don’t know, and the ones who do know trust me about my path but are mostly scared.
It’s a lot to hold alone really.
Getting ready for the sessions, the sessions themselves, the integration after - especially into a society where it’s a taboo.
For me there’s a bonus layer of figuring out the right way to relate to that tool (mdma) from a semi-religious / spiritual lens.

I’m posting this to share, might resonate with someone.
And mostly to see if we could connect and maybe share some experiences.
It’s a beautiful and intense journey, and I think walking some parts together can be better.

Let me know if you’d like to connect.
And if I could be of help to anyone needing any tips from my own experience, welcome :)

Peace 🙏

Update: opened a telegram group. Anyone interested in joining send me a DM :)

Hi, I’m at a point where I could really use some advice from people who know this substance well.

Here’s my situation. I’ve had a constant physical sensation of anxiety/tension in my solar plexus since I was 16. I’m 43 now, and it has basically prevented me from feeling genuinely happy for a single day of my adult life. I can’t breathe freely, and most of the time all I feel is this underlying anguish.

It’s not that I’m constantly thinking negative thoughts — I’m not. I get stressed about stupid shit like anyone else, but mentally I handle it pretty well. My sense is that, as a teenager, I suddenly realized that I was completely alone in the world and simply couldn’t cope with that realization. My nervous system got scared, went on guard, and has basically never stood down since.

There have been exceptions with certain partners, where their presence sometimes made me feel accompanied and safe. But eventually, seeing how relationships and life actually work, I would lose that sense of trust and end up right back where I started.

Part of me hopes that MDMA might temporarily bring that defense down. Maybe for a few hours I could experience what it actually feels like to be safe in the world — something I’m not even sure I’ve ever truly experienced — and perhaps use that experience to rebuild some of my beliefs, reconsolidate mistaken emotional memories, etc.

The reason I haven’t tried it yet is basically fear: I’m scared I could somehow lose myself permanently, or take it and have a massive panic attack. I realize that a lot of this may simply be my mind coming up with terrifying scenarios because I’m facing something unknown.

So, to those of you who genuinely know MDMA and have experience with it: could you help me put these catastrophic fantasies into perspective and find the courage to actually take the step and try it?

Thanks so much in advance.

Hello!

I am currently running a study on set and setting within psychedelic experiences.

Obviously there is quite a few aspect to explore on the topic, though in particular I am interested in:

• How intention, environment, and social setting shape psychedelic experiences
• Differences between clinical and non-clinical use
• How these experiences relate to psychological outcomes

Most of the research on set and setting in the psychedelic field comes from more clinically orientated trials, which can be lacking in terms of nuance and real lived experiences. So it would be great to reach out further in the communities surrounding these substances!

🔗 Survey link

Fully anonymous

Takes around 15-20 minutes to complete

There's also an optional follow-up interview if you'd like to share your experience in more depth

Full study details and ethics information are provided in the info sheet at the start of the survey

Requirements: 18+, have had a psychedelic experience in a clinical or non-clinical setting

If you have anything you feel is important to say about psychedelics, this is your chance!

I'm happy to answer any questions about the study. You can reach us at:

Warren - plks55@durham.ac.uk

Dr Marco Bocchio - Marco.Bocchio@durham.ac.uk

Thank you for your time and support! 🙏

This survey has been approved by the moderators

I’ve had 12 sessions so far over the past 4 years. It gave me my life back. Allowed me to finally show up for myself. Gave me my self love, respect and compassion back. I remember reading a comment on here about how mdma sometimes shows us a version of us that we’re not yet ready for. That really resonated. I would often have these profound experiences in my sessions, came out with a different outlook and values, and a different self image, but eventually would fall back into my old self image and my old patterns.

It wasn’t until I confronted my parents about old family dynamics and went no contact, that I started to become the person mdma showed me was possible. Expressing my anger and setting boundaries with my parents allowed me to start to heal more deeply. My body started to release a lot of trauma, memories came up, and I got in touch with more of what I had lost: my life force. I found that my anger was tightly coupled with my life force. As long as I couldn’t express and use my anger, I couldn’t use my life force.

Setting a boundary finally gave me the space and freedom to be who I really was deep down. As long as I was close to my parents, I would need to sacrifice my authenticity and play a role for the family. And what I had suppressed all these years to stay close and take care of my parents was a lot of anger and disgust.

The boundary allowed me to give the toxic shame that lived in me back to my father. It made me realize it wasn’t mine. That there was nothing I needed to feel ashamed about. The gateway emotion of disgust allowed me to give it back to my father. With my anger I started to finally care less about what others think. I sing, dance, move, and talk without fearing how it looks or how it affects others. I had serious social anxiety issues before that, but I realize it was the toxic shame and sense of “badness” that I had internalized from my father to stay close to him. I gave that back, set a boundary, and now feel In touch with my anger and life force

At times I had similar levels of euphoria after the no contact as I had with mdma. I felt free and at peace to be myself. This is all to say that sometimes one needs to make changes in their environment to become the person mdma showed you is possible.