Workgroup 1: Introduction Clinical Psychology

The students were supposed to read “Ecstasy as a remedy for PTSD? You probably have some questions” (Dave Philipps, New York Times, 2018; https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/01/us/ecstasy-molly-ptsd-mdma.html), and they had to find scientific evidence for whether treatment with ecstasy/MDMA actually works in reducing symptoms of PTSD. Also, students had to come up with a hypothesis for how it may work.

Literature for whether treatment with ecstasy/MDMA would work:

• Thal & Lommen (2018) have conducted an experiment using ecstasy/MDMA to reduce the symptoms of PTSD and have found an overall remission rate of 66.2%. There were low rates of adverse effects.
• Mithoefer et al. (2019) performed MDMA-assisted psychotherapy and found that it was efficacious and well tolerated.

A potential hypothesis is that MDMA can theoretically manipulate modulators of emotional learning and memory during psychotherapy in key brain regions.

Treatment types

• CBT: to help you manage your problems by changing how you think and act and your cognitions
• EMDR: eye movements while recalling the traumatic event. While you’re following the object with your eyes you think about the traumatic event. Your working memory has less space to think about the event for the fully 100%.
• Group therapy
• Antidepressants