In this free video on the science and magic of empathogens, I share from my own experience with psychedelic medicines including MDMA, 3MMC and related molecules. I have concerns with the conversations we now find everywhere on drug-assisted therapies, and drug legalization. I have some science to share. These medicines light up both the serotonin and dopamine systems in our brains and bodies, so we feel both passion and peace, at the same time. The wonderful thing is that we don’t actually need drugs to find this. These molecular messengers are part of every being in the biosphere, and the neuroendocrine systems within and between us. How can we use empathogens in ways that help us belong to this global network of our true belonging? Instead, these medicines are getting mobilized to help people tolerate intolerable systems. Are we going to keep our trauma treatments confined to the very paradigms that created all this awful, ongoing trauma in the first place?
Empathogens activate – and help calibrate – the neuroendocrine system humans share with all of life. We can also do this with breath, sound, movement, imagination and touch. We can co-create new methods and practices for integrating medicine work into social
change work.
MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, as practiced in the MAPS model, is not trauma-informed
in several ways, including:
- Using a “consent” model instead of “empowered choice and voice” to guide
practitioners’ touch - Using a cookie-cutter approach to dose and protocol
- Unquestioned paradigms for social belonging that do harm