How To Recover From Trauma and The Healing Potential of MDMA Assisted Therapy: Bessel Van Der Kolk
A New Way of Being
Simon Mundie
4.8 • 523 Ratings
🗓️ 15 July 2024
⏱️ 48 minutes
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Summary
A Groundbreaking new study has found that MDMA shows great promise as a mental health treatment.
My guest today is a giant in the world of trauma and Mental Health: Dr. Bessel van der Kolk. He is a world renowned psychiatrist, and author of the seminal best seller about trauma called The Body Keeps the Score. This is Bessel second appearance on the show. In this episode, we revisit the basics of trauma and discuss his latest groundbreaking research about how MDMA, otherwise known as ecstasy, has shown huge promise in treating trauma and PTSD when coupled with talking therapies. Bessel recently invited me out to the trauma conference in America and we agreed to record this episode to discuss what are remarkable research results. But MDMA and other psychedelics are, of course, still illegal, so, we explore how this area of trauma treatment may evolve. And we also discuss some of the other treatments available now, including EMDR and EFT.
*WARNING* - this episode does include references to sexual violence and abuse
**
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome back to the show. My guest today is a giant in the world of trauma and mental health, Dr Bessel van de Kulk. He is a world-renowned psychiatrist and author of the seminal bestseller about trauma called The Body Keeps the Score. This is Bessel's second appearance on the show. Last time we discussed trauma and how to heal from it. And in this episode, |
| 0:21.4 | we discuss his latest groundbreaking research about how MDMA, otherwise known as ecstasy, |
| 0:27.1 | has shown huge promise in treating trauma and PTSD when coupled with talking therapies. |
| 0:33.1 | Bessel recently invited me out to the Trauma Conference in America and we agreed to record |
| 0:37.3 | this episode to discuss what are remarkable research results. recently invited me out to the trauma conference in America and we agreed to record this |
| 0:37.5 | episode to discuss what are remarkable research results. But MDMA and other psychedelics are of course |
| 0:44.7 | still illegal so we explore how this area of trauma treatment may evolve and we also discuss |
| 0:51.3 | some of the other treatments available now, including EMDR and EFT. |
| 1:15.2 | Bessel van der Kolk, how lovely to see you. How are you? Good to see you. Yeah. |
| 1:22.0 | Now, we've spoken before about trauma and your amazing book, The Body Keeps the Score. Today, we're talking about this groundbreaking research that you've done, the results of which really |
| 1:27.1 | have been stunning. |
| 1:28.5 | It's about MDMA assisted therapy, which is known as a psychedelic that's basically been |
| 1:34.1 | illegal since 1985. So we're going to get to that. But before we get to that, I just want to |
| 1:39.0 | quickly revisit, firstly, your book. It's sold over 5 million copies. Wow. And it's changed the paradigm, |
| 1:46.1 | for example, that trauma and things like this are not just purely mental phenomena. They |
| 1:52.0 | change our biology, they change our brains, and as you say, they stay in the body in some way. |
| 1:57.5 | Although it's interesting. I was certainly not the first person who have said that, |
| 2:02.2 | or who wrote the best book about this, but somehow my book became a book that people would be very grateful for that. |
| 2:06.4 | Just to quickly explain that trauma, for example, it changes the brain. |
| 2:11.5 | The world is experienced through a different nervous system. |
| 2:14.7 | How does it change the brain? |
| 2:16.1 | In ordinary life, you learn from experience |
... |
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