Treating posttraumatic stress disorder with MDMA-assisted psychotherapy: A preliminary meta-analysis and comparison to prolonged exposure therapy

@article{Amoroso2016TreatingPS,
  title={Treating posttraumatic stress disorder with MDMA-assisted psychotherapy: A preliminary meta-analysis and comparison to prolonged exposure therapy},
  author={Timothy Amoroso and Michael Workman},
  journal={Journal of Psychopharmacology},
  year={2016},
  volume={30},
  pages={595 - 600}
}
Since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has become a major area of research and development. The most widely accepted treatment for PTSD is prolonged exposure (PE) therapy, but for many patients it is intolerable or ineffective. ±3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)-assisted psychotherapy (MDMA-AP) has recently re-emerged as a new treatment option, with two clinical trials having been published and both producing promising results. However, these results… 
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Evidence present in this literature suggests that MDMA-assisted psychotherapy may reduce symptoms by improving patients’ mood, promoting a strong therapeutic alliance, and catalyzing fear memory extinction, which appears to be a viable treatment for some people with PTSD.
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  • 2017
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Recent phase one neurophysiological studies and phase two clinical studies are showing promise as a potential new approach to managing treatment-resistant PTSD.
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MDMA-assisted psychotherapy appears to be a potentially safe, effective, and durable treatment for individuals with chronic, treatment-refractory PTSD, but future studies involving larger samples and longer durations of treatment and follow-up are warranted-and underway.
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A series of recently completed phase 2 clinical trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for treatment of PTSD show favorable safety outcomes and large effect sizes that warrant expansion into multi-site phase 3 trials, set to commence in 2018.
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Background: Most systematic reviews have explored the efficacy of treatments on symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is a chronic and often disabling condition.…
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