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Ecstasy in The Treatment of Trauma with Jonathan Robinson · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Guy McPherson.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: So five, four, three, two, and one. Our folks, welcome
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: back to the podcast. Very excited to have as my
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  Speaker 1: guest today, Jonathan Robinson. Jonathan, welcome.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm looking forward to this.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Appreciate it. So Jonathan is a psychotherapist, professional speaker, and
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  Speaker 1: bestselling author who has written numerous books on psychology, spirituality,
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  Speaker 1: and personal growth, including Ecstasy as Medicine. For more than
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  Speaker 1: three decades, he's explored practical approaches to emotional healing, meditation,
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  Speaker 1: and expanded states of consciousness. His work focuses on helping
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  Speaker 1: people access greater well-being, connection, and inner peace through both
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  Speaker 1: traditional therapeutic methods and transformative experiences. All right, Jonathan, just
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  Speaker 1: a little bit about you. Before we get going, share
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  Speaker 1: with our listeners where you're from originally and where you
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  Speaker 1: are currently, and we'll dive in. Sure.
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  Speaker 2: I was originally from L.A., and now I live near Sacramento.
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  Speaker 2: And I was blessed to have a very difficult childhood,
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  Speaker 2: so I got into this psychological healing at a very
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  Speaker 2: young age.
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  Speaker 1: Okay. I like the way you put that. That's a
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  Speaker 1: perfect entree into... So my first question is, how did
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  Speaker 1: all this start for you? How did this interest and
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  Speaker 1: work start?
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  Speaker 2: Well, when you're 10 or 11, you can't leave your family.
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  Speaker 2: So I got into self-help books and got into things
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  Speaker 2: like hypnosis and meditation by the time I was 11
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  Speaker 2: or 12. Who gets into that stuff at 10 or 11?
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  Speaker 1: Well, me.
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  Speaker 2: And I know that was unusual, but I could read
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  Speaker 2: and books were available. I could heal myself.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's take a step back. What was going
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  Speaker 1: on such that you started reaching out to these types
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  Speaker 1: of books?
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  Speaker 2: Well, my stepfather, a lot of violence in my childhood.
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  Speaker 2: And I just saw that, you know, you couldn't get
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  Speaker 2: out of your family, but you can go in. Peace
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  Speaker 2: is within. So I got into things like meditation, and
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  Speaker 2: by the time I was 15, I was into psychedelics,
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  Speaker 2: and really saw that I could make progress in that way.
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  Speaker 2: And eventually that led me to MDMA, and I did
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  Speaker 2: graduate work on how MDMA can help people, including myself,
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  Speaker 2: overcome PTSD and trauma.
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  Speaker 1: All right. Between the time that you started doing this
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  Speaker 1: kind of self-inner work, if you will, 11, 12, and
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  Speaker 1: graduate school, how did things evolve for you? 11, 12, 13, 14,
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  Speaker 1: into your teens, what were you doing? How were you
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  Speaker 1: managing what was going on in addition to what you
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  Speaker 1: were studying and so forth?
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  Speaker 2: I had my midlife crisis around age 12. So it's
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  Speaker 2: a good time to have one because that way you
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  Speaker 2: get out of the way. And so I was pretty
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  Speaker 2: depressed and even suicidal at one time. And luckily a
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  Speaker 2: teacher took me under his wing and helped me out.
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  Speaker 2: And I was starting to meditate every day. And really
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  Speaker 2: when I took psychedelics around age 14, I saw that
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  Speaker 2: there was a whole other world that I was not
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  Speaker 2: aware of, call it the world of joy, peace and love.
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  Speaker 2: And I said, I'm going to dedicate my life to
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  Speaker 2: getting back to this place, but without the drugs. You know,
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  Speaker 2: I knew the drugs were like a four vision, but,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I thought you don't want to get dependent
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  Speaker 2: on these things. So, you know, that's where I got
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  Speaker 2: into really meditation and And eventually, you know, made a
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  Speaker 2: career of it. You know, I've now 16 books. Oprah
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  Speaker 2: liked my books, so I sold millions of books. And
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  Speaker 2: that always was fun. But really, my dedication has been
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  Speaker 2: to find, to help heal not just myself, but other people,
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  Speaker 2: because I think there's a lot of great methods out
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  Speaker 2: there that really can accelerate healing. And as a psychotherapist,
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  Speaker 2: I saw that just talking about stuff really wasn't that effective.
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  Speaker 1: Your background is so interesting, right? I mean, how many
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  Speaker 1: kids start doing this at that age? A lot of
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  Speaker 1: kids experience similar types of upbringings and so forth. But
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  Speaker 1: my guess is a lot of kids don't start reaching
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  Speaker 1: for those types of books. Where was your mom in this?
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  Speaker 2: She was generally trying to deal with my stepfather and,
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  Speaker 2: you know, she had to work full time and they
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  Speaker 2: were arguing a lot. So they weren't really very helpful.
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  Speaker 2: But that did give me a lot of free time
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  Speaker 2: on my own. And one thing that inspired me was
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  Speaker 2: and he hypnotized my sister to think that she was
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  Speaker 2: Mick Jagger. She was generally a very shy person. And,
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  Speaker 2: you know, when she thought she was Mick Jagger under hypnosis,
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  Speaker 2: she built it out. You know, I can't get no satisfaction.
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  Speaker 2: I thought, wow, I wouldn't mind being Mick Jagger or
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  Speaker 2: anybody other than who I was at that time. That
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  Speaker 2: there are wonders of the human mind and capabilities that
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  Speaker 2: are really worth pursuing. And once I saw that possibility, uh,
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  Speaker 2: being that my parents were pretty much busy, you know,
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  Speaker 2: arguing or working. I just really went deep into it. And,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I was into all these, what my dad
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  Speaker 2: called weird stuff before it was more accepted. So, you know,
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  Speaker 2: things like MDMA or hypnosis or meditation were my lifesaver.
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  Speaker 1: So when you went to, you said graduate school, so
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  Speaker 1: obviously you went to undergrad. Were you thinking, what were
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  Speaker 1: you thinking? I want to be a therapist or what?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was thinking. but I wanted to be a
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  Speaker 2: non-traditional therapist because I was looking at the stats of
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  Speaker 2: how effective is therapy, and it wasn't that impressive. So
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  Speaker 2: that's where I got into, you know, can I use hypnosis, meditation?
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  Speaker 2: Can I use psychedelics as a way to accelerate that process?
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  Speaker 2: And so, you know, it was a little bit far
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  Speaker 2: out at that time, 40 years ago. But the results
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  Speaker 2: I was getting was just phenomenal.
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  Speaker 1: Hang on. So when you were thinking that, you were
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  Speaker 1: thinking that before you started undergrad?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, because I was trying it on myself. You know,
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  Speaker 2: I was my first subject.
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  Speaker 1: So with that interest, where did you go to school then?
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  Speaker 1: And were you able to study those?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I went to UCLA and UC Santa Barbara.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 2: Um, I was able to actually connect with some interesting
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  Speaker 2: professors that were cutting edge and they gave me a
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  Speaker 2: lot of freedom. You know, I had a good brain,
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  Speaker 2: so they just let me, okay, what do you want
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  Speaker 2: to study? You know, back then, MDMA or ecstasy was legal.
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  Speaker 2: So I created the first study ever on MDMA and
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  Speaker 2: PTSD or trauma. And the results were so phenomenal that
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  Speaker 2: nobody believed them. And then my supervisor suggested that I
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  Speaker 2: do the study again because he couldn't believe. Back then,
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  Speaker 2: it would take five years or three years of talk
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  Speaker 2: therapy to heal somebody of trauma. I was doing it
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  Speaker 2: in a day.
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  Speaker 1: Let's kind of pause here for a second. What were
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  Speaker 1: you doing? What was the project you were doing?
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  Speaker 2: The protocol was meet with a client for an hour,
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  Speaker 2: talk about their trauma, their situation, and then arrange a
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  Speaker 2: five-hour time while they were on MDMA. At that time,
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  Speaker 2: it was legal to really do a five-hour therapy session.
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  Speaker 2: where we went deep into the trauma. One of the
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  Speaker 2: good things about MDMA is it reduces blood flow to
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  Speaker 2: the amygdala. So people could talk about their rape or
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  Speaker 2: their violence or whatever they'd been through, just like they
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  Speaker 2: were talking about the weather. It'd be very relaxing. And
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  Speaker 2: what we found was that their symptoms of trauma would
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  Speaker 2: disappear in about 90% of the cases.
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  Speaker 1: Their symptoms of trauma... After their experience?
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  Speaker 2: After their session, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 2: So we did a study. I did my master's thesis,
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  Speaker 2: and 90% of the clients were saying that their symptoms
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  Speaker 2: were either greatly reduced or gone after that five-hour session.
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  Speaker 2: And then we did an integration session, like how to
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  Speaker 2: keep up with the– I might call mental hygiene. You know,
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  Speaker 2: if fear hits you, how to handle that through breathing
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  Speaker 2: methods or meditation or whatever. And yeah, the results were great,
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  Speaker 2: but then the U.S. government made MDMA illegal, and the
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  Speaker 2: It has only been recently that the government is paying
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  Speaker 2: for similar types of studies with veterans and other people
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  Speaker 2: who have been traumatized. But there's very much an underground
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  Speaker 2: movement of people like me who help people. And it's
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  Speaker 2: just a really sacred experience. It's almost like brain surgery.
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  Speaker 2: The MDMA really facilitates going deep with people quickly and
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  Speaker 2: rewiring their brain in a certain way. You know, in
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  Speaker 2: my book, Ecstasy is Medicine, I talk about how that
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  Speaker 2: happens and what I do as a therapist and what
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  Speaker 2: kind of results people get.
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  Speaker 1: So for our listeners, give us a little intro, if
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  Speaker 1: you will. We all know that there's several substances out
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  Speaker 1: there people are using. Some are legal, some are not.
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  Speaker 1: What is ecstasy? What is MDMA? And how are you
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  Speaker 1: using it?
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  Speaker 2: Well, MDMA's been around for a long time. They call
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  Speaker 2: it a psychedelic, but there's no hallucinations. There's no distortions.
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  Speaker 2: In fact, most people feel like it brings them to
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  Speaker 2: a deep mental clarity. Just a funny story. My parents,
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  Speaker 2: my dad, who was supportive of all this stuff, said, whoa,
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  Speaker 2: why are you dealing with this drug? And I said, well,
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  Speaker 2: the only way to really know what it does is
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  Speaker 2: to try it. And he and my stepmother said, okay,
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  Speaker 2: we'll try it. So I gave them the medicine, told
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  Speaker 2: them how to take it. A year later, I asked them,
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  Speaker 2: I said, Yeah, yeah, we took it. And I said, well,
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  Speaker 2: what happened? Nothing happened. It didn't work. And I knew
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  Speaker 2: that that probably wasn't a good description. So they said, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: we waited 15, 20 minutes. Nothing happened. Well, it ends
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  Speaker 2: up it takes 45 minutes for this drug to take effect.
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  Speaker 2: So I said, well, what happened after those 20 minutes?
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  Speaker 2: And they said, well, we had nothing planned that night.
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  Speaker 2: So we sat on the couch. And then their eyes
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  Speaker 2: lit up and they said, it ends up we had
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  Speaker 2: the best conversation of our entire marriage. We talked about
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  Speaker 2: how much we loved each other and we had had
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  Speaker 2: some arguments the previous week and we worked all that
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  Speaker 2: out that night. And it was just really wonderful. The
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  Speaker 2: best night of our marriage. The only problem was that
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  Speaker 2: the drug never took effect. Well, of course, I'm laughing
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  Speaker 2: the whole time because that's exactly what the drug does.
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  Speaker 2: It makes you feel open hearted and clear headed. And
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  Speaker 2: it makes it really easy to work through trauma or
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  Speaker 2: couple differences. My latest book is called Ecstasy for Couples.
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  Speaker 2: So it's really good at healing relationships as well.
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  Speaker 1: All right. So give us, I know this is in
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  Speaker 1: the book, Ecstasy as Medicine, but give us a little
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  Speaker 1: idea of how you work with someone. And before you
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  Speaker 1: respond to that, what type of trauma or types of
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  Speaker 1: trauma is this good for?
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's really good for any kind of trauma. It's
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  Speaker 2: a little bit like a Swiss Army knife. It just
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  Speaker 2: is very versatile because it reduces all the fear. It
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  Speaker 2: cuts off blood flow to the amygdala, which is the
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  Speaker 2: fear part of our brain. Once a person feels totally
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  Speaker 2: safe and totally at ease, they can talk about anything.
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  Speaker 2: So I've dealt with people being shot at, certainly rape,
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  Speaker 2: veterans being having their friend's head blown off right next
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  Speaker 2: to them. I mean, all kinds of things, car accidents.
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  Speaker 2: I actually work with a fair amount of cops who
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  Speaker 2: get referred to me because they go through a lot
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  Speaker 2: of trauma. And it's really like a five-hour therapy session
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  Speaker 2: where we first establish their comfort and their feeling of
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  Speaker 2: openheartedness and safety. And then I say, tell me about
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  Speaker 2: the trauma. And they talk about like, well, this is
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  Speaker 2: really interesting. And oh, I don't, I didn't remember that.
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  Speaker 2: And we often work on forgiveness. There's some methods I
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  Speaker 2: use that help people to process trauma in their brain
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  Speaker 2: to like put the trauma into an empowering framework rather
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  Speaker 2: than a disempowering framework. And, you know, I talk about
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  Speaker 2: that in the books, but it's really a very interactive,
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  Speaker 2: fascinating conversation that people actually enjoy because they're in this
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  Speaker 2: elevated state of mental clarity and peace and open heartedness.
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  Speaker 1: Is there a, is there an altered state of, is
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  Speaker 1: that the altered state of consciousness? Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Okay.
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  Speaker 2: It's called ecstasy for a reason. I mean, you feel
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  Speaker 2: really good.
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  Speaker 1: Right. Right. Now, there's a common thought in the field,
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  Speaker 1: the study of trauma, the healing of trauma, that trauma
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  Speaker 1: resides in the body, a part in the body. Where
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  Speaker 1: does that fit into this treatment modality?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, great question. For some people, they really need to
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  Speaker 2: either shake or cathart through hitting their bed some of
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  Speaker 2: the stuck energy in their body. That's something that I
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  Speaker 2: sometimes do during the sessions or have them do. The
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  Speaker 2: other thing is for some people, they can just kind
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  Speaker 2: of notice where in the body it's located, put their
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  Speaker 2: hand on it, and with the help of the MDMA
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  Speaker 2: and my help, kind of it's like releasing that stuck
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  Speaker 2: energy in their body. And often it results in like
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  Speaker 2: them shaking for a little bit or making sounds that
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  Speaker 2: kind of sound like, you know, weird sounds of moaning
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  Speaker 2: or even yelling where it's a palpable feeling of a
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  Speaker 2: part of their body letting go of something that's been stuck.
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  Speaker 1: Now, in terms of like, you know, quote unquote, working
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  Speaker 1: through this trauma, when you're working with someone in a
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  Speaker 1: session like this, you're inviting them to relay their traumatic experience.
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  Speaker 1: What are you doing specifically? When and how are you interjecting?
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  Speaker 1: And what are you looking for in terms of how
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: things should unfold? Well, not should unfold, but How are
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  Speaker 1: you maybe guiding things to unfold with the understanding that
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  Speaker 1: everyone's different? I just want to preface that.
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  Speaker 2: Well, in the last 40 years, I've led maybe 700 sessions.
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  Speaker 2: So it is now very intuitive. But I would say
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  Speaker 2: that it's important that there's... All right, let me.
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  Speaker 1: Just make sure.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's... What's it saying here? Ask Jonathan to
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  Speaker 1: refresh and then rejoin from a regular browser, not incognito. Oh. Okay. Over? Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: let me just... Hold on.
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  Speaker 2: 21, 51.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so five, four, three, two, one. Okay, go.
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  Speaker 2: So I've lived in sessions over the last 40 years,
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  Speaker 2: so it's partly intuitive how I handle things, but there's.
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  Speaker 1: A level of.
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  Speaker 2: Focus that I don't want somebody to be too excited, too.
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  Speaker 2: Affected by their trauma. I want them to be able
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  Speaker 2: to talk about it with a certain amount of relaxation.
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  Speaker 2: So I'm always monitoring, are they in that range? And
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  Speaker 2: then I often take people through different processes that actually
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  Speaker 2: can either lead to catharsis or sometimes a lot of laughter. Like,
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  Speaker 2: for example, let's say, God forbid, I'm working with a
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  Speaker 2: woman that's been raped. A lot of times the brain
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  Speaker 2: will keep on replaying that in a way that is
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  Speaker 2: not helpful to them. So I kind of will almost
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  Speaker 2: ruin the memory by imagining the rapist with the bozo
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  Speaker 2: nose and Mickey Mouse ears and falling into a big
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: pile of. crap. And you're doing that....
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  Speaker 1: Why? To bring down the activation, potential activation?
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  Speaker 2: To turn down the activation. And two, if you give
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  Speaker 2: the brain a choice between a traumatic memory and nothing,
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  Speaker 2: it will keep on playing the trauma. If you give
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  Speaker 2: it a choice between MDMA and something wildly ridiculous, it
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  Speaker 2: will choose the wildly ridiculous memory and that neutralizes the trauma.
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  Speaker 2: So there's a technology involved of exactly what to do
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  Speaker 2: with MDMA that accelerates a process of the brain working
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  Speaker 2: through the trauma, which usually does not happen on its
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: own or can take sometimes years or decades.
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  Speaker 1: That sounds reminiscent of NLP.
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  Speaker 2: Well, some of the methods actually are NLP. But the
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  Speaker 2: most important thing is different people need different things. So
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  Speaker 2: I track people to see, is this working for them?
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  Speaker 1: Now, maybe kind of a naive question here, but with
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: the use of ecstasy, what's the importance of of talking
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  Speaker 1: through the trauma in the first place, or having them
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  Speaker 1: recount their experience.
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  Speaker 2: In a very relaxed and open state, and they talk
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  Speaker 2: about the trauma, it's like two forces being put together
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  Speaker 2: and they neutralize each other. Just like you put light
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  Speaker 2: and dark next to each other, You don't get pure
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  Speaker 2: light or pure dark. You get like, it just merges
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  Speaker 2: and neutralizes. So that's kind of what's happening a lot
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  Speaker 2: when people talk about their trauma on MDMA. And what
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  Speaker 2: I'm proud of, I wouldn't do this with any other
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  Speaker 2: psychedelic for sure, but I have found that this therapy
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: actually works really, really well over Zoom. And that surprised everybody.
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  Speaker 2: The only reason I even came across that idea was COVID.
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  Speaker 2: where people couldn't meet in person, yet doing it in
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  Speaker 2: the comfort of your own house seems to actually make
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: the therapy work better because people are even safer and
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: more comfortable in their own house.
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  Speaker 1: I'm curious, when you first started doing this, had you
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  Speaker 1: already kind of worked on yourself, treated yourself in a sense?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. So I had a slight sense of what
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: seemed to work for me And that gave me a
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  Speaker 2: good sense of, oh, well, if you just don't do anything,
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  Speaker 2: you don't get better. So you really have to intervene
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  Speaker 2: somehow to accelerate the processing of trauma in a way
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  Speaker 2: that neutralizes its symptoms.
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  Speaker 1: And are there multiple sessions involved or needed?
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  Speaker 2: I've been open to that, but I have found that
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  Speaker 2: in about 90% of the cases that's not needed. Um, yeah, that,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I mean, I wouldn't mind doing that. Obviously
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  Speaker 2: I get paid, but, uh, it's rare that somebody says
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  Speaker 2: that they need a second session. Now sometimes there needs
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  Speaker 2: to be a more than one integration session. So after
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: we do this five hour session, I meet with them
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: like a week later. And we talk about how to
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: use any techniques that we talked about, how to keep
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: that going. And sometimes that requires more than one session.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: So what is, you know, for our listeners here, obviously
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: there's so many treatment modalities out there, especially those that
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: are targeting trauma. When and why would someone choose this
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: as opposed to any number of other ones? And you'd
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: mentioned at the onset, at the outset rather, that for you,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: talking wasn't really helping or was helping limited in a
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: limited way. But why would someone reach out to this?
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: When do they reach out to this?
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: Well, I think that people should try whatever works and
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: whatever they're attracted to. And in maybe 10% of the cases,
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: talk therapy works really well. In probably 40%, 50% of cases,
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: I would say EMDR works really well for trauma. I
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: would say in 90% of cases, MDMA works really well,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: as long as it's interactive. There's a group called MAPS that...
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: tried to get MDMA legalized by not doing any therapy.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: You put a blindfold on, you listen to music, and
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: you hope that just the pill will do it for you. Well,
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: that works really well in about 60% of cases. But
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: you add interactive therapy, and you're really putting the two
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: best modalities for trauma together. And so, you know... Luckily,
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: I don't need to charge that much. If the government
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: ever makes MDMA legal, they're going to be charging like $ 15, 000
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: for this treatment. Luckily, I can charge less than a
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: tenth of that. But some people really want to just
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: go to a therapist week after week for many weeks
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: or months, and they feel like that's what they're comfortable with.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: Not everybody feels comfortable taking a drug. But for those
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: who want an accelerated path to their healing, that seems
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: to be the most effective and quickest modality for most people.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: And how does the ecstasy or MDMA differ from the
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: other psychedelics or drugs out there?
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: It's totally different. It'd be like, you know, how is
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: a tricycle different from a Ferrari? They're very different. And
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: those other drugs can be useful for other things. LSD,
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: you have hallucinations, you have a different view of reality.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: Same with psilocybin mushrooms. Ketamine is more of an anesthetic
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: where you're more peaceful, but you're not as available for therapy.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: What MDMA is really good for is therapy. It's like
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: a a therapy drug on steroids, and you become very
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: interested and not afraid of talking about your difficult issues,
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: whether it be in your relationship issues or past things
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: that have given you trouble. So you don't feel like
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: with my parents, you don't feel like you're necessarily even
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: on a drug. You just notice, gee, I feel more clear-headed, peaceful,
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: and loving than I've ever felt before. But I don't
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: feel like I'm on some kind of weird drug.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Are there any kind of contraindications for working with this?
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Maybe people who might not?
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's a great question. The number one
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: that comes up all the time shouldn't take MDMA and
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: be on SSRIs, antidepressants. They neutralize each other, so they
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: don't work well together. The other contraindication that sometimes shows
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: up is some people are very, their immune system is
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: not working very well, like if they have fibromyalgia or
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: things like that, that if they take it, they feel really,
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: really exhausted the next day. So there's some supplements they
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: can take that mitigate that. I talk about that in
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: the Ecstasy is Medicine book. But if you're not in
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: good health or in particularly poor health, then it can
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: be a little bit hard on the body.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: All right. Finally, the book Ecstasy is Medicine, how did
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: you arrange or organize the book and who's it for?
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Well, it's for anyone who is thinking about the possibility
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: of this type of therapy for me. about the contraindications,
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: talking about what I do in therapy, talking about some
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: methods that you can use without the MDMA that can
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: really help with trauma too. And talking about some supplements
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: you might want to take so that you avoid some
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: of the side effects like a tight jaw that can
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: sometimes happen. Really for anybody who wants to know more
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: about the medicine and what that type of therapy can do,
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: So the practical guide as to how you can know
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: about contraindications, know supplements you can take that can help
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: reduce any side effects, but also gives a lot of
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: the methods I use so that even a person who
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: isn't on MDM, can try some of the methods. And
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: I think that they're the most effective methods for dealing
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: with trauma. You know, I've searched hard and wide for
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: what seems to work with the 700 people I've worked with.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: And I, you know, reveal those in the book as well.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: But also there are subtleties of things people should know
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: that there's different types of trauma and how you might
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: want to handle different types of trauma. And I cover
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: things like that in the book as well.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Okay. All right, Jonathan, how do people learn more about you?
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: How do people learn about the book, buy the book,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: et cetera? What's the best way?
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: Well, I have a website, which is the letters XTC.com. asmedicine.com, xtcesmedicine.com.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Talks a lot about the book and people put in
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: their email address. They also get 10 ways to avoid
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: bad psychedelic trips. And they also get the 12 questions
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: that lead to instant intimacy with anyone. But there's a
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: lot of information. You can buy the book from. So
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: available in audio book.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Oh, awesome. Okay. We'll have all that linked up here.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: at the show notes page at the traumatherapistpodcast.com. All right, Jonathan,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: thank you, sir. Appreciate you being here.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks, Guy.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: All right. Take care. Mm-hmm.