How some doctors are risking everything to unleash the healing power of MDMA, ayahuasca and other hallucinogens.
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/how-doctors-treat-mental-illness-with-psychedelic-drugs-w470673
MDMA, Psilocybin, Ayahuasca, LST, marijuana, ibogaine, and DMT can be incredibly useful for PTSD, trauma processing, autism-spectrum disorders and social anxiety, and self-exploration.
As the article points out, these are not to be taken lightly. They are serious medicines.
(And so are proprietary pharmaceuticals, many of which are guess-and-check science with countless lingering side-effects. Fun fact: Aderall was originally a weight-loss pill.)
"It makes the healing process possible, not easy." When you take 125 milligrams of pure MDMA, enough to nearly immobilize you, and someone invites you to take a look at your deepest self, "it is a destabilizing agent," Dr. X cautions. But it's purposefully so. "It opens us," he says. "Sometimes the medicine can stabilize someone in a difficult situation. Sometimes it stirs up madness, so they can process that. Some people feel rejuvenated and ready to go back into their lives, but other people feel frazzled, spent, fragmented. I've had a few people say, 'That shattered who I thought I was.'"
For many people that's exactly what's needed.