Description
The word "entactogen" refers to substances that allow one to "touch the inside" and comes from the words en (Greek for "inside"), tactus (Latin for "touch") and gen (Greek for "to produce"). Psychoactive agents in this category reduce anxiety and increase confidence, self-acceptance and openness, as well as facilitate access to difficult memories, thereby helping to induce transformative healing.
Therapists have successfully used MDMA in their practice, but the substance was outlawed in 1985. Since then, many efforts have been made to conduct government-approved scientific studies on its therapeutic potential. Recently, it has been possible to demonstrate the effectiveness of MDMA therapy primarily in treating patients with chronic and treatment-resistant post-traumatic stress disorder.
Torsten Passie is a professor of psychiatry and psychotherapist from the Hannover Medical School in Germany. He has also worked as a visiting professor at Harvard Medical School in the US. He is a leading European authority on psychedelic substances and has conducted numerous studies on altered states of consciousness, as well as psychotherapy assisted by psychoactive drugs. He is the author of numerous scientific articles and books, including. The Pharmacology of LSD: A Critical Review (2010) and The Science of Microdosing Psychedelics (2019).
"Dr. Passie's book is an important and needed publication on MDMA-assisted therapy. He discusses extensively and insightfully many of the discoveries about the effects of this substance, making it an invaluable source of information on the methods, mechanisms and challenges of entactogen-assisted psychotherapy. Dr. Passie's fascinating work on combining group therapy with individual integrative sessions may set a promising direction for the broader therapeutic use of these substances in the future."
- Dr. Michael Mithoefer
(psychiatrist and author of research on MDMA-assisted psychotherapy)
"Dr. Passie describes not only the possibility of enhancing therapy with MDMA, but also the neurophysiological and neurochemical correlates of the experiences induced by this substance. His book deserves to be called a milestone in the process of integrating this type of substance into psychotherapeutic practice."
- Dr. Ralph Metzner
(psychotherapist and consciousness researcher)
"MDMA removes the two biggest obstacles to insight, namely self-loathing and excessive self-criticism."
- Ann Shulgin
