10. MDMA-Assisted Therapy with Dr Ben Sessa & Chris Trudgian

Dr Ben Sessa was the first doctor to administer MDMA assisted therapy in the 21st century and Christopher Trudgian was one of his very first patients. They both join Professor David Nutt to answer the question… can MDMA be used therapeutically to treat addiction and/or PTSD?

The links between childhood trauma/PTSD and adult addiction are very apparent. It is now well documented that MDMA has a therapeutic potential to treat PTSD could that mean that patients suffering with PTSD-related addiction could benefit from this type of therapy? To do this, Dr. Sessa had to examine the childhood trauma, sexual abuse and the selectively impaired fear response.

Dr Sessa is a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist working in adult addiction services and with custodial detained young people in a secure adolescent setting. Dr Sessa is currently a senior research fellow at Bristol, Cardiff and Imperial College London Universities, where he is conducting the UK’s first clinical studies with MDMA-assisted therapy for the treatment of PTSD and alcohol dependence syndrome. In the last ten years he has worked on several UK-based human pharmacology trials as study doctor or as a healthy subject administering and receiving test doses of LSD, psilocybin, MDMA and ketamine.

Ben Sessa - www.drsessa.com

Why MDMA Therapy for Alcohol Use Disorder and Why Now? Neuropharmacology (2017) - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29126911

Addaction/WeAreWithYou - https://www.wearewithyou.org.uk/

MDMA - https://drugscience.org.uk/drug-information/mdma/

MAPS MDMA - https://maps.org/research/mdma

MDMA Assisted-therapy training - https://maps.org/training

Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 - http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1971/38/contents

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Twitter: @ProfDavidNutt @Drug_Science

A Fascinate Productions podcast for Drug Science