MDMA and PTSD

PTSD, or Post Tramatic Stress Disorder, "is a debilitating anxiety disorder characterized by re-experiencing, hyperarousal and avoidance symptoms, and is a major worldwide public health problem" according to the Journal of Psychopharmacology. The Journal of Psychopharmacology also goes on to explain that something that makes treating PTSD so difficult to treat is the fact that the only known way is to submerge the patients in the situations to help them cope and become less sensitive to their individual triggers. This being said, the problem with this process is that it can take a tremendous amount of time and cause horrible experiences for the patient due to the need  to relive the traumatic event over and over again. Many of these treatments are combined with the use of selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors or (SSRIs). Once again there is an issue with this. The problem is that the use of the SSRIs is not so effective. The use if MDMA also know and Ecstasy has started being used instead of the usual SSRIs. In a blind study, 83% of patients given MDMA made an improvement where as only 25% improved on the placebo. The idea is that while on MDMA the patient feels less fear and feels more in control of their mental stability which allows for longer duration of exposure treatment with much less suffering. They also found that their has never been a recorded bad reaction or negative side effect of the drug.