Dr. Julie Holland (Interview Archive)
Dr. Holland: Someone willing to put it more strongly would say these patients have been cured. The illness is gone. They've lost most of the symptoms and the markers that go with the condition, and on top of that they're off the medications they once depended on. Their symptoms are far less pronounced, and the pill count has dropped compared to where they started the study. What the Mithoefer research has found, following people out one year, two years, and I think now three, is that the improvements hold. People get better, and then they stay better.
Erik: That's wonderful. Plenty of people assume these compounds just produce a brief lift, a passing good mood with nothing that lasts. But the research seems to point the other way, that the gains stick around.
Dr. Holland: Yes. When you've lived through something horrific and never fully worked it through, never integrated it or reached any kind of acceptance, the symptoms pile up. A deep, cathartic session where all of that finally gets aired out can bring those symptoms down sharply.
Erik: That's great. And the work you mentioned happening in the Middle East, that's Israel, right?
Dr. Holland: It is Israel, though I believe there's also been some effort toward running a study in Jordan.
Erik: Why does that catch your interest? I know a fair amount is going on over there.
Dr. Holland: Right. I'm just a young Jewish girl trying to find her way in the world, and I'm very interested. Rick Doblin is drawn to it too, this notion that Israelis and Arabs might find some common ground through it. That appeals to me. Maybe it's a naive, pie in the sky view, but nobody really knows what might finally quiet the fighting there, and the picture of Jewish and Arab scientists running the same experiments, chasing the same answers, is one I like.
Erik: Has MDMA ever been useful in group therapy?
Dr. Holland: It has been used that way. Back when it was still legal this happened pretty often, and I spoke with some of the people doing that kind of work. I think it continues underground. That sort of thing goes on all the time. You certainly have circles of friends, groups of adults, who gather and take Ecstasy together.