These Fukken Feelings Podcast© - MDMA's Healing Potential: From Trauma Therapy to Relationship Transformation with Jonathan Robinson | Season 3 Episode 330

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

Ever wondered how MDMA could revolutionize therapy? Join us and Special Co-Host Jonathan Niziol as psychotherapist Jonathan Robinson shares his transformative journey from crisis to healing through meditation and psychedelics. We kick off with light-hearted stories about our dogs' morning antics before diving into Jonathan's profound experiences. Gain insights into MDMA's unique ability to fast-track therapy sessions for conditions such as PTSD, anxiety, and depression, and learn why this substance is less likely to cause bad trips compared to other psychedelics like psilocybin and LSD.Curious about how MDMA can enhance your relationships? Discover how lower doses of MDMA can foster openness, love, and clarity, making it an effective tool in couples therapy. Jonathan explains why MDMA is inherently anti-addictive and how it can uncover and address core issues quickly, offering more rapid and lasting benefits than traditional therapy methods. We also touch on the practicalities, including the anticipated FDA approval and the potential high costs, which may drive people toward underground therapists.Ever thought about therapy over Zoom? Explore the surprising success of MDMA therapy sessions conducted online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hear Jonathan's personal stories, including a powerful session with his wife that unearthed deep-seated emotions, showcasing the profound healing potential of MDMA. We also discuss the importance of having a separate guide for professionals and the significant benefits of using MDMA therapy for personal growth and relationship enhancement. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of psychedelic therapies and their potential to transform lives.#MDMATherapy #PsychedelicTherapy #MDMABenefits #PTSDTreatment #AnxietyRelief #DepressionHelp #CouplesTherapy #MDMAInTherapy #TherapyInnovation #MentalHealthRevolution #PsychedelicsInTherapy #MDMAResearch #HealingWithMDMA #TherapyTransformation #MentalHealthPodcast #PsychedelicPodcast #JonathanRobinson #TheseFukkenFeelings #TherapyJourneys #MindfulHealing #MDMAFDAApproval #AlternativeTherapies #OnlineTherapy #ZoomTherapy #PandemicTherapy #MDMAHealing #RelationshipEnhancement #CoreIssuesTherapy #AntiAddictiveTherapies #TherapyGuide #PersonalGrowth

you don't have to be positive all the time it's perfectly okay to feel sad angry annoyed frustrated scared and anxious having feelings doesn't make you a negative person it doesn't even make you weak it makes you human and we are here to talk through it all we welcome you to these fucking feelings podcast a safe space for all who needs it. Grab a drink and take a seat. The session begins now. What is up, guys? Welcome to these fucking feelings podcast. I am Micah. As always, I got the lovely producer Crystal here with me. Hello. We got Jonathan Neisel, who is co-hosting this episode, and we're in talks about him actually being a full-time co-host. So that's pretty cool.

And then our guest today is Jonathan Robinson. Now, Jonathan, before we get started, we just always like to start, not always, but sometimes, and today's one of those days with something silly. What is the silliest thing you did today? The silliest thing I did today? Well, I like to have my dog in my bed in the morning and we go through this little ritual where I tell her how much I love her and she licks my face for about five minutes. Okay. So she tells you the same thing pretty cool jonathan nizel same question i would say it's actually dog related as well um we have a morning routine where she doesn't want to get out of bed and i have to like pull her and i pull her front legs off so and then i just kind of like scratch her and then she slides off when she's ready to go

eat and stuff so yeah it's definitely dog related we have our morning routine as well what about you guys every day in the office is silly i know we we live a silly life so we can't even answer that question every day it's silly for us um jonathan robinson one thing we like to do is we like to ask our guests to introduce themselves because we believe no one can tell your story quite like you so tell our audience a little bit about yourself well uh i'll give you a one minute review of my life i uh grew up in a really dysfunctional family and so i had my midlife crisis around age 12 which is a good time to have one because that

got me into things like meditation and psychedelics and all kinds of healing at a really young age. And so I got my master's degree in doing MDMA therapy back in 1984. Two weeks later, they made it illegal. But I've been doing underground MDMA therapy for about 40 years, and I have written 15 books. Luckily, Oprah liked a lot of my books, so some became bestsellers. And nowadays, I teach the largest MDMA training of healers and therapists and coaches in the world and lead a lot of sessions and find that it's a great method. I'm kind of a method junkie. I've asked everybody from Mother Teresa to the Dalai Lama what their favorite method is for finding inner peace.

And some of my books are about that. And I found that, you know, MDMA is kind of like a new technology for helping people heal themselves. Now, we got to ask, what exactly is MDMA? I can't even say it now. What is it? It's some people know it as ecstasy or molly, but it's a drug that was made illegal in 1985. And then this August, due to a lot of research and studies, it's going to be made the first drug that's been illegal made legal as a medicine that the FDA has ever considered. So it's something that makes people feel very open and loving and peaceful.

And it's a great drug to do therapy with people. You can usually do about three years of therapy in one afternoon when people are using this medicine and i can get it where well if the fda approves it this august as a as a prescription drug you will eventually be able to get a doctor's prescription to prescribe it to i was uh i was going to ask because i've not brag, but I've done a little bit of research with MDMA as well. It's more recreational when I was 17 years old going to 21 and over clubs and getting it from very shady people. But is it true, my understanding that MDMA is molly and then ecstasy is a mix of cocaine, heroin, speed, and MDMA. Is that how it is?

That's how I was always thought of as. So I wrote a book called Ecstasy as Medicine, and these names are pretty much interchangeable. Since a lot of ecstasy that was sold in the 80s and 90s, people were putting other stuff in it, mostly mixing it with speed or caffeine. So then they changed the name to Molly to signify it's being more pure. But really, they all are signifying the same medicine. But some terms kind of have a different slant, meaning the people selling there are saying, oh, this is the pure stuff. It's not mixed with anything.

But most of the ecstasy sold in the world is actually pure MDMA. Now, what were the situations you were going through that made you consider this as an option, or it was just something that you did and then you found out it helped? Well, I'm a psychotherapist and I find that couples therapy is usually a long, slow slog that takes a couple of years. With MDMA, you can usually solve any problem with couples in one afternoon, but it's also being shown by studies done with the FDA that it's the most effective treatment for treating PTSD or trauma. And it's also very effective for anxiety disorders, for depression, and for helping people just open up to more love and joy. So in a therapeutic context, it's kind of like a Swiss army knife. It can do almost anything. Wow. So my question would be, what does a session look like? Because

when I was doing it, we would just go to a club and we'd take our shirts off and we'd change smoke cigarettes and chew on stuff and that kind of stuff. What does a session look like? Like, this is pretty profound stuff you're saying that you can do all these years of therapy in one, like, are you having people come in and, you know, black lights and glow sticks and stuff? Or what, what are you doing with the people once they're, you know, under the effects of the MDMA and how much are they under? Because like I said, sometimes we would just be puddles and just sit there and be massaging each other. How does that, how does that look from a professional medical standpoint? And then you could just say on top of that, where can I get this again?

That's a great question. Well, I do like a discovery call, like usually a one-hour Zoom session to find out what they want to work on and what their history is. And then we set aside a five- hour time together to do like a prolonged therapy session where they're on not a real high dose of MDMA, you know, and a laptop can be used as a doorstop, but there's better uses for a laptop than as a doorstop. MDMA can be used as a dance party drug,

but there's better uses for MDMA than that. So what people find when they do this medicine in a therapeutic context is that they can literally do years of therapy in one day. And then about a week later, I do a one-hour integration session where we talk about how to take those insights and apply them into their life. But, you know, I do most of my sessions over Zoom now because MDMA is very safe. You can do it over Zoom. You know, you don't hallucinate or anything. And that's opened up a really big market where people all over the world, you know, I'm booked a year in advance. Wow. So now is it it does it end up being like a standard therapy session where you ask questions they answer questions or is it like

you guide them to take them places or how does that work on top of using them yeah well in five hours there's a lot you can do uh you know there's there's like a therapy session. There's questions. There's sometimes guided meditations. I give them usually methods that will get them to change their relationship with whatever their challenge is. So, you know, if they're having a problem in a relationship, we look at it a different way. If they're having a trauma reaction, they can heal that trauma really quickly with MDMA because it kind of takes away all fear. And when there's no fear, you can be more open, you can be more honest, and you can heal stuff that previously you weren't able to heal. So is it something that you can take, heal, and then stop taking? Or is it something

that you've got to constantly do? I usually only do it once with a person. That's all that's needed. Sometimes people will do two sessions of MDMA, but I find that I get great results just in one session, so it's not something that they have to keep on taking it. Wow. So if it's not legalized yet by the FDA, how would your clients acquire the MDMA in preparation for your session? How does that work? Where do they go and get it? And I know there's a lot of like you know laboratory drugs coming from china people are testing now even in like the uh the more the festivals like

scenarios and stuff like that but how how does that how does that work well on on there's the dark web there's a app known as signal where a lot of people are offering these medicines. I always have them tested for purity because some of the MDMA out there, ecstasy or molly, is impure. But you can get these test kits that test the purity, and there's a lot of people, especially now that it's almost surely going to be a prescribed medicine soon, the law enforcement really isn't going after people uh selling that um so that's how they get on the dark web or signal or something

like that and i just gotta say to cover our ass real quick uh don't break no laws okay thank you appreciate it knock a donut and break any laws. The good news is because it's a relatively safe thing and you can test for purity, I don't have to be involved in any of that. I'm just basically talking to them on Zoom for five hours. That's their thing. And what I find, though, is that people often ask me ask me well are you concerned being so public about this and i say no in fact a lot of police unions are asking me to talk to them about mdma because a lot of police officers and firemen have been traumatized by what they've had to go through so i actually end up treating a lot of police officers

that's pretty cool i can see that being very effective especially in the uh in the armed forces as well and and like you said i know a number of police officers and firefighters and um yeah i mean and and the military as well i'm sure to be very effective ptsd is a very very uh prevalent um problem that we're facing, and especially in our peoples in service. So that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, and I try to help vets. I have a, my training program is now training people in Ukraine, because obviously there's a lot of trauma. Also, both Israelis and Palestinians in the Gaza War. And you're able to help people that might have suffered from PTSD for decades.

And often you can heal them in one day. Wow. This is organizationherostock.org. I'm just shouting them out real quick. But it'd be really cool for you guys to actually connect with each other. They're organizations and they deal with basically vets and first responders and those kind of things. I'd be happy to talk to them. They're welcome to contact me. Yeah, I'm actually there's going to be one email that I make sure I send. Not because I don't answer emails, but what connection we're going to make. Now, is there a point in a person's healing journey where they would consider this an option?

And then how do we get people to stop seeing it as such a, like me, I never wanted to try Molly or ecstasy. I didn't want to trip out, get hot, take off my shirt and touch on random people. I wasn't cool with that. So I'm not sure what your question was, Micah. Is there like a situation or is there a point like in a person's healing journey that this is an option that they will seek? Like, is it, you know, is it come try this first before you go to a therapist or, you know, try to take care of your real serious trauma and we deal with this? Like, when is this a good option?

Well, it's a good option for people who are interested in it and open to its possibility. I get a lot of people, you know, after reading the book, Ecstasy is Medicine, they contact me. But, you know, it's been in the news a lot lately just because psychedelics are in the news. And, you know, for a long time in the 60s, psychedelics were supposedly really great. And then there's a legal clampdown and everybody said that they're terrible. that nothing seems to be quite as effective for treating a variety of disorders as things like psilocybin, ketamine, and MDMA. And these are not, you know, fly-by-night studies. These are multi-million dollar studies that are placebo-controlled, double-blind, things like that. So nowadays, a lot of people just read on the front page of the New York Times that this is the most effective therapy out there. And they email me asking to do the training or

asking to do this therapy. And that's probably going to get even more intense when the FDA approves this as a medicine in the summer. Right. So that's how it happens. But, you know, it's interesting. My parents were always very anti-drug. But after years of me being enthusiastic about this, they asked if they could take it. And it was interesting. So I gave them the medicine and I told them how to take it.

Well, a year later, I asked them if they'd ever taken it. And they said, yeah, they had. And I said, well, what happened? And they said, nothing happened. And I thought that was a little unusual. So I said, well, what did you end up doing that night? And they said, well, you know, we didn't have any plans because we thought the drug was going to take effect. So we ended up sitting on the couch and talking about our marriage and how much we loved each other and how we could work through a couple

small issues that were in the way and just how fortunate we were for how wonderful our lives were. And ever since then, you know, we've just been so much more in love. And the only disappointment was the drug never took effect. Of course, I've been talking this whole time because that's exactly what the drug does. You know, it doesn't necessarily even feel like you're on a drug as much as you just feel like you're the most open, loving, and clear-headed you've ever been. Now, can that experience also go negative? Can people start thinking of all the negative, terrible problems? Well, for some reason, it doesn't go that way.

You know, with the other psychedelics like psilocybin, LSD, et cetera, a large percentage of people, maybe 20%, 20% or 30% have, bad trips. Well, I've led about 800 journeys and only one person out of 800 had what he considered to be a bad trip. Right. So, I mean, there's more people at bad trips on aspirin. Right.

And I guess the biggest thing here is dosage, right? Because, you know, Jonathan, well, you know, he had it, took off his shirt. He touched random people like that. That is what should be happening when you use it. Correct. Right. Yeah. Yeah. To follow up on what people take. Sorry, Jonathan.

No worries. Go ahead. So it's a dose that you give the people a lower dose than what people are usually used to taking in a club kind of environment, or is it a higher dose? No, it's generally a lower dose to start with. And then maybe an hour and a half into the trip, I ask if they want to take a little bit more. But it ends up that the best therapy can be done at a somewhat low dose as opposed to you know if you take a really high dose as jonathan said you can end up being a puddle on the floor cuddling with strangers so um it's good to have a dose a little bit shy of that for some reason i think jonathan still does that i'm gonna let you ask me hey no judgment okay this is judgment free zone

okay um i wanted to follow up on mike's question um with regards to when is it a good time to think about a um this is an option for somebody so for myself for example i've dealt with mental health issues uh depression and anxiety for the last 20 years but i'm also a recovering alcoholic recovering drug addict and my worry would be, and it is with, with anything is, is if my mind says, Oh, that feels good. I like, I like, Oh, I want to do that all the time because I have a very addictive personality because of what I've gone through. And, and would it be something that you wouldn't necessarily suggest for people like myself? And is that a possibility? Or what do you think about that?

Yeah, it's a great question, Jonathan. Well, in a way, it's kind of anti-addictive because if you take it more than, I don't know, five times a year, it stops working entirely. So then you're taking a drug that just makes you feel tired and it doesn't have an effect. So latest studies show that it's really helpful for people who have addictive personalities or who are alcoholics and that they don't get addicted to it because it just doesn't

work for them if they do try to take it very often. Now, what is it about the effect of the drug that can help people heal? You know, because if we're not revisiting the negative moments, how am I moving forward from that using this method of treatment? Well, when I do a session with people, we try to get to the root of their problem and then come up with a method that's going to help them when they're not on the drug. And so it's not something where people really need to take it repeatedly to get the help that they need. You know, when I do couples therapy, one of the times I was on the Oprah show was for a book called Communication Miracles for Couples, and it ended up being a bestseller,

so a lot of people started doing couples therapy with me. Well, couples therapy is just really tough. You know, it usually takes a long time. It's hard for everybody. It's painful, and the results are mediocre. Well, couples therapy on MDMA is almost the exact opposite. It's quick, it works really well, it takes about one day, and then there's a change in the relationship.

So over time, people will decide, well, what's effective and go that way. So I do give people certain methods that they're supposed to use after the medicine to help them kind of cement the changes that they made during the journey. Okay. So it's not so much that you have negative thoughts, but you still visit those situations in order to move forward. Yeah, yeah. You know, everybody has negative thoughts. It's a matter of how seriously you take them.

So when you see that they're just a sound in your head that you can potentially ignore, then next time the negative thoughts come up, you don't follow them. You don't loop with them. You don't necessarily spend your day thinking about them. You just think, oh, that was a ridiculous thought, and you go on. Right. Are you listening, Kristen? I am.

I'm into this. You're into this. She was like, look, she's about to call you as soon as the episode finishes. So my understanding of this is that you administered the drug once and it allows people to lower their defenses or just to be more accepting and more understanding and to be more open to then let go of, I guess, things like you're saying, like anxiety and depression and things, trauma that they've been holding on to. And that's the effect, like you said, that you get the three years into one day because of the ability of that. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, that's a good way of thinking about it. Here's an analogy which you might find a little disgusting, but also I will stay with you. If you see like dog poop on the sidewalk and you call it dog poop, you don't say, oh, gee, that looks like fudge, you know, but you call it dog poop. You will not you don't have to come up with a plan to not step in it.

You will naturally not step in it. You will naturally not step in it. Well, when you see certain things that you're doing really clearly and you don't make excuses about it, you don't feel shame about it, you just see it for what it is, it's easier to then step around it. Because normally it's our defenses, our denial, our distractions, our blame, our excuses that keep this self-destructive behavior going. Right. And the MDMA helps you to see it really clearly and then just kind of decide, well, that doesn't work anymore. I'll drop it.

But now, so now do you also provide methods for when like it doesn't work that way? And I guess what I'm thinking is sometimes like deeper things. Like I know I've been through some traumas I'll probably never get through, you know, I kind of learned how to cope with them, but you know, I'll never get through it, you know? So in a session with you, we talk about this issue, this problem, you know, but it's like, I'm still going to need a method of coping. Is that something that you also provide?

Well, I definitely do give people methods. And one of the things that's also helpful in MDMA is we can try out methods to see what method works for you. I think different people need different things. So I might say, well, let's try this method. And then they go, it doesn't do anything for me. And I say, okay, let's try this method. And they go, oh, my God, that's just like amazing. Well, normally it might take a month

for a person to know if a method works for them but on MDMA people generally know within the first couple minutes so it saves time wow so if you do yeah we all like to call you I know we're gonna have a group session yeah this exact same setup and we're just going to be healed. So if you have you so you've had most of your you say it's been successful in most of the time or you have you had those cases where you've had to go back and administer and go through a second one or another another therapy session because that one didn't necessarily, you know, take care of the things that they specifically we needed to work on. Yeah, I'd say about 10% of the times people want a second session to help them further their healing, but that's only 10% of the time. And also I would say maybe 2% of people react badly to the medicine. When I say badly, it means that they are very tired for two or three days afterwards. Now, there are supplements you can take.

I talk about this in the Ecstasy as Medicine book that help you to not have that experience of being really tired the next couple days. But, you know, different people react differently to different medicines. You know, when I have a full glass of wine, I have a hangover the next day, whereas some people have a full glass of wine and they feel great the next day. So there are there are you know maybe one in 50 people who have a hard time metabolizing the medicine like i'm i'm one of those people that like i someone gave me an edible once and i was in a club someone got shot and i just gonna move i was just like yeah yeah i'm one of those people that like everybody else is having the grandest time. And I'm like, I can't move my arms, you know, like I forgot how to walk. You know, it got to the point where like police officers came and they had an ambulance come in and get me out because you just watch this guy get shot.

Everybody runs. But but you bring up trauma about how all my friends are bad for leaving me in there. But that's another conversation. Maybe we'll talk about that in the session jonathan one thing i wanted to ask is like after i would do after i'd go out for a night and and you know do a bunch of ecstasy and stuff like that i felt like a shell of a human being for the next two days like i felt like all my dopamine was depleted i felt empty i felt like i was just like i wanted to walk into traffic like i just felt like all my dopamine was depleted. I felt empty. I felt like I was just like, I wanted to walk into traffic. Like, I just felt like that awful,

awful, like, like I said, I don't want to show. Yeah, no, I mean, I was,

we were doing a lot. We're like, we were just like, Hey, does anybody have any? And we were just getting it from whomever. And it was however, but you know,

is, is, um, I guess I'm asking like, and I know you said you're taking, you're getting much lower doses and stuff like that. And we used to take something called five HTP the next day. That was like we would talk about. Apparently, that would help reset your dopamine so we could do it like a couple of days in a row.

But are you saying you don't get you just get tiredness? You don't get that dopamine like drain or whatever I'm talking about. It's just more of a tiredness. You don't get that dopamine drain or whatever I'm talking about. It's just more of a tiredness with people. At lower doses, some of the things you mentioned aren't a problem. Also, you're probably taking it way too frequently, and that's one of the effects. If you take it frequently, you start to feel like crap. So that's why it's not addictive in that way. But in my book, I talk about six supplements you can take that really help avoid that tiredness. And that works for almost everybody. So between the lower dose and the supplements, 5-HTP is one of them, but there's other ones that are even better

that most people can avoid that experience. And now can I ask, how were you introduced to it? And then what made you realize that, hey, this is such a good thing that I want to teach people or help people, and this is how I want to change to change lives well I guess I got in college back then it was legal and my girlfriend suggested it because she said uh uh you're not you know you have a lot of problems and um and she was right so when I took it was like the first time I felt like i had ever felt real love and intimacy and uh i had heard that it can be useful for trauma so i actually used it therapeutically on myself and you know i realized this was like you know the closest thing we had to magic so i just started to use on myself and then when i became a psychotherapist

i would ask people if they wanted to try it uh back then not many people did because they you know knew it as a dance party drug but over time with the research a lot of i get a lot of requests now and um uh usually people have a immediate especially in a therapeutic context they see its value right away right so i i see it as a dance party drug too and i was just like i don't got the energy to even try to take it because so does it take effect as soon as you take it or does it take a little bit like it has can you repeat your question crystal you broke up for a second there she wanted to know basically if i got her um she wanted to know basically if it had uh like it was it an immediate reaction you know once you take it or did you have to go through like a digestive period? Yeah, there you go. No, there's an immediate reaction. It takes about 45 minutes for it to take effect. And as the story with my parents suggested,

it doesn't necessarily feel like a drug, especially low and medium doses. It just feels like you are more clear and more open and more heart oriented than you've ever been or, you know, as much as you've ever been in your life. So in that way, it's not like some other drugs where you really feel kind of out of it or really drugged, unless you take a high dose, in which case then you feel so fantastic you know you're on a drug. So when I was taking it and I was taking in large quantities, Crystal, let me tell you, when you're walking around a club and then you start to like feel the music inside of you, you're like, oh, it kicked in. Like, it's just like a, but there was also an effect where like we would use things like Vicks VapoRub and there was like an external effect where like the massaging, the touching, that kind of stuff, like that kind of thing. But the stuff that you're, the amount that you're taking, that's not happening, right? It's more of a mental unlocking of those emotions and less of a physical, you know, feeling the music, feeling the Vicks, and all that kind of stuff, right?

Yeah, I would say that that's the case. Now, some people do want to take more during their sessions, and I'm okay with that. But really, therapeutically, it works better at low or medium doses. And I would say people don't, like, for example, become one with the music in the way that you're talking about. But people do report that that was the best conversation I've ever had in my life. And the normal defenses and the normal thoughts that keep us from being totally present seem to get out of the way for that time. Wow. One thing I'm going to say to Jonathan Nizu is the preparation for this.

Whew. Like, y'all knew the assignment okay because i'm like paper rubbed though like who said hey let's try some vicks you know like i thought that was something that was used you know i was 17 years old i just graduated high school i was living in philadelphia i was going to 21 and over clubs it It was just, I was, yeah, it was an amazing summer. Let's just put it that way. Well, we're going to get back to you, Jonathan Robertson. But so I did have a question.

I was like, oh, I've been thinking the last 30 minutes. Is this a bad question? But what if people wanted to take it every day? Is that something you would be completely against? And I'm just talking about the same low dose that you were giving them. Is it just like, no, no, it should just be for this therapy, or is it fine for people to use it every day? Well, if people tried to use it every day, by the third day, it probably would have no effect other than making them feel tired and sick.

So not many people do that just because it doesn't feel good and there's no positive effect. So in that way, it's very fortunate. It's really hard. It's almost impossible to get addicted to it for that reason. Also, taking really low doses every day like people do with microdosing LSD or mushrooms, that also doesn't work well with this drug. So it's really something that, you know, you could probably take it, you know,

three to six times a year and have a really good experience. If you take a bunch more, it just kind of makes you feel tired for a few days and has very little effect. So it's kind of protected in that way. And it works better as a therapy drug than as a recreational let's do it every weekend drug. Now you might hold me on it again. That was actually a great segue because I was thinking before I was going to ask you, what are your thoughts on microdosing mushrooms or psilocybin and the benefits of that as opposed to what you're talking about? Because a lot of people, that's kind of a buzz thing. People are talking about microdosing and for a lot of the same reasons.

What are your thoughts on that as compared to what you're doing? Well, microdosing isn't therapy, but it can help people over the blues or low-level depression. You know, people do react differently to different things. So I think that that's something that people can try, and there's studies that show that it can definitely be helpful. So I'm not saying that one thing's good and other things aren't. I'm saying that it's good for people to try different things. It ends up that, according to studies, ecstasy or MDMA seems to work better for trauma and couples therapy. Psilocybin therapy seems to work better for people with anxiety. But everybody's different and people react differently to these drugs. So it's good to get a book and learn about them or a facilitator, a guide who can

introduce you to them, especially if what you're currently doing isn't working for you. Now, will a person who had depression or be depressed, is this something that they would seek out? I know you gave a list, but I was just wondering, is this something that they would still consider? Yeah. I mean, it ends up that antidepressants really don't work well. Except for people with very severe depression, they only work 1% better than placebo.

Whereas MDMA, psilocybin, and LSD work a lot better than that, according to studies. So the problem is that big pharma makes about $25 billion a year on antidepressants, which are basically placebos prescribed by doctors for most people. Since nobody's figured out a way to patent these plant medicines or MDMA, they aren't out there because nobody's been able to make billions of dollars from them. But the studies show that they are, in general, much more effective. And they add some new tools to psychiatrists and psychotherapists' toolkits as a way of healing people. And certainly, there's a lot of people in a lot of pain now. So microdosing, psilocybin, doing MDMA therapy, doing LSD therapy are all things that are going to be become more and more popular as people see that they actually work a lot better than what's out there. So we keep talking about a dose, a two-part question. What is a dose?

What amount is a dose? And second part, when it does become available and legalized by the FDA, is this something that people are going to be prescribed and then do the work on their own? Or is there going to be somebody like yourself who has to prescribe it and then go through the therapy with them? Because it sounds like there's a lot of benefit in being led and guided through this and to really do it with intent and specifics. But if you just give to somebody, how is that going to work? So yeah, two-parter. Yeah. Well, first of all, a typical dose is about 120 milligrams, but anything between 90 and 120 milligrams can be a good normal dose. And then some people, 90 minutes later, take a booster, which is usually about 60 milligrams. In the Ecstasy as Medicine book, I talk about how to use this on yourself, but I think the best things are to find a guide when the assuming the fda approves

it this summer as a medicine uh unfortunately the government will be then setting up these clinics and the the it will cost a huge amount of money like 12 to 14 thousand dollars for his therapy yeah what which is unfortunate um and there's a lot of reasons for that i go into that a little bit in the book uh so what's going to happen is the underground therapists like me are going to become more popular although you know currently i have a year waiting list so but um one of the reasons i had several hundred people in my last training is this is definitely a growth industry and so a lot of people want to be trained on how to do it in an underground way so it's not actually government legalized but uh just like when medical marijuana it's not like the feds are going after everybody who who eats inedible

and uh the guides i train uh they charge anywhere from a thousand to two thousand dollars for this therapy and uh that's a lot more affordable for people and it's just very effective so it's probably going to you know skyrocket in terms of popularity sometime very soon. Well, it already is, actually, because I'm training lots of people, and as I say, I'm booked a year in advance myself. Now, you say that you can't get addicted to it, but can you overdose on it? Yeah, you can overdose on everything. You can overdose on water. You can overdose on aspirin. In fact, about 500 people a year in America overdose on aspirin. Last year, six people overdosed on MDMA. So it's about 100 times

less likely to overdose on MDMA than aspirin and about 10,000 times less likely to overdose on MDMA than fentanyl. So, but there's more than six people who overdose on water to the point of death each year. So, it's not easy to overdose, but you can do it. What happens more likely than overdosing is people take it in very bad circumstances. They take a high amount, they dance all night, they don't drink, and they actually die of hypothermia or overheating. But in terms of, if you have heart disease or really high blood pressure, there's other contraindications I talk about in the book. And it's an intense medicine, so it's not something to be taken lightly. And you want to do your research and know if you are a good candidate to take it in a safe way.

Now, I wanted to go back and kind of go off of Jonathan's question a little bit, but does it have to be a necessary guided type of thing? Because I realized in my therapy, it was better if I led. I just needed somebody to be there. So if I was that kind of person, would this therapy still work for me? Well, I think it would. And I think that if you have a good guide, it's going to work a lot better than trying to do it on your own. It's a little bit hard to guide yourself on MDMA because you feel so good. And when you feel so good, you don't think it's going to work, you know, my parents didn't think it was going to work and it seemed to work really well for them. Right. And then I guess you might have answered this, but now it just made me think about it. Is there like a discovery call prior to the actual treatment itself, right?

Yeah, I spend at least an hour. I spend at least an hour talking to people beforehand. A lot of people are very surprised that this works on Zoom, over Zoom. And that was surprising to me, too. I'd done maybe 500 journeys in person, and then COVID hit. And then there were so many people having a hard time, I thought I'd try it on Zoom thinking it wouldn't work. And it worked incredibly well. In fact, it worked better over Zoom because people are comfortable in their own home. And they, you know, I don't know why it works better on Zoom.

It just seems to. And that opens up a really big area for this because it becomes very convenient. People don't have to worry about traveling. And, you know, a lot of my clients were sexually abused. And the idea of, you know, having a woman come to my office and take a drug and lie on my couch who's been sexually abused before, that's a big ask. But on Zoom, they feel very safe. And it seems to work really well. Makes a lot of sense.

Sorry, go ahead, Becca. Go ahead. No, it's fine. I was going to say, so if we had a mock session here, so say for myself, my mom passed away the day before my 21st birthday. That's been a big trauma in my life and something that's really, you know, I've held on and led to the alcoholism and stuff like that. So I, you know, we're sitting here, we're on zoom, you and I, and I take it. And what do we do for the first 45 minutes? Um, as it starts to kick in or how does that start? Like, how does that, um, you know, how do you start the, the, okay, let's talk about this kind of stuff do you know what

i'm saying yeah yeah um well first of all i usually have people take it about half an hour before they talk to me so it's only about 10 minutes before uh they're coming on to the drug um i'll tell you a story you know many years ago it was about seven years ago my wife was very angry at me for no reason like consistently for like three or four months and we didn't know what was going on and it was just intolerable for both of us so we hired an MDMA therapist and we take the drug and what the drug actually sometimes brings up the issues which is really interesting how it does that you know i mean usually i don't have to bring it up i just follow the medicine so in this case my wife realized that her aunt who had died three or

four months earlier who she was close to um she had been too busy to visit her aunt. And she was mad at herself for not taking the time to visit her aunt while dying. But she was subconsciously taking it out on me instead of her. When she realized this, she cried for a while as I held her. And all this anger was released. And after the session, we were fine. She was no longer angry at me. So my answer to you, Jonathan, is that the medicine will usually bring up what needs to be healed. And I just then talk about I have some methods for healing different issues.

And we work through that. Every now and then I might ask a question like, hey, how do you feel about your last breakup or something like that? But usually the medicine seems to almost prioritize what needs to be healed, and I just respond to that. I'm a little offended because I feel like I've been asking you the same question for 45 minutes. And that was a really good answer um has it ever kicked in too soon on people I feel like I'm one of those people I would just you know I'm one of those one wine cooler and I'm done you know the most dramatic person in the room so I feel like give it to me two minutes later I'm ready to go has there ever been that kind of situation or is it 45 it's pretty consistent it's pretty consistent with

the 45 minutes sometimes in a couple one person will will feel it like 10 minutes before the other one but it's pretty consistent that way and then does it help with addiction i know did we answer that question is addiction something that can help with yeah my mama you know like is this something she would consider you know she tried the patch she tried the gum you know it's like nothing works you know she takes it off the patch so she could smoke and then she puts the patch back on like it's gone bad all right but she really wants. Like, is this something that she would consider? Yeah. Recent studies show that it's probably the most effective thing that people have found for dealing with cigarette and alcohol addiction. Whereas for opioids, something called ibogaine is shown to be more effective. So we're starting to see as we do these million-dollar studies what really works and what is the best medicine for a particular problem.

So there are some things that you don't know it works for, but it's still something that you recommend people try, right? Yeah. Yeah. So as a professional yourself and obviously an expert in this field, you said that you had a session with your wife and you had somebody come in and counsel you.

So even though you are the guy, you had somebody come in and lead your session in that sense, in your situation, which is interesting to me. Because you have to remove yourself, remove yourself as the counselor and be as the patient and be there and present with your wife. You probably just needed to be the husband. No, that's exactly right.

That I wanted to be in the session with my wife, not be the therapist with my wife. And because I didn't know what the problem was. You know, all I know is that my wife is angry at me all the time. Maybe I was a problem, you know, so ends up it was this issue with her aunt. But the the guide helped to clarify that and help us work through it. That's great. And just to follow up that, sorry, do you do this? You said that it's only good for three to six times a year. Do you do it for yourself personally as needed? Or do you do it a number of times kind of like checking in? Like, you know, when I was

first going through stuff, I was going to therapy once a week. And then, and now I go like every three months kind of as a, just like a check-in and just, you know, to help. How does that work? Or how, what is your schedule like? Or your usage or therapy look like? Well, I'd say the last few years, it's been about three or four times a year that seems to work really well for me it kind of clears out the cobwebs if i take it with my wife we work through whatever issues were going on uh helps us get back to a place of love sometimes you know i see that oh i need to focus more in this direction or this habit isn't working for me. And it just creates an extreme amount of mental clarity that then helps to guide my life.

Now, has there ever been a time where you needed, where it was a situation where you couldn't help the patient, but if they handled this situation, then they can come back and you can help them with other situations? Has that ever been a situation um i wouldn't say it's never occurred but it's not a certainly nothing's nothing's occurring to me right now in the answer so um there might be where uh until in like uh if there's been infidelity in relationship there, there's a process that

they have to go through before the relationship is fully repaired. Um, but it, you know, it just accelerates everything a lot. You get to the root of things, uh, you know, I'm a very impatient person. So as a psychotherapist, I didn't like waiting a year or two before i got to the root of the problem you know i i prefer just let this is more like brain surgery you know you don't you don't spend two years doing brain surgery yeah but when you do brain surgery you're all set you you change something hopefully things are different all right. Makes a lot of sense. Makes a lot of sense. Sorry, I thought you were going to quote.

And, you know, I should say that it's really an honor to do this work because everybody has a beautiful heart that tends to be covered up by all the hurts of life. And when you uncover some of that crustiness and you get down to the honest, vulnerable person and you're really working with them at a deep level, it's really, you know, it's often very emotionally moving. It's really deep. It's fascinating. And it, it feels like, uh, uh, sometimes almost like, uh, a sacred meeting of which I'm helping there, but, you know, they're at their best. I often get a little bit of a contact high. I don't take the drug, but, you know, I, I feel

resonant with them. Seeing people work through stuff really deeply and honestly is a miraculous thing to witness. How many times does Oprah do it every year? I just asked about the big O.

One thing that we find is a lot of our viewers are in the place in their lives that they either think they need healing or they're not quite sure or they feel like their issues aren't big enough or small enough. And this doesn't have anything to we like to introduce people to methods. What would be your advice to someone who is watching us right now, but not quite sure they need to heal? What would be your advice for them? And then what would you be their advice to try your method? I guess I would try to say, yeah. Well, I think, you know, getting the book Ecstasy is Medicine, they would learn a lot more about whether it's

right for them or not, and what it's useful for, how I go about things. I think, you know, I was a depressed, suicidal teenager, and now life is really great. So I tried a lot of things, and a lot of things did not work. then um mdma and some other things did work so you know uh i'd say you want to try different things to see what works best for you um but there's always more possible you know one of the things i'm known for is uh is interviewing enlightened people i've interviewed everybody from mother tr Teresa to Dalai Lama. And, you know, deep peace, love and openness are possible. So even if you don't think you need healing, the question is, how can you be more open to joy, more open to peace, more open to love? And a lot of the people I work with now aren't trying to heal something. They're trying to more expand

into deeper love and peace. And MDMA is incredibly useful for that. So it's not really a matter of just trying to get back to normal. It's a matter of can we really live life to its fullest and and take on the miracle of life in a way that we feel it every day. Well, awesome. That's something we believe in. Holy, I found peace. And that's the reason why I started this podcast, because I want everybody to have it, right? Okay, Jonathan.

I was going to ask, again, another one of these big buzzwords. And if you listen to one of the biggest podcasts in the world, I'm not going to mention it, but they talk about DMT in Ayahuasca and those journeys. And what are your thoughts on those just as an expert? What are your thoughts on that? I think I know it's a very it sounds like it's a very it's a very different thing from what you're doing. But what are your thoughts? Well, I have personal experience with those. I'm not using those therapeutically.

Part of it is I think with any time you set up the right intention, you could be using alcohol with the right intention or something. And ayahuasca and DMmt and 5-meo dmt are powerful medicines they have certain uses i haven't seen them to be as effective for therapy outcomes as mdma um they're both shorter acting you know with ayahuasca, you end up purging with 5-amotin or DMT, it's only like a 15-minute experience. But they can be powerful. I mean, I've known people who get great benefit from those things as well. And it's really a matter of what your intention is, what the set and setting is, they call it. Mental set and the setting, the environment is conducive to

healing. And if you set that all up, there's a very good chance you can have a really good outcome with almost anything, but some things work better for you than others. Yeah, makes sense. Now, of course, I guess I wanted to talk about tolerance a little more. You know, me, I'm one of those people that if I take a Tadaville, I'm like, I don't remember my name. So when it comes to dosage and those kind of things, would there ever be a situation or could it be possible that I would have a negative effect even to a low dose or that that low dose can make me too high? And then how would I get out ofMA, the amount of people who have a bad experience on that is probably about the same as the amount of people have bad experience drinking a cup of water. I mean, it's just I've never seen it happen. So I can't tell you how often it happens.

I'm zero for 800 have seen bad outcomes that way. But people do take what they think is MDMA and and it isn't, and then they have bad outcomes. So there are testing kits you can get that are helpful that way. So I would say, you know, start with a lower dose if you're a little worried. And once you start to feel it, you go, hey, this is great. And then you might take a booster. That's one way of doing it. But especially nowadays, it's very rare, but it does happen that people have mixed fentanyl with MDMA, and that can be very dangerous.

So you can get at a place called dancesafe.org for $2, a fentanyl test strip. So you can test your MDMA to make sure it doesn't have fentanyl in it. So that's the major danger. But even when it's mixed with other stuff, it can feel not as good to your body because it's often mixed with methamphetamine or speed. Now, before we go, because our time is getting short, is there anything that we didn't give you an opportunity to say that you wanted to say to our audience? Well, I'll end with a story. Also, of course, people can go to my website, xtcasmedicine.com, and if they put in their email address,

they get a bunch of free stuff about how to avoid bad psychedelic trips and how to, the 12 questions that lead to instant intimacy. And they can also contact me for the trainings I do and, and things like that. A lot of free stuff on that website. But I, one time I was visiting a guru, a famous guru in India, and he told me to sit next to him. And he said, who are you? And I said, I'm Jonathan Robinson from the United States. And he said, no, no, I mean, who are you really?

And I said, well, I'm a writer. He said, no. And I said, I'm a husband. He said, no. I ran through like I'm a husband. He said, no. He just kept, I ran through like 20 roles and he kept on shaking his head. Well, finally, I just looked in his eyes and there was literally like light beams coming out of his eyes. It was really strange. And to my surprise, I soon felt overwhelmed with like a wave of love and the only time i'd ever experienced that before

was on mdma but this you know was just from him or something and my reaction to that was just to start weeping in his lap and as i'm weeping his lap he he pats me on the head and he says this love that you feel that's who you really are and your job in life is to get back to that any way you can so i've made a focus of my life to get me and other people back to that because love is the ultimate healer and we're just lucky we have a medicine now that can actually give people that experience and help them heal if used in the right way. Incredible. Definitely.

Jonathan, anything you want to say to the people before we leave? Just keep exploring. And feel free to contact me if you feel like I can give you any information that would be helpful. Oh, and I'm sorry. There's two Jonathans here. Yeah, but it's okay. We're still going to list your contact information

at the bottom of the episode. We're going to make sure people know how to contact you. I might send some people your way. I actually had something I wanted to bring up does anybody know this is just a a general trivia question does anybody know what the oldest living land animal in the world is a cat no no come on cats i mean the oldest living land mammal in the world is a giant Seychelles tortoise named Jonathan. The boys, the OG Jonathan. It's 191 years old.

And I had to bring that up because we got two Jonathans on here. So I'm going to leave it with that. May we live as long as that, Jonathan. Seriously, imagine that torto, that Taurus scene. Man. And may we no longer have corny stories like that. Thanks for having me on, guys. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, no problem. It was a pleasure to have you, Crystal. Any last words for the people? You're good. All right, guys. Until next week, thank you guys for watching. Jonathan and Jonathan, thank you guys for coming on. And as always, we'll see you next week.

Peace, love, and blessings. Bye.