Trust Surrender Receive

Book excerpt: Despite modern pharmaceutical medications and many different psychological therapies, military veterans and survivors of mental and physical trauma from civil society continue to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Trust Surrender Receive: How MDMA Can Release Us from Trauma and PTSD briefly chronicles the medical, legal, and social history of this misunderstood medicine, but its primary focus is to give a taste of how MDMA actually works from inside the experience, through the written and spoken words of firsthand testimonial accounts. The book takes readers through the healing processes of more than forty individuals who, often after many years of personal struggle, chose to take responsibility for their condition by turning to the medicine. In this way, accompanied by an experienced attendant, they have been able to revisit their trauma from a buffered distance and to find lasting release. These releases are made fully possible through an understanding of the biological concept of Unexperienced Experience. The truth of this profound and elegant hypothesis becomes clear throughout the testimonials and is introduced here after more than thirty years of obscurity. This medicine-work requires the attentive presence of a responsible, trusted fellow human being throughout the five- to six-hour healing process. Beginning in 2001, when Anne Other responded to a request to sit with a friend during his MDMA session, the work has grown organically into a cooperative network of attendants with whom clients can choose to engage.