Psychedelic Therapy Has a Sexual Abuse Problem

By:
On:
In: Better Blokes

From Quartz: “Over the past five years, scientific interest in psychedelics has boomed, with clinical trials on MDMA leading the way. Now the drug is on the cusp of becoming legal medicine…

Alongside the potential benefits, psychedelic therapy also carries a serious risk of sexual abuse. Patients in psychedelic therapy are intensely vulnerable. They are high, in a power imbalance with their therapist, and dealing with mental health issues. And MDMA, known colloquially as ecstasy and a ‘love drug,’ is known to create feelings of sexual arousal and emotional intimacy.

A few years ago, a therapist [Richard Yensen] working in a Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) MDMA study publicly spoke about his challenges dealing with a patient’s sexuality… Not long after, Yensen was accused of sexually assaulting a PTSD patient, Meaghan Buisson, during a MAPS clinical trial on MDMA…