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I found the following book to be really useful on integration; almost the entirety of the last third of the book is dedicated to integration.

Another reddit user on this forum, 'liquidrome' has made some interesting points about integration; namely the idea that in his view one of the most potent methods of integration is to 'go for a long walk in a forest, around a lake, and to listen to the same music playlist I used for the session. This evokes the material from the session again, and integrates it into normal waking consciousness. Often this walk will also bring up more feelings and continue the healing process — sometimes more powerfully than the session itself.' Here's a [link] (https://www.reddit.com/r/mdmatherapy/comments/d1d861/getting_worse_after_taking_mdma/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) to one of his comments on a post where he explains this in a little more detail (it's his second comment on the post) . I've read a few of his posts and comments and whilst I may disagree with some of his views on maps, he has undergone 100s of psychedelic therapy sessions so I personally value his opinion highly in this area even though it doesn't come from a book. I personally haven't tried this method yet and as I haven't had a session since I came across it but I intend to try it following my next session.

Here are a couple of other books I've found super useful in general for psychedelic therapy.
 They also talk about integration, although integration isn't a main focus:

[Psychedelic psychotherapy] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0963009656/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_1jUDDbX3B0XE3) - I made a post about it here. Honestly one of the most useful books I've read in my life. It's very much a practical guide to me on to how use psychedelics to heal from trauma, rather than many other books in the arena that appear to focus on why psydhclics can heal from trauma.

Internal family systems - I'm reading this book at the moment, and being someone who doesn't have a background in psychology its been super useful so far for understanding my mental landscapes, in a way that a layman like me can understand. This in turn I feel will help me to navigate my defences and other elements and psychological concepts that come up in my experience, and thus help me to heal efficiently and integrate effectively.

Hope something in this post is of help. Good luck on your healing journey :)

Your protocol is quite different than what I've seen in the past. Normally I've seen that the MDMA session is supported by therapy for a while beforehand to allow the person's issues to be front and center, and then a handful of sessions to work through the issues, normally three or four in the matter of a month or so. The therapy is there to get the ball rolling for the patient on their way to healing and to remind them how much in control they are over their own actions, beliefs, perceptions, and reactions, and so on.

The sessions are done for one person at a time, blindfolded, where the therapist is more of a sitter than a guide. The idea here is to let the MDMA do most of the work, not to treat it as a therapy session. The patient (one patient at a time) takes the MDMA puts on blindfolds, and sits in silence until they are ready to talk. The patient will inevitably bring up issues of their own, and often go through a psychedelic style internal journey as they work through their issues. The sitter is there to reassure the patient that they are safe and loved and to keep the patient on track if they get off course. The sitter also is responsible for the music because the music helps set the tempo, feel and can guide the patient deeper as needed. Music tends to be music without lyrics so as to let the patient go where they need to go on their own, without the external influence of ideas and notions. Music also tends to not be very popular or recognizable so the patient doesn't have preconceived notions and attachments. This is all to eliminate any outside stimulus and really be able to go into themselves smoothly.

The MDMA environment/setting is far more forgiving than other psychedelics. A comfortable place that feels safe, is clean and free of negativity in whatever form might upset the patient. Most of the sessions I've seen have been on a that curvy psychiatrist's chair or a couch.

After the sessions, the therapy is resumed to work through what came up during the session. The work needs to continue. The MDMA is not a magic bullet that will cure you. It's a tool to get you places so you can heal more directly.

It's not to say your protocol wont work, but I've just never seen it before. There is merit to taking it with that person and just talking. If you're not in a party setting you'll likely have a very good heart to heart. Through this method I was able to identify a deep loneliness I was experiencing and began a path to healing it. It's definitely healing, but a different beast than the prior described method, and far more gentle, but perhaps not as effective for really getting in there and pulling things up. The healing process of that particular wound took at least a year afterward and involved several sessions of different substances without a particular protocol. Here is the gist of my story specifically from the drug angle.

You can get really good examples of therapy sessions in TIKHAL chapter 14 - "The Intensive" where Ann Shulgin goes over her protocols for MDMA therapy, and in Acid Test which is a history of psychedelic therapy in the US and the story of MAPS. In the later chapters, I think around chapter 43, there is a really good narrative of a session, but I recommend the whole book since it all supports how the patient and therapist got to actually running the session and the reasoning behind it. You can read all of Tikhal/Pikhal, but there are only a few chapters that deal with therapy directly.

Also consider a psilocybin session, it can work very similarly. If nothing else research their protocols, which are again very similar, to understand what they are doing.

Some authors/notables to look up are Roland Griffiths and Stanislav Grof. Griffiths is currently conducting research at John Hopkins in MD with psilocybin, and Grof is a transpersonal psychologist who's done a lot of work in non-ordinary states and their healing potential.

You are asking all the right questions:

"When will enough be enough? Will he tell me I'm "healed" when time time comes? Is he taking advantage of me? Is our relationship even real, or do my attempts at being "real" with him, and my expressions of appreciation for his help, get looked at through some psychodynamic lens?"

The answers depend entirely on the therapist. And also reflect the way you related to your caregiver as a child.

In theory, it would be possible for a therapist to benignly support a person in their healing. But, as Alice Miller observed — and I share her perspective, the set-up itself invites re-enactment. The most probable outcome is repetition. Despite the best intentions of both 'therapist' and 'patient'.

There is, for example, no escaping the core dynamic (unless the therapy is free). The patient is paying for 'love'. It is easy to see how this recreates many people's childhoods': Where love was conditional.

The 'wounded healer' is a common role-play. It is one I have fallen into myself in the past as a 'therapist'. I have also, as a 'patient' been in experiences where my 'therapist' was in-fact satisfying their own need to 'save' people, casting me in re-enactments of their own childhood.

The whole therapeutic scene is a mess, in my opinion. JM Masson went even further, calling psychotherapy The Dark Science. He wrote a very interesting book exploring the problems with therapy.

My personal view is that a therapist may have an occasional role to play in listening to a person after MDMA sessions, and hearing their experiences. However, I don't feel the 'therapist' plays any useful role within an MDMA session itself other than to reassure an anxious person to keep going. This role could be equally well-played by a kind, respectful friend.

Obviously this perspective is hugely challenging to the enormous industry that has built up around 'healing' people. It puts 'therapists' out of a 'job'.

My experience has been that MDMA — used properly — makes therapists mostly redundant.

The MAPS protocol attempts to shoehorn therapists back in. It's as if a horse-and-cart salesman, realising his time is up in the age of the automobile, has a plan to keep himself in business: What if he tells you all automobiles require a horse-and-cart to run alongside them or the passengers won't be safe?

Now he can keep selling you the horse-and-cart.

For me, this describes the MAPS model regarding MDMA.

I've found this book to be very helpful in preparing for future journeys.

https://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Psychotherapy-User-friendly-Guide-Drug-assisted/dp/0963009656/ref=sr_1_1?crid=47MZHBYBK32B&keywords=psychedelic+psychotherapy&qid=1573053793&sprefix=psychedelic+psych%2Caps%2C147&sr=8-1

Most importantly you want to feel safe going into the experience because the safer you feel the easier it is to let go and not resist. So in a practical sense, to me that means: 1) knowing what you're ingesting is safe (getting it tested if you got it yourself; or if you found someone who offers the experience, making sure they have a good track record); 2) feeling safe with your sitter (if it's someone who is new to you trust your instincts....do they engender trust and make you feel at ease?); and 3) picking a comfortable place to have the experience where ideally you don't have to worry about any interruptions....i.e. you can focus just on the journey.

If you're in or near a city that has them, I'd recommend going to any sort of psychedelic meetup. This could be hard for someone with CPTSD (it wasn't easy for me) but I think you'll find the community overall pretty welcoming.

You can do it with a friend. You and your friend should read up on the therapy.

1. A great how-to manual for the sitter and you is the Psychedelic Psychotherapy: A User-friendly Guide for Psychedelic Drug-assisted Psychotherapy - https://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Psychotherapy-User-friendly-Guide-Drug-assisted/dp/0963009656
   
2. Another great guide is Trust, Surrender, Receive- https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Surrender-Receive-Release-Trauma/dp/1619617382
   
   If I had to pick one to start, I would go with Psychedelic Psychotherapy.

Another route to explore is Internal Family Systems. It’s a form of therapy that you can do on yourself or with a partner. I’ve found it’s almost as powerful as MDMA therapy if you put the time in to do it. And together with MDMA and other medicines I’ve seen a synergistic effect.

The book linked below is an excellent place to start. Even after reading the first chapter or two you should be able to start using it. (Just read the reviews if you need to get yourself excited!). Wishing you and your partner the best of luck. You’ve got this!

Self-Therapy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating Wholeness and Healing Your Inner Child Using IFS, A New, Cutting-Edge Psychotherapy, 2nd Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0984392777/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_HT1YDbYWK2YFG

Great question and great suggestions so far. This should be stickied. Here’s another one I’ve found helpful, it’s a memoir of his own therapy.

Dismantled: How Love and Psychedelics Broke a Clergyman Apart, and Put Him Back Together https://www.amazon.com/dp/0994887027/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_J2BwDb9NK625E

I had trouble finding it at first as well, but here it is: https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Surrender-Receive-Release-Trauma/dp/1619617382

Reading it now. It's a collection of testimonies from people who have used it therapeutically, which are always interesting to read IMO.

The writing and editing could have been a lot better, though.

1. Trust, Surrender, Receive
   
2. How to Change Your Mind
   Bonus: Watch Trip of Compassion

Dark Night, Early Dawn: Steps to a Deep Ecology of Mind
(SUNY series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0791446069/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_PikxDb1MQX1Z0

Sorry to hear it. It's risky, but just ask around in the right places. If there's a Psychedelic Society or somesuch in your city/town, that might be a better place to ask than online. But use a lot of filters. You can find cops, who will fuck you up, and you can also find hack therapists who can also fuck you up.

If you have time, I highly HIGHLY recommend this book dedicated to filtering out hacks and New Age cultists when looking for a therapist: https://www.amazon.com/Navigating-Mindfield-Separating-Science-Pseudoscience/dp/1591024676

Acid Test by Tom Shroder is an incredible book that will answer your question and give you a lot of insight into the field of psychedelic therapy.

I also host a podcast called The Tink Tink Club and we mostly focus on this material. You can hear the story of Nicholas Blackston here, a USMC veteran that suffered from PTSD and was cured using MDMA assisted psychotherapy. Essentially, it comes down to being able to openly talk about traumatic experiences without any sort of inhibitions.


Feel free to message me with any questions, I would be happy to answer.

think socratic questioning about negative beliefs is effective while on a mdma peak.

I studied internal family systems therapy before taking MDMA and according to it, there is sub personality within you which already know how to heal the other parts (by listening to their pain and comforting them and telling the other parts who are hiding the pain of truamatised parts by behaving disfuntionally, that now the pain is gone and you dont have to have disfunctional behaviour anymore)

My hypothesis is that If you think about where you wanna end up in life, all the parts which are opposed to your ideal situation will come up and their concerns will be resolved automatically, while on MDMA

Studying Internal Family systems , bioengergetics will help maximise the session .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7f92fscxUQ&t=1s

https://www.amazon.com/Self-Therapy-Step-Step-Cutting-Edge-Psychotherapy/dp/0984392777