ReviewEuropean child & adolescent psychiatry2024
MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD in adolescents: rationale, potential, risks, and considerations.
Review in European child & adolescent psychiatry, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Neuroimmune mechanisms in PTSD: inflammatory heterogeneity, circuit dysfunction, and biomarker-based subtypes.Molecular biology reports · 2026Review
- Posttraumatic stress disorder from early childhood to late adolescence: a resilience-oriented approach to prevention, diagnosis, and clinical management.Discover mental health · 2026Review
- Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy for Adolescent Anorexia Nervosa: Clinical Considerations and Emerging Models of Care.Current psychiatry reports · 2026Review
- Toward a framework for psychedelic clinical trials in adolescents.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2026Review
- MDMA-Assisted Treatment for PTSD, Anxiety, and Depression: A Visualized Literature Analysis over 30 Years.Current medicinal chemistry · 2026Review
- Leveraging family and caregiver support in psychedelic-assisted therapy: considerations for the treatment of adolescents.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2025Review
- Psychostimulants and social behaviors.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2024Review
- MDMA for PTSD and beyond: a new paradigm brings hope.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2024Article
- Expert opinions on implementation of MDMA-assisted therapy in Europe: critical appraisal towards training, clinical practice, and regulation.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2024Article
- MDMA-Based Psychotherapy in Treatment-Resistant Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): A Brief Narrative Overview of Current Evidence.Diseases (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
3,4-Methylenedioxymetamphetamine(MDMA)-assisted psychotherapy (MDMA-AP) is a proposed treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that may be approved for adults soon. PTSD is also common among trauma-exposed adolescents, and current treatments leave much room for improvement. We present a rationale for considering MDMA-AP for treating PTSD among adolescents. Evidence suggests that as an adjunct to therapy, MDMA may reduce avoidance and enable trauma processing, strengthen therapeutic alliance, enhance extinction learning and trauma-related reappraisal, and hold potential beyond PTSD symptoms. Drawing on existing trauma-focused treatments, we suggest possible adaptations to MDMA-AP for use with adolescents, focusing on (1) reinforcing motivation, (2) the development of a strong therapeutic alliance, (3) additional emotion and behavior management techniques, (4) more directive exposure-based methods during MDMA sessions, (5) more support for concomitant challenges and integrating treatment benefits, and (6) involving family in treatment. We then discuss potential risks particular to adolescents, including physical and psychological side effects, toxicity, misuse potential, and ethical issues. We argue that MDMA-AP holds potential for adolescents suffering from PTSD. Instead of off-label use or extrapolating from adult studies, clinical trials should be carried out to determine whether MDMA-AP is safe and effective for PTSD among adolescents.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.