“I felt like I went through 15 years of psychological therapy in one night.”

– Actual patient featured in “Trip of Compassion”

This post is about the most compelling movie I’ve seen in the last year.

I first watched “Trip of Compassion” about six months ago, when I was sent a link to a private video. The film had been broadcast once on Israeli television, but it wasn’t distributed or available anywhere else. This documentary affected me so deeply (and immediately) that I flew to Tel Aviv, met the filmmakers, and offered to help launch the film digitally worldwide. Everything I am doing for this film is 100% pro bono, and all proceeds go to the filmmakers.

Why am I doing this, and why is this film so exciting to me?

Tens of millions of people worldwide suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Millions more have suffered from emotional and physical abuse but never get diagnosed. I would put myself in the latter category for reasons I’ll explain another time.

“Trip of Compassion” documents one unusual approach to healing trauma that might astonish you, an innovative treatment involving the psychoactive drug MDMA (commonly known as “ecstasy”). As you will see firsthand, if the therapy is well designed, true rebirth and transformation can happen in a matter of weeks and not years.

If you’ve ever felt held back, felt defective in some way, or felt that you’re not living up to your full potential, this film will give you hope.

This is also the first feature documentary to show actual therapy session footage (to our knowledge), to which the patients consented because of the incredible results they experienced.

Filmed at the Beer Yaakov Mental Health Center in Israel, “Trip of Compassion” provides a rare glimpse into a treatment process that can restore optimism and even the will to live.

Thank you for watching this film (just click here to stream) and, if you find it as powerful as I did, thank you for sharing it or this post.

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In addition to helping launch this movie, I am supporting broader access to MDMA-assisted therapy in the USA and elsewhere by donating to MAPS.org, a non-profit dedicated to making this treatment available to those who need it (e.g., phase 3 trials, regulatory work, scholarships for low-income patients). If you also decide that this work is important, please consider visiting MAPS.org to donate. NOTE: Be sure to specify the following in the donation form (there is a field for this, as they have many initiatives): “Funds are restricted to MDMA phase 3 trials.”

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Thank you so much for reading this far. I couldn’t be more excited to share this film.

And remember as you watch: this is possible now. To quote William Gibson, “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.”

Let’s help make this treatment more evenly distributed.

More to come,

Tim

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