Getting in Touch with Touch: The Importance of Studying Touch in MDMA-Assisted Therapy and the Development of a New Self-Report Measure.
Psychedelic medicine (New Rochelle, N.Y.) March 1, 2024 Jason Luoma, Luke R Allen, Veronika Gold et al. 14 citations
MDMA-assisted therapy (MDMA-AT) is nearing regulatory approval, but the role of therapeutic touch within it remains understudied and raises ethical concerns about power dynamics. A review of existing literature on touch in psychotherapy found little empirical evidence specifically for MDMA-AT. To address this gap, the authors developed the Touch Outcomes Measurement Inventory (TOMI), a tool for assessing clients' perceptions of touch during MDMA-AT. The creation of TOMI is the main outcome, intended to help researchers and evaluators study touch's impact and inform evidence-based, ethical guidelines for its use in MDMA-AT and other psychedelic-assisted therapies.