A group of scientists from the University of South Carolina discovered that the manifestations of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) depend on such a character trait as "openness to experience." Psychologists and psychotherapists have been talking about this for quite a long time, starting with Karl Rogers and Fritz Perls. By the way, it was Rogers who introduced the combination “openness to experience” into the use of psychologists. However, the close interest of research psychologists in the problem of openness to experience has been noted since the early 2000s, it was then that the phenomenon began to be studied systematically, especially in clinical practice. So what did researchers from Caroline? The authors note that it has long been known that PTSD leads to persistent personality changes, characterized by increased neuroticism. However, scientists were faced with the opposite problem: how to reduce the symptoms of PTSD. They found that when openness to experience is high, the stress response is less profound and less severe, and the negative effects of PTSD are less pronounced. Then they looked for ways to increase openness to experience. They found in an experiment that persistent improvements in symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) occurred in response to psychotherapy using 3, 4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, a psychoactive substance related to mescaline and ecstasy, but used in medical purposes and clinical settings). In the present study, the authors examined the effect of the substance on openness to experience in a randomized trial, planning to apply the results to the treatment of chronic, treatment-resistant PTSD. The authors also found that MDMA-assisted psychotherapy also resulted in increased openness and decreased neuroticism in the long term. observation. These preliminary results suggest that the effects of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy go beyond the specific symptomatology of PTSD and fundamentally alter personality structure, resulting in long-term, enduring personality changes. The results are discussed in terms of possible mechanisms of psychotherapeutic change for the neurosis clinic. (based on the article by Mark T Wagner & Co, “Therapeutic effect of increased openness: Investigating mechanism of action in MDMA-assisted psychotherapy»)