Australian
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an NFSA website

What’s Your Poison? – Ecstasy (1997)

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The psychiatrist's couch education content clip 2

This clip chosen to be PG

Clip description

Before Ecstasy became known as a party drug, it was used by psychotherapists to relax patients in order to assist them with their problems. A psychiatrist explains the characteristics of MDMA which made it ideal for use in counselling.

Curator’s notes

by Janet Bell

MDMA, or Ecstasy, is most often associated with the rave scene as a party drug. Here we see a psychiatrist talking dryly but descriptively about the effects of MDMA on his patients. This is the only way we can now know about the scientific effects of the drug because it was taken off the market before extensive tests could be carried out.

The filmmakers make effective use of abstract photography and music to describe the influence of the drug on the doctor-patient relationship.