Ayahuasca, Personality and Acute Psychological Effects in Neo-Shamanic and Religious Settings in Uruguay.

This study is an interdisciplinary research into Uruguayan ayahuasca users belonging to one neo-shamanic and one Santo Daime group. The study involved the chemical analysis of ayahuasca samples, an ethnographic description of the two traditions and rituals, and the application of psychometric scales to measure personality differences, and the acute psychological effects during an ayahuasca ritual. Personality measurements showed lower scores for Santo Daime in Neuroticism-Anxiety, Dependence, Low Self-Esteem, Anger and Restlessness. These differences may be related to the presence of participants under treatment in the neo-shamanic group and/or to the protective effects of a church religion such as Santo Daime. Regarding acute effects, the neo-shamanic group showed higher scores in Somesthesia and Perception, which can be related to the high-arousal ritual setting. Chemical analysis for the ayahuasca samples showed a typical composition of alkaloids. No adulterants were found. The sample from the neo-shamanic group displayed a higher ß-carbolines:DMT ratio compared to the Santo Daime sample, which could be related to the higher effects observed for Somesthesia for the neo-shamanic group. Significant positive correlations between some personality traits and acute effects were found only in the neo-shamanic group, which may be related to the more individualistic approach of this tradition.

Ayahuasca Ritual, Personality and Sociality: Observational Research Conducted in a Substance Use Disorder Rehabilitation Center in Uruguay.

The current article presents a mixed qualitative-quantitative observational study of the effect of ayahuasca ritual on subjective experiences and personality traits on participants of a center specialized in the treatment of substance use disorder in Uruguay. When comparing the psychological traits of ayahuasca participants to a control group, quantitative results using the Zuckerman-Kuhlman-Aluja Personality Questionnaire showed statistically significant higher scores in Impulsive Sensation Seeking, Boredom Susceptibility, and Social Warmth scales. Qualitative analysis of ayahuasca experiences resulted in five main categories: emotional experiences (including social emotions such as love and empathy), corporal experiences, spiritual/transcendental experiences, personal experiences, and visions. Last, qualitative descriptions provide support for the importance of social interactions in the phenomenological manifestations of the psychedelic experience. Both quantitative and qualitative results suggest that the combination of social interactions and the pharmacological action of ayahuasca could facilitate the manifestation of social emotions during the ritual, and may contribute to the long-term increase of empathic and social aspects of personality.

Medical anthropology and symbolic cure: from the placebo to cultures of meaningful healing.

The perspectives of medical anthropology on symbolic cure are crucial for understanding placebo mechanisms on the medical agenda. However, while classic biomedical conceptions of the placebo discredited cultural factors as legitimate therapeutic tools, the anthropological critical approach confronted this perspective in the opposite way, rejecting the role of neurobiological factors, and using culture as a self-contained phenomenon. This manuscript is a review of the symbolic healing, stressing the importance of an integrated and interdisciplinary study of the placebo response, and the need to go beyond both biological and cultural reductionisms. Various perspectives from medical anthropology will be described, ranging from classical to multilevel perspectives that enable consideration of the placebo in its neurobiological, psychological and cultural dimensions.

Ayahuasca en el tratamiento de adicciones: Estudio de cuatro casos tratados en IDEAA, desde una perspectiva interdisciplinaria / Ayahuasca in the treatment of addictions: Study of four cases treated in IDEAA, using an interdisciplinary perspective

La ayahuasca es una sustancia psicoactiva de origen amazónico, usada tradicionalmente con fines espirituales, médicos y religiosos. En la década de los ‘90 adquiere gran popularidad, tanto a través de las redes internacionales de espiritualidad y religiosidad, como en el denominado renacimiento de los estudios psicodélicos, donde se retoma la investigación y experimentación sobre los posibles usos clínicos de estas sustancias. El presente artículo tiene como objetivo la descripción y análisis de los procesos de cura de cuatro casos de adicciones tratados en el Instituto de Etnopsicología Amazónica Aplicada (IDEAA), un centro dedicado al tratamiento de adicciones, con pacientes españoles llevados al Amazonas de Brasil. El procedimiento ha implicado una metodología cualitativa del tipo biográfica, bajo una mirada interdisciplinaria que integra enfoques cognitivos y culturales. En los resultados, se describen el proceso de intervención utilizado en el centro y las narrativas biográficas de los casos estudiados. Se realiza una descripción de los distintos tipos de experiencias recurrentes durante los rituales de ayahuasca: revisiones biográficas, insights psicológicos, experiencias emocionales y/o trascendentales. Se analiza la importancia de la memoria de la experiencia, en tanto disparadora de nuevas reconfiguraciones en las narrativas biográficas de los sujetos, mostrándose la centralidad de dicha dinámica en el proceso terapéutico. Se analizan otros mecanismos específicos interviniendo en el proceso de cura de cada caso: psicosomáticos, simbólicos, de cognición social y psiconeuroinmunológicos. Se concluye sobre la relevancia terapéutica del contexto ritual, social y cultural, así como de las estrategias de integración de la memoria de la experiencia en las narrativas biográficas de los sujetos.

Ayahuasca is an Amazon psychoactive compound traditionally used for spiritual, religious, and medical purposes. In the 1990s the brew gains popularity, both through the transnational networks of religiosity/spirituality and the renaissance of psychedelic studies, where these kinds of substances are investigated for its possible clinical applications. The goal of the current article is to describe and analyze the therapeutic process of four cases from IDEAA, a center located in the Brazilian Amazon forest, dedicated to the treatment of addicts taken from Spain. An interdisciplinary perspective is proposed, combining cognitive and cultural insights from different fields (medical anthropology, cognitive science of religion, psychoneuroimmunology, qualitative sociology, cultural psychology). Ritual of ayahuasca will be considered as a way of producing a variety of experiences, and the memories of these experiences as ways of producing new biographic narratives. Biographic narratives are considered as a higher mental competence that includes functions related to self-knowledge, episodic memory, reflexivity, and psychosocial homeostasis. Under the appropriate set & setting, this process of narrative reconstruction helps the individual to cope with difficult situations, including addictions. The procedure used in this research consisted in a qualitative biographic methodology. The four cases described were treated in the period between 2000 and 2007. They started as poly drug users in the 1980s, at the end of the dictatorship period, when heroin made its entrance to Spain. The results describe the process of intervention used in the center, and the biographic narratives of each case. Most common types of experiences are mentioned: biographical revisions, psychological insights, emotional and transcendental experiences. Specific therapeutic mechanisms are also described. In the first case, a psychosomatic style of expression, where the subject describes strong embodied experiences of suffering his illnesses, and embodied expressions of coping with them. In the second case, a therapeutic process that includes the recognition of the former biographic narrative as a “lie”, and a symbolic way of producing new narratives of the self that spins around the presence of the jaguar. This animal acted as symbolic figure that triggered different meanings, useful for there covery of the patient. The third case is a subject who was involved in drug traffic, robberies, and violent activities. Experiences related to social cognition (e.g. empathy, shame, self-forgiveness) played a major role in his therapeutic process. Last, the narrative of a woman addicted to heroin is analyzed. Biographical remembrances and self-forgiveness played an importantrole, but also her symbolic experiences with the proximity of death, related to her medical conditions (addiction to heroin, hepatitis C, HIV). The case is also a good example of how the treatment had a positive psychoneuroimmunology impact in the HIV viral load of the patient. As we will analyze, the effect cannot be explained by ayahuasca itself (in fact, the scientific literature suggest a negative or neutral impact), but by the therapeutic strategy as a whole, with its various components. The article concludes addressing the importance of the “memory of the experience” of the ritual as catalyzer of new meanings in the biographic narratives of the patients. The new narratives can be considered assystem for self-regulation in the different, psychological, social, and cultural levels. Besides, it can also triggers different top-down psychoneuroimmunology and psychosomatic effects. The production of new narratives is related to what is usually called “integration”, and involves different psychological, social and cultural elements that are of great importance for a positive or negative therapeutic outcome.