Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy: Ayahuasca
February 26, 2024 Bruce Ecker, Robin Ticic, Laurel Hulley
Psychedelic experiences can produce lasting therapeutic change when embedded in a supportive psychotherapeutic program. This chapter examines whether such transformational change operates through the therapeutic reconsolidation process (TRP), where symptom-generating mental schemas are disconfirmed and unlearned at the neural level. Analysis of a documented case of ayahuasca-assisted therapy for a 29-year-old woman with complicated bereavement and depression following her mother's suicide reveals that the critical steps of TRP occurred repeatedly. The ayahuasca-induced subjective experiences specifically disconfirmed her pre-existing schemas, enabling memory reconsolidation and permanent symptom elimination—a mechanism fundamentally different from pharmacological suppression.