Compreensão de Sentidos Atribuídos à Ayahuasca: Percursos Terapêuticos do Uso Ritualístico
Jaqueline Tavares de Assisi, Maria Inês Gandolfo Conceicao
PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDIES - Revista da Abordagem Gestáltica January 1, 2020 DOI: 10.18065/2020v26n2.4
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractAyahuasca, a psychoactive drink from the Amazon, has been used ritually for millennia and gained global religious use in the 1980s. Biomedical studies have found it safe and linked to physical and mental wellbeing. This research investigated life histories of people with therapeutic itineraries involving ritual ayahuasca use, using a phenomenological-existential and gestalt-therapy approach. The findings suggest that ritual experiences and therapeutic journeys helped participants recognize health as a posture of maturity or wisdom in relation to their world, with ayahuasca enabling re-significations in daily self-care and self-love.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Qualitative study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | People with therapeutic itineraries connected to ritualistic use of ayahuasca |
| Intervention | Ayahuasca |
| Key finding | Ritualistic ayahuasca experiences and therapeutic itineraries contributed to participants' recognition of health as a posture of maturity or wisdom, with ayahuasca enabling re-significations in self-care and self-love. |
Abstract
Ayahuasca is a psychoactive drink of Amazonian origin prepared from vine known as jagube and/or mariri (Banisteriopsis caapi) and chacrona bush (Psychotria viridis). Its cultural and ritualistic use have been recognized from millennia by indigenous ethnic groups in the Western Amazon and gained worldwide influence in the 1980s through the expansion of it religious use. In the biomedical field, studies have attested the safety in the administration of the beverage in humans and found features of physical and mental wellbeing on users. This article aims to discuss the results of a research that investigated life histories of people with therapeutic itineraries connected to the ritualistic use of ayahuasca, from a phenomenological-existential understanding and gestalt-therapy approach. The methodology was based on a phenomenological stance and in life history method, enabling an apprehension of lived experience of the rituals. Thus, it was verified that the ritualistic experiences and the therapeutic itineraries contributed in the participants' recognition that health is a posture of maturity or wisdom associated to their relations with the world, attributing to ayahuasca the capacity to operate re-significations in the daily process of self-care and, above all, in love of oneself.