Ayahuasca rituals for the treatment of substance use disorders: Three narratives of former patients of a neo-shamanic center from Uruguay

Abstract

Ayahuasca is a psychedelic beverage from the Amazon rainforest, used in spiritual and religious settings for medical purposes. Since the 1990s onwards, several religious and neo-shamanic groups have been using it in Uruguay within the psychospiritual networks. Some participants go to rituals of ayahuasca looking for therapeutic alternatives to certain ailments, such as substance use disorders (SUDs). In this chapter, three cases of former patients who recovered in a neo-shamanic center that uses ayahuasca for the treatment of SUDs are described and analyzed. The center is conducted by a psychologist trained in the Peruvian vegetalismo tradition. An ethnographic description of the ritual setting as well as the process of psychotherapeutic intervention of the center are described. In-depth interviews were used to collect the narratives of the three patients. A medical anthropology perspective is used, focusing on different subjective trajectories: the general biographic trajectory, SUDs trajectory, spiritual trajectory, and the trajectory under the entheogenic field, ayahuasca included. As we discuss, the impact of ayahuasca rituals ceremonies should be explained not only by ayahuasca as a psychedelic compound, but as a psychotherapeutic tool immersed in a social, cultural, and spiritual setting aimed at the treatment of SUDs.