Listening to Ayahuasca: New Hope for Depression, Addiction, PTSD, and Anxiety

Used for over 8000 years as a medicine in the Amazon rainforest, ayahuasca is a powerful psychedelic with a fully formed shamanic cosmology. Central to the indigenous belief system is the plant teacher, Grandmother Ayahuasca, who communicates with people both during and after ceremonies. DMT (Dimethyltryptamine), the active ingredient in ayahuasca, is illegal in this country, listed on Schedule 1 as a dangerous drug with high potential for abuse and no medical benefits.

Despite the legal risks and the unfortunate fact that ayahuasca is a powerful purgative as well as a powerful psychedelic, there are increasing numbers of people in Western countries who have experienced the medicine. This fast-growing group of people is highly educated, mature and sophisticated, often dubbed cultural creatives. Some have suffered with intractable psychiatric illnesses who, failing to find relief from Western medicine, are seeking new hope with ayahuasca. Others are psychospiritual explorers who have learned about the benefits of ayahuasca, are connected enough to the subculture to find a safe opportunity to take it and are willing to run the risk of an exotic, illegal experience.

Listening to Ayahuasca: New Hope for Depression, Addictions, PTSD, and Anxiety explores how ayahuasca is being used in a Western, psychospiritual context. The underground ayahuasca community, with a level of sophistication far beyond most therapists, knows that this medicine can have an almost immediate anti-depressant effect. They know from personal experience that ayahuasca offers hope for those suffering from intractable depression, addictions, PTSD, death anxiety, and other suffering.

Seemingly miraculous accounts of healing of psychiatric symptoms have appeared in the mainstream media, notably “Hell and Back” (2006) by Kira Salak, published in National Geographic Adventure — an article that according to the magazine’s editor-in-chief “received ‘20 times the reader response mail’ than any other article the magazine has published since its inception.” Some of this onslaught of interest is due to the fact that Salak enthusiastically described the immediate antidepressant benefits of ayahuasca.

Listening to Ayahuasca is based on Rachel Harris’s original research, the largest study of ayahuasca use in North America, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Psychoactive Drugs. The research questionnaire was sixteen pages long with extensive open-ended questions that people answered at great length. Respondents often wrote Harris personal letters because they wanted to share even more. There is an unusual amount of enthusiasm for ayahuasca and for research about its potential benefits, not like the psychedelic drug craze of the sixties, but a mature appreciation for the healing powers of this medicine.

As a research scientist Harris wanted to know: What happens in the days and weeks following the ceremony? Do people find relief from psychiatric symptoms and does that relief last? Do people change their attitudes and behaviors and do they maintain these changes? Do ayahuasca infused insights generalize into daily life? Do transcendent experiences with ayahuasca translate into a more spiritual life? People in the ayahuasca community acknowledge the importance of integration following a ceremony but very little is known about facilitating such a therapeutic process.

As a therapist, Harris brings the reader into her office for an intimate glimpse into how people are using ayahuasca as part of their psychological healing and spiritual development. Her experience of working with people using ayahuasca is that the medicine is like a rocket boost along the psychospiritual path, helping people to heal from childhood and traumatic events as well as to explore spiritual states of being. Harris tells her own stories of ayahuasca ceremonies: suffering with nausea and vomiting, rising to ecstatic heights, surviving a bad trip, receiving advice from Grandmother Ayahuasca to do the research and struggling with questions about the reality of spirit realms.

People in her research study describe a great lifting of depression along with improvement in their close relationships. They report eating healthier diets and reducing their alcohol intake. These results describe central issues in psychotherapy: mood, addictions, personal relationships and self-care.

In contrast to these findings, therapists have had a poor track record trying to motivate people to improve their diets and other health behaviors.

The most intriguing finding from the research was that 75% of the people said, “Yes” to the question: “Do you feel that you have a personal relationship with the spirit of ayahuasca?” People wrote paragraphs, enthusiastically sharing their personal experiences with this mysterious plant teacher. The author confesses that she also has a personal relationship with Grandmother Ayahuasca that continues to mystify her and for which she has no explanation.

Through the author’s wide-ranging original research, as well as her personal experiences, Listening to Ayahuasca provides a balanced view into how this ancient medicine is being used to alleviate modern ills and open up pathways to spiritual realms.