Understanding of meanings attributed to ayahuasca: Therapeutic paths of ritual use

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.