Psychological and Spiritual Changes with the use of 
Ayahuasca and Therapy

The ritualistic use of Ayahuasca 
has expanded beyond the healing context of the Shamans and religious rituals of the churches to become a powerful ally to therapy. 
The combination of therapy with the ritualistic use of Ayahuasca, 
different sorts of meditations and a spiritual approach, facilitates an incredible transformation and immeasurable benefits to the mental health and spiritual growth of people. 
During such treatment, 
the individual is confronted with the various aspects of himself and of his life. 
That involves among others getting in touch with his pain, anger, 
suffering, traumas, patterns and behaviors. 
Going thorough all these aspects of himself in a quest for inner truth with the support of the ritualistic use of Ayahuasca, the individual experiences an open path to explore his unconscious realms. 
With time and progression, 
the experiences occur without the interference of the critical and analytical mind which many times becomes silenced, giving the individual a chance to contemplate. 
The abreactive property of Ayahuasca safely returns the individual to the origin of his problems. 
It enables him to access memory constellations and the deepest realms of his identity. 
Life-shaping experiences from the past emerge, 
bearing a new significance when acknowledged trough the support and guidance of Ayahuasca. 
As they merge, the individual relives it symbolically 
during therapy sessions and learns to connect with it without fighting or judging it. 
It allows a through exploration of the experience from which his problem arose, 
thereby offering an opportunity to gain the necessary insights to liberate himself from the lingering, subconscious psychological traumas. 
The Ayahuasca experience becomes a great ally in the development 
and progress of such treatments. 
It opens the path for the thorough exploration of the issues in question as well as for the regression to its origins while the therapy helps to release the emotions, promotes understanding, integration and reshapes the identity and behavioral patterns. 

"Psychological changes"

The combination of Ayahuasca rituals and therapy 
build up a strong process that gives to the individual the chance to experience his innermost from a completely different point of view with a total new understanding of himself and of his problems. Through this understanding and profound insights during the Ayahuasca rituals 
into his behavioral patterns, he may be able to reconnect with his true feelings, opening an avenue for changing his behavior. 
The insights are originated from deep within with the guidance of Ayahuasca. 
They are not taught neither induced by the therapist nor the therapy. 
Here the individual learn from the insights as if they were his own teacher. 
He follows an inner guidance through the support of Ayahuasca and the help of therapy, learning to integrate previously unconscious material at a higher level of consciousness. 
One of the consequences of traumas 
and other problems is that the individual closes himself and is not able to connect with his feelings nor with love. 
He wants to be loved, but he is so needy that he becomes blind to see any possibilities around him. 
He does not know how to open his hearts to receive love nor how to love himself. 
He can not connect with his feelings, and the search for love is constantly outside himself. 
One of the qualities of Ayahuasca is the experience of love. 
The individual learns to connect with love, to feel love, to be love and to live in the realms of love. 
The discovery of love within is a great step 
towards the healing of his problems as when he learns to love himself, he experiences acceptance. 
It enables him to deal with his problems with a new perspective. 
Catharsis and feeling release 
during therapy sessions following Ayahuasca rituals are a complement for this process. 
It helps to peal the layers of emotions that are on the way, making the individual feel stuck. 
The emotions are like a wall of blockages 
surrounding the periphery of each issue, blinding the individual to see any way out. 
With the emotional release during therapy sessions it is possible 
to poke the blockage and to go through it, moving deeper into the core of the issue to be explored. Peeling the layers and realizing the emotions until they are dissolved or 
out of the way, the individual can move further into the next layers and into the next issues. 
He repeats the 
same process as he moves towards his innermost with the support and guidance of Ayahuasca. 
It facilitates the connection with the deeper feelings that underlie his own reality, 
promoting space for the individual to continue his journey into his core being. 
One of the main 
key for this process is the transpersonal experience during the rituals. 
The transpersonal experiences 
is what facilitates the insights and consequently it is the key that leads to transformation. 
For that reason the setting in which the Ayahuasca is taken is of major importance. 
When Ayahuasca is taken in a spiritual setting, 
it has such an effect on the individual, that the influence on the healing aspects of the therapy becomes increased. 
As the individual gets further in the process, going through his issues, 
he deepens his connection with his inner-self, going through a total re-evaluation of his basic values. Things that before seemed to have great importance and 
supported his ego, his illusionary "I" and kept his mind at a peak of control, slowly lose power. 
His new values are based upon simplicity, 
giving place to acknowledge and explore his higher-self beyond his illusionary "I". 
It opens the doors for self-knowledge, 
self-exploration and integration at a higher level of consciousness. 
The feeling of communion with the innermost is established and the understanding, acceptance and compassion for whom he really is just follows it. 
The individual then 
develops a relationship with himself based on love and acceptance, and this feeling is extended to the relationship with others as well as to his surroundings and the world he lives in. 
The positive outcome of this process 
is achieved in a period of time that equals half or one third of the time or even less, than the same process done with therapy alone, without the support of Ayahuasca. 
The combination of therapy and Ayahuasca have been applied with great 
success for the healing of many psychological disorders as well as in the treatment of drug addiction. 
Ayahuasca should not be applied to people 
with mental disorder unless they have the consent and follow up from a psychiatrist.

"Spiritual Changes"

The spiritual search is a natural quest 
in which man looks for his origins and his destination beyond the matter and beyond life, as life will end at some point and the body will die. 
The spiritual search will follow man throughout his entire life, even if only 
to justify his attitudes and his actions in life according to the natural law or the law of karma. 
In order for this search to be realized in terms of fulfillment 
it involves faith in something greater than just life itself as well as trust in some higher intelligence or higher levels of consciousness that created ourselves and the universe with such perfection. 
The mystical experiences 
with the ritualistic use of Ayahuasca, promotes this faith and trust as well as a space of inner peace, opening the path for the individual to feel closer to God without any dogmatic concepts. 
After a while, as his faith grows, he is able to perceive himself as the being of light that he is. 
Some visionary experiences with Ayahuasca 
showing heavenly landscapes with angels, spiritual beings or mystical realms, make the journey very rich and create a bridge to the sacred within, fulfilling various aspects of the spiritual search. 
All those experiences 
are of great importance for the healing of the individual as it creates a 
common ground to explore the many aspects of his spiritual identity in a space of love towards himself and surrender, trusting his inner guidance. 
This common ground will merge with the insights, allowing him to reconnect with his inner truth. 
The different sorts of meditations 
reinforces the bridge to the inner-self and create a space to contemplate through the heart. 
With the continuous use of Ayahuasca, 
the individual finds the path towards the divine within, establishes the connection with God and fulfills the spiritual search for inner truth.

"A case of anxiety"

SM, who has a long history of anxiety, has been in 
primal therapy in California for three years before he started Ayahuasca/therapy with Yatra. 
By that time 
he had only improved little and was still feeling very anxious much of the time. 
Following one year of Ayahuasca and therapy, 
during which time he attended 16 Ayahuasca rituals and three workshops in Brazil 
(Quest for Inner Truth) as well as a one to one therapy during crisis, 
he has improved considerably. 
He reported a strong decrease in anxiety level and better functioning at work. 
Also he gained new meaningful, psychological insights and improved his daily life quality.

SM comments about his condition, treatment and healing:

My experiences with Ayahuasca

I have been drinking Ayahuasca now for just over a year and I would say without hesitation that it is changing my life. Yahoo!!!

First some history about myself...

I came to Ayahuasca because of suffering. 
My life wasn't working at 22 (I am now 33 years old). 
I was living in a continuous anxiety attack and finally became suicidal. 
At this point I put 
myself into therapy (Primal Therapy). This gave me a lot of insights into my problems. 
My starting point was: "I don't know what a feeling is!". 
Basically 
realizing that they were/are caused by repressed traumatic experiences that needed to be released. 
Unfortunately, like many anxiety neurotics, 
I had very bad access to my feelings, preventing me from experiencing them sufficiently deeply to resolve them in a standard therapeutic situation. 
Finally, 
after three years I terminated therapy as I realized that I was not making significant progress. 
I was still suffering significant emotional 
pain but the insights I had obtained removed much of the despair/hopelessness. 
I had read about Ayahuasca 
and intuitively felt this was what I needed to really go deep and heal my emotional wounds. 
This sense lead me to Ayahuasca 
and the rituals at Friends of the Forest where I met Yatra.

What does Ayahuasca to me...

It is very difficult to 
characterize my experiences with Ayahuasca because literally every experience has been unique. 
In summary, I would say that Ayahuasca is healing me both physically and emotionally. 
In fact I frequently think of Ayahuasca as medicine, 
especially when drinking because of its unpleasant taste! The following are common experiences for me during Ayahuasca rituals: 
__ First it usually takes away any anxiety 
I have and puts me into a relaxed frame of mind for the experience. 
This is an important effect for me as I frequently experience anticipatory fear prior to the rituals. This was very strong when I started but has reduced as I have become more experienced. 
NB: It is important to note 
that despite my fears, every one of my Ayahuasca experiences has been beautiful. 
__ I have noticed that Ayahuasca enables me to view my memory system. 
I believe that Ayahuasca 
reduces the brains repressive mechanism sufficiently to allow the stored energy to activate the repressed material, effectively giving me an emotional nudge (sometimes this nudge becomes a kick!). 
If I then bring my awareness 
to focus on the feelings, the associated experiences can come fully into consciousness. 
I have to say that I am not 
finding this process easy and I am frequently asking for guidance from more experienced people. 
I noticed my immediate response 
is always to run away and avoid painful feelings; this seems to be a very strong automatic response. After a year of drinking 
I am becoming sensitive to the emotions and find it somewhat easier to stay with the feelings. 
__ I tend to feel very clear emotionally 
for three to four days after each ritual and feel very good during this period.

How is Ayahuasca healing me...

I believe that Ayahuasca 
is opening up the layers of repressed emotions in the memory areas of the brain, 
allowing the energy to be released and the associated traumatic experiences to be integrated into the conscious areas of the brain. 

What are the changes that have occurred...

The most significant change is that I am **far** more relaxed on a day to day basis. 
I used to have to medicate 
for anxiety using L-Tryptophan/B6 and occasionally beta-blockers just to function well enough to work. This is no longer necessary. 
I now have have much better access to my feelings. 
I would stress that I am generally in far less emotional pain than I was prior to starting Ayahuasca and, most significant, finally know that I have found something that **really works**.

Some final observation...

It is very clear to me 
that the healing I am experiencing is not only down to the Ayahuasca rituals; 
this is only a tool. 
I would never have the courage to continue drinking 
if it wasn't for the unconditional, loving, totally non-judgmental environment provided by the leaders of the rituals I have attended.
I cannot understate how important it has been for me to feel secure when drinking.
I would stress that a ritualistic setting
plus very experienced guides are an **absolutely** essential part of the healing process.
I also feel that integrating emotional release therapy helps the process and is probably essential to help in the integration of very painful emotional trauma.

To view the EEG changes from SM click here!

Viva a Ayahuasca!!!

Back to menu