"Getting to the Root": Ayahuasca Ceremony Leaders' Perspectives on Eating Disorders.
Meris Williams, Annie Kingston Miller, Anja Loizaga-Velder, Natasha Files, Adele Lafrance
Journal of psychoactive drugs January 1, 2023 DOI: 10.1080/02791072.2022.2113484 via PubMed
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractAyahuasca, a psychedelic plant medicine from the Amazon, is being studied as a potential novel intervention for eating disorders (EDs), which have high mortality, chronicity, and treatment drop-out rates. Interviews with 15 ayahuasca ceremony leaders revealed two main categories of perspectives. Leaders conceptualized EDs as symptomatic of underlying concerns, serving a function and affecting health across multiple domains. They described ayahuasca's potential therapeutic mechanisms as facilitating energetic healing, helping identify and process the root of the ED, promoting holistic healing, and enhancing relationships. From ceremony leaders' views, ceremonial ayahuasca may offer a useful complementary intervention for EDs.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Qualitative study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Sample size | 15 |
| Population | Ayahuasca ceremony leaders |
| Intervention | Ayahuasca |
| Topics | Ayahuasca Psychedelic-assisted therapy |
| Keywords | Eating disorders Plant medicine Qualitative research |
| Citations | 8 |
| Key finding | Ayahuasca ceremony leaders conceptualize eating disorders as symptomatic of underlying concerns and describe ayahuasca's potential mechanisms of action as facilitating energetic healing, identifying the root of the disorder, promoting holistic healing, and enhancing relationships. |
Abstract
Given the mortality, chronicity, and treatment drop-out rates observed among individuals with eating disorders (EDs), innovative approaches are needed. Ayahuasca, a psychedelic plant medicine from the Amazon, is currently being investigated. This study expands on prior exploratory research by describing the perspectives of ayahuasca ceremony leaders regarding their conceptualizations of EDs and the potential therapeutic mechanisms of action of ayahuasca for individuals with EDs. Qualitative content analysis of interviews with 15 ayahuasca ceremony leaders produced two main categories, with relevant subcategories. The first category encompassed the leaders' theories of EDs from a shamanic perspective, including that EDs are symptomatic of an underlying concern, serve a function and affect health in multiple domains. The second category described leaders' perspectives on the potential mechanisms of action of ayahuasca for EDs, including that ayahuasca facilitates "energetic healing"; helps identify, process, and integrate the "root" of the ED; promotes holistic healing; and enhances and/or reorganizes relationships. From the perspectives of ceremony leaders and consistent with previous exploratory research, ceremonial ayahuasca use may offer a potentially useful, novel and complementary intervention for EDs.