Ayahuasca in the treatment of the consequences of chronic childhood sexual abuse in a religious community

A woman in her mid-50s, who experienced childhood sexual abuse by her father and was not believed by her church or mother, later developed severe depression and catatonic episodes. After decades of talk therapy and a destabilizing self-help program that led to a bipolar diagnosis, she tried psilocybin with some physical relief but no resolution of depression. She then attended four underground ayahuasca ceremonies without disclosing her diagnosis, reporting that the core of her embodied trauma dissolved. The case questions the rationale for psychiatric diagnoses and suggests that psychedelic therapy, focused on etiology, may reduce the need to distinguish between conditions. Trauma is described as socially contagious, and prohibition of psychedelic therapies is seen as a societal refusal to recognize trauma.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This retrospective case study features a woman in her mid-50s who spent her childhood in a religious community plagued by sexual abuse of children. She was abused by her father for more than a decade. The church and her mother ignored her reports about it. In her early twenties, she enrolled herself in the Erhard Seminars Training program that destabilized her, inducing a first-onset psychosis, decades later used as the main rationale for diagnosing her with bipolar disorder. For the following decades, she suffered from severe depression and emotional isolation but was functional professionally and became a medical doctor. 35 years of talk therapy helped somewhat but did not resolve trauma ingrained in her body nor her at-times catatonic depression.In her early 50s, she experimented with psilocybin, which resulted in somatic improvement but did not resolve her depression. She wanted to attend underground ayahuasca ceremonies but was rejected because of her bipolar diagnosis. Eventually, she decided not to disclose her diagnosis and attended four ceremonies in two different ceremony groups, with excellent outcomes. She considered that the core of her embodied trauma had dissolved.The rationale for assigning diagnoses is questioned; a focus on etiology combined with the broad-spectrum nature of psychedelic therapy may mostly eliminate the need to discern between 'psychiatric conditions'. Trauma is considered socially contagious, similar to infectious diseases. The prohibition of psychedelic therapies is interpreted as a society-wide refusal to recognize trauma: a refusal to see what actually happened and happens.