Abstract
Background: Naturalistic and placebo-controlled studies have suggested that ayahuasca, a traditional Amazonian beverage, could be helpful in the treatment of psychopathologies like depression and anxiety disorders by changing otherwise disturbed cognitive and emotional processes. To better understand its full therapeutic potential, one way is to study the effects on processes like flexible thinking, empathy, and well-being, which are normally compromised in stress-related psychopathologies. Materials and Methods: Volunteers attending ayahuasca ceremonies were asked to complete a test battery at three separate occasions: baseline, the morning after, and 1 week after the ceremony. We included the constructs of creative thinking (measured by Picture Concept Test), empathy (Multifaceted Empathy Test), satisfaction with life (Satisfaction with Life Scale), decentering (Experiences Questionnaire), and personality (Big Five Inventory) into the test battery. Additionally, the psychedelic experience was quantified with the Persisting Effects Questionnaire, the Ego Dissolution Scale, and Visual Analogue Scales. Results: In total, 43 attendees (males = 22; females = 21) completed parts of the baseline assessment, 20 (males = 12; females = 8) completed assessments in the morning after the ceremony, and 19 (males = 14; females = 5) completed assessments at the 1-week follow-up. At one and 7 days post-ceremony, cognitive empathy, satisfaction with life, and decentering increased, while divergent thinking (Fluency corrected for Originality) decreased, when compared to baseline. Implicit emotional empathy increased at 1-week follow-up, whereas ratings of the trait neuroticism decreased. Conclusion: The study suggests that a single ingestion of ayahuasca in a social setting is associated with enhancement of subjective well-being, an enhanced ability to take an objective and non-judging stance towards the self (decentering), and the ability to correctly recognize emotions in others, compared to baseline, lasting up to 1 week post-ceremony. To understand the therapeutic potential related to these effects, further research with clinical populations is needed in which these effects can be assessed, including its link with therapeutic outcomes. Together, this will increase our understanding of the effectiveness and breadth of future therapeutic options.
Highlights
Ayahuasca is a psychoactive decoction with a reported history of use for magical, ritual, and medicinal purposes by indigenous groups of the Amazon (Schultes 1986; Schmid 2012; Frecska et al, 2016)
It was demonstrated that divergent thinking (DT) of attendees of ayahuasca ceremonies was augmented during the altered state of consciousness compared to their baseline performance, while convergent thinking (CT) was decreased (Kuypers et al, 2016)
Studies directly assessing ayahuasca’s effects on emotion regulation showed sub-acute improvements in emotional non-acceptance, emotional interference, and lack of control (Domínguez-Clavé et al, 2019) and lower scores on emotional dysregulation compared to the baseline that were sustained over the 1 year follow-up period (Bouso et al, 2012)
Summary
Ayahuasca is a psychoactive decoction with a reported history of use for magical, ritual, and medicinal purposes by indigenous groups of the Amazon (Schultes 1986; Schmid 2012; Frecska et al, 2016). To get a better understanding of ayahuasca’s full potential, one way is to study its effects on mental and cognitive processes that are generally compromised in stress-related psychopathologies, like flexible thinking, empathy, metacognitive awareness, and wellbeing (Tull and Roemer, 2007; Aldao and Nolen-Hoeksema, 2010; Parlar et al, 2014; Morrison et al, 2016; Mason et al, 2019; Mason and Kuypers 2021). Naturalistic and placebo-controlled studies have suggested that ayahuasca, a traditional Amazonian beverage, could be helpful in the treatment of psychopathologies like depression and anxiety disorders by changing otherwise disturbed cognitive and emotional processes. To better understand its full therapeutic potential, one way is to study the effects on processes like flexible thinking, empathy, and well-being, which are normally compromised in stress-related psychopathologies
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