Title:
Author: Quispe Rivera, Nilda
Thesis mentor: Velasco Reyes, Alex Franst Telésforo
Key words: Psychotherapy, Psychology
Date of publication: 2023
Bibliographic Citation:
Quispe, N. (2023). Integración entre psicoterapia transpersonal y sesiones de ayahuasca realizadas por terapeutas en centros de retiro en Perú [Tesis de grado]. Universidad Continental.
The general objective of this research is to learn about the process of integration between transpersonal psychotherapy and ayahuasca sessions in retreat centers in Peru. It is a crosssectional field research that employed a qualitative research approach of phenomenological hermeneutic type with the purpose of investigating the phenomenon by analyzing the key informants' own words. The data were collected through focused in-depth interviews with experts in the research topic who gave their consent for their names to be expressly mentioned in the research. The results made it possible to identify the psychotherapeutic approaches used in retreat centers in Peru where transpersonal psychotherapy and ayahuasca sessions are integrated. It was also possible to describe the techniques used by the therapists in the ayahuasca sessions. In addition, it was possible to detail the favorable and adverse phenomena that occur in the process of integration between transpersonal psychotherapy and ayahuasca sessions. The conclusion reached is that in Peru there are retreat centers that coherently integrate transpersonal psychotherapy and ayahuasca sessions. It was also concluded that a very important factor in the success of ayahuasca therapy is the so-called integrative psychotherapy.
This research aims to investigate the manner in which transpersonal-focused psychotherapy and ayahuasca sessions conducted by therapists are integrated. Considering that psychotherapy is one of the most important aspects of clinical psychology, and that ayahuasca sessions stem from the knowledge of traditional medicine practiced by native Amazonian communities, the context in which this study is conducted corresponds to retreat centers in Peru, where the use of ayahuasca ceremonies has been integrated with Western psychotherapy.
One of the characteristics of psychotherapy is that it can be carried out from different psychological approaches, such as psychoanalysis, cognitivism, or humanistic psychology. Transpersonal psychology is a subdivision of humanistic psychology, which is housed in Division 32 of the APA (Gimeno-Bayón, 2020). Furthermore, transpersonal psychology is not the result of a mix of religious ideas, metaphysical concepts, various philosophies, and certain scientific notions like the New Age movement; nor is it a new religion or a spiritual trend (Almendro, 1994). Hartelius (2007) defines transpersonal psychology as: “An approach to psychology that studies phenomena beyond the ego as a context for an integrative/holistic psychology; which provides a framework for understanding and cultivating human transformation” (p. 145).
To analyze this topic, it is necessary to know precisely what is understood by transpersonal psychotherapy and to mention its theoretical foundations, among them depth psychology founded by C.G. Jung and existential humanistic psychotherapy which emerged in the late 1960s.
Therefore, this research was carried out with the interest of knowing the psychotherapeutic protocols used in retreat centers where ayahuasca sessions are integrated, and to learn about the methodologies employed by psychotherapists in the treatment of patients who attend these centers.
Moreover, the study seeks to understand the characteristics of therapists who include ayahuasca sessions in their psychotherapeutic models and to know what type of training is required for a psychotherapist to be able to use ayahuasca as a psychotherapeutic tool or technique. Likewise, it seeks to understand the potential risks involved in the use of this Amazonian brew within a psychotherapeutic context. Additionally, this is a field research of a transversal type that has been conceived from an interpretive emergent paradigm, and it is developed through a qualitative methodology, supported by the phenomenological-hermeneutical method.
Regarding the interpretive paradigm, according to Escudero and Cortez (2018), it is a research approach that aims to understand and describe the subject being researched. It is a paradigm that arises as a reaction to the predictive and quantitative research model of the positivist paradigm. In other words, the interpretive paradigm interprets data and substitutes quantitative measurement. The interpretive paradigm primarily considers the subjective consciousness of both the subject being studied and the observer or researcher. This means that knowledge is generated from conscious reflection. It is a research paradigm whose use in the last two decades has been decisive in disciplines such as psychology, history, anthropology, sociology, and other social and humanistic sciences.
From the phenomenological perspective, according to Husserl (1913, 1982), the goal is to study life experiences from the subject’s perspective, embracing the analysis of the most complex aspects of human life, those that lie beyond what is quantifiable. Phenomenology constitutes a paradigm that seeks to describe the nature of things, their essence, and aims for the veracity of phenomena. Likewise, Gadamer (1960, 1993) proposes a theory of hermeneutics that does not seek to establish objectively valid rules for understanding but rather to conceive understanding itself in the broadest and deepest way possible. In this theory, the keys to understanding a text are not manipulation or control, as in the positivist scientific model, but the interpreter's participation in the interpretation and an openness to the interpretive paths to which the text leads.
The philosopher of science, Feyerabend (1975, 1992), through his methodological pluralism, raised the need for a rational examination of the ontological assumptions of scientific theories, since this would prevent them from becoming dogmas that would hinder scientific progress. Feyerabend was convinced that science could be approached by a diversity of methodologies and theories and that there is no single and absolute formula for doing science. He also postulated an epistemological anarchism, which does not seek to deny the progress of science but denies that universal truths exist independently of the subject's appreciation. Furthermore, it should be emphasized that Feyerabend (1975, 1992) wanted to bring scientific knowledge closer to other forms of knowledge. He maintained that the rationality of positivism is not superior to other traditions of knowledge, as this rationality, in itself, is merely one tradition coexisting with other ways of understanding the world, and no tradition possesses an intrinsic superiority over others. Traditions, Feyerabend explains, are neither good nor bad; they simply are. For Feyerabend, science is a myth; science is a dogma to which the positivist scientist clings.
Additionally, as Grof (1985, 2001) mentions, many of the discoveries made in various fields of science—including relativistic quantum physics, cybernetics, general systems theory, holography, and chaos theory—represent the emergence of a new paradigm in science that has undermined the main assumptions of the mechanistic view of the universe. This new paradigm is in line with observations made by transpersonal psychology.
In Chapter I, the problem statement will be addressed. This section will reflect on the problematic reality concerning the integration of ayahuasca use within a psychotherapeutic context, delimiting the problem to the Peruvian territory and to retreat centers where psychotherapists and therapists who use ayahuasca as a facilitator of psychotherapy actually work. This chapter will also formulate the research problem and objectives. The justification for the research will be presented from both a theoretical and a practical point of view. Likewise, the researcher's experience and motivation will be disclosed. Finally, the legal aspects that make the present research possible will be reviewed.
In Chapter II, the theoretical framework will be developed, which initially includes the state of the art, that is, the research background. For this, national and international research articles and theses that explore the uses of ayahuasca within therapeutic contexts have been selected, and these are qualitative in nature. Some of the selected articles and theses share the same research methodology, namely phenomenological-hermeneutical analysis. Next, the theoretical bases on which the present research is founded will be presented. The hermeneutical analysis will be carried out by considering four theoretical approaches: the first is transpersonal psychology, which emerged in the late 1960s thanks to the contribution of thinkers such as Abraham Maslow (1968, 1973), Antony Sutich (1969), and Stanislav Grof (2001). The second approach is psychedelic psychotherapy, which was widely developed in the 1960s and is currently experiencing a resurgence through various scientific investigations. The third approach resorted to is the complex psychology of C.G. Jung (1995, 2009), who, over decades, developed a theoretical framework that allows for a psychological understanding of various aspects of the deep psyche. Jung innovated different concepts that allow for the creation of a map of our psychic structure. Among the most important concepts he developed and that are used in the present research are the collective unconscious, archetypes, synchronicity, and unconscious complexes. The fourth approach that serves as a theoretical foundation is anthropological studies on shamanism, as anthropology has contributed extensively to making various cultural aspects of the use of ayahuasca by the indigenous peoples of the Amazon known to the world, and these studies have a close relationship with psychological studies on ayahuasca.
In Chapter III, a detailed description of the methodological design to be used in this research will be carried out. The approach of this research is qualitative, meaning it is a qualitative thesis conducted from a phenomenological-hermeneutical paradigm that seeks to understand the experiences and knowledge of the study subjects. It aims to understand a specific phenomenon—in this case, the integration between transpersonal psychotherapy and ayahuasca sessions—based on the narratives of key informants, who were selected due to their extensive experience and knowledge of the research topic. It is a descriptive and interpretive thesis, a cross-sectional field study. The selected data collection tool is the focused in-depth interview, and the data will be processed using the ATLAS.ti software.
In Chapter IV, the research results will be presented through categories and subcategories, in accordance with the specific objectives. The analysis allowed for an understanding of how psychotherapeutic practice is developed in retreat centers where ayahuasca is used as a facilitator in psychotherapy, and it also allowed for a description of what the work of the therapists who guide ayahuasca sessions consists of and how these sessions are conducted. Next, a discussion of the results will be presented, where the results obtained in the research will be analyzed and compared with the results of other studies that address the same research topic.
Finally, in Chapter V, the conclusions and recommendations will be presented.
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