A longitudinal study of people attending ayahuasca retreats found that those with higher levels of resilience before the retreat tended to report somewhat more intense challenging experiences during their ayahuasca ceremonies. More resilient participants also showed a stronger link between these difficult experiences and searching for meaning in life a month later. The paper was published in Psychedelic Medicine.
Ayahuasca is a psychoactive brew traditionally used by Indigenous communities in the Amazon for religious, spiritual, and therapeutic purposes. Its acute effects can include mystical experiences and psychological insights, but also difficult physical symptoms such as nausea and vomiting and emotional reactions such as fear, paranoia, or distressing hallucinations. These adverse experiences are referred to as challenges or challenging experiences.
People vary considerably in how they interpret these challenging experiences. Some describe them as harmful “bad trips,” while others view them as meaningful parts of healing or spiritual transformation. Individual characteristics such as age, previous psychedelic experience, motivation, mindset, and psychological state can influence both the immediate experience and its longer-term effects. The social and environmental settings in which ayahuasca is consumed can also shape its psychological impact.
In this context, resilience, a person’s capacity to adapt positively and recover when confronted with stressful or difficult experiences, might be particularly important. People with greater resilience might be better able to engage constructively with difficult emotions and experiences during ayahuasca use, potentially influencing whether challenging psychedelic effects ultimately contribute to positive psychospiritual outcomes.
Study author Yitong Xin and colleagues explored whether the acute effects of ayahuasca, and particularly its challenging effects, depend on a person’s resilience. More specifically, they examined the associations between resilience measured at the start of an ayahuasca retreat and acute challenging experiences reported at the end of the retreat, as well as whether resilience moderates the relationship between these experiences and psychospiritual outcomes reported 1 month after the retreat.
Data were collected between August 2022 and August 2023 at two Soltara Healing Center retreat locations, in Costa Rica and Peru. A representative of the Soltara Healing Center helped the researchers recruit participants. Of the 291 retreat guests who met the study criteria, 267 enrolled and completed a survey at the start of the retreat. Of these, 247 also completed the survey at the end of the retreat, and 233 completed it 1 month after the retreat. Participants’ average age was 41 years, and 56% were women. Most were White (83%), lived in North America (87%), and had a college education (95%).
In the surveys, study participants reported their demographic data and completed assessments of resilience (the Resilience Scale for Adults), challenging ayahuasca experiences (the Challenging Experience Questionnaire, the Ayahuasca Experience Inventory-Discomfort Subscale, and the Ayahuasca Purging Experience), meaning in life (the Meaning in Life Questionnaire), and personality (the Big Five Inventory-10). Study participants also reported on their previous use of psychedelic compounds and completed a questionnaire assessing the effects of the setting on them during the ayahuasca experience.
Results showed that 79% of participants had past experience with psychedelics, while 22% had used ayahuasca before. More than half of the participants reported at least moderately intense challenging experiences such as feelings that led to crying, body shaking or trembling, emotional or physical suffering, feelings of grief, and heart palpitations. In contrast, fewer than 5% of participants reported feeling that people were plotting against them. Nearly three-quarters of participants reported at least moderate exhaustion after taking ayahuasca.
Individuals with higher neuroticism (i.e., lower emotional stability) tended to report somewhat stronger acute challenging experiences. More resilient individuals also tended to report somewhat more intense acute challenging experiences.
Additionally, resilience measured at the start of the retreat moderated the link between challenging ayahuasca experiences and searching for meaning in life. More specifically, the more resilient a person was, the stronger the association between having an intense challenging experience and searching for meaning 1 month after the retreat. The same was true for uncomfortable ayahuasca-related experiences: their association with searching for meaning in life was stronger in more resilient participants. However, resilience did not moderate the links between these experiences and the presence of meaning in life, that is, the sense that one’s life already feels meaningful.
“Findings from this study contribute to our understanding of ayahuasca effects and resilience, highlighting ayahuasca’s therapeutic potential from a resilience standpoint. Evidence from this study could be used by mental health providers in support of preparation or integration therapy practices for individuals who seek out help following their ayahuasca retreat experience or those who are interested in attending retreats,” the study authors concluded.
The study contributes to the scientific understanding of ayahuasca experiences. However, it should be noted that the design of the study does not allow any definitive causal inferences to be drawn from the results. In addition, participants were predominantly White, college-educated, North American, and relatively affluent, and all attended retreats run by a single provider, so the findings may not generalize to other populations or settings.
The paper, “Baseline Resilience as a Predictor of Ayahuasca Acute Effects and Moderator of the Relationship between Acute Effects and Psychospiritual Outcomes,” was authored by Yitong Xin, Alan K. Davis, Susan Yoon, and Mo Yee Lee.