The research by Tsang, psychiatrist Simon Ruffell and psychopharmacologist Nige Netzband took place at The Ayahuasca Foundation on a national reserve in the Amazon jungle, near Iquitos in Peru.

The centre, recently featured on Netflix’s Down to Earth with Zac Efron, when the actor paid a visit, has been closed for much of the year due to the coronavirus after Peru shut its borders.

Mental health breakthroughs achieved on plant medicine retreats

The published study found a 12-day ayahuasca retreat led to significant reductions in neuroticism, a propensity towards anxiety, negativity, and self-doubt, levels of which remained stable in the short term and after a six-month follow-up without further use of the brew.

What makes this research different from most is that it was the first to be done in a ceremonial setting, not a church-based or laboratory one. A local healer, known as a shaman or curandero, performs the ceremonies in the tradition of the indigenous Shipibo-Conibo people who live in the Amazon region.

“Conducting this research within the safeguards of a traditional Amazonian setting was key,” says Tsang.

“Participants consume the brew in a sacred maloka [traditional hut] while a shaman sings icaros [traditional medicine songs]. There are buckets where people can purge – which is embraced as part of the therapeutic process.” Purges from drinking ayahuasca can involve vomiting, crying, and occasionally diarrhoea. Others experiences include euphoria, anxiety, and enhanced introspection with intense visual and auditory hallucinations.

Since their research, the team has been awarded funding by the British government and Medical Research Council to further investigate the use of ayahuasca to treat childhood trauma and related conditions, and look into accompanying DNA changes and epigenetics (the study of how your behaviours and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes function).

The study is being reviewed and is due for publication next year. Several other projects are under way – among them exploring ayahuasca’s use to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in war veterans.

Tsang says that, while a growing number of people are seeking alternative treatments after exhausting mainstream options, the business of ayahuasca is a double-edged sword.

“Ayahuasca tourism has the potential for exploitation – monetary, sexual and otherwise. People have to do their homework,” he says.

Although ayahuasca itself has a good safety profile, less is known about how it interacts with other drugs. Negative drug interactions have led to the deaths of some “ayahuasca tourists”. Before they are accepted into retreats, people must undergo a two-week “washout” period, coming off existing prescribed and non-prescribed substances and medications.

Psychedelic-assisted therapy is not new. In the 1950s and ’60s, clinical research in the United States was heading in a positive direction until the government launched its “war on drugs” in the 1970s, driven by policies that discouraged the production, distribution, and consumption of psychoactive drugs. Clinical research was shelved, only to make a comeback in recent years – with major developments emerging.

This month researchers from the Complutense University of Madrid in Spain found that drinking ayahuasca contributes to the formation of new neurons, the cells that make up the brain and the nervous system, enabling communication and reconciliation between parts of the brain that do not normally exchange information. Experts believe these effects facilitate neurological healing.

In April last year, Imperial College London launched the first formal centre for psychedelic research. In the US, the Psychedelic Medicine Association – a society of doctors, therapists, and health care professionals – was recently launched.

Mind Medicine Australia is also part of the movement. The charity advocates regulatory-approved and research-backed medicine-assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of mental health. It is much needed.

“Australia is experiencing a mental health crisis, and new and innovative ways are needed in the treatment,” says Mind Medicine Australia executive director Tania de Jong.

Mental illness is a global problem: one in four people in the world will be affected by mental or neurological disorders at some point in their life, according to the World Health Organisation.

De Jong says Mind Medicine Australia’s focus is wholly clinical, with specific attention paid to the clinical application of medicinal psilocybin and MDMA.

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“Unlike conventional treatments, which often require patients to endure years of daily medications and weekly support from a mental health professional, medicine-assisted psychotherapy using these medicines can be effective after just two to three clinically supervised sessions. The medicines are safe and non-addictive when administered within a medically controlled environment.”