harmine and Mental-Disorders

Topics: Alkaloids; Anti-Anxiety Agents; Antidepressive Agents; Antiparkinson Agents; Antipsychotic Agents; Benzodiazepines; Carbolines; Ethanol; Harmine; Humans; Indoles; Medicine, Traditional; Mental Disorders; Nervous System Diseases; Psychotropic Drugs

A multinational, collaborative, biomedical investigation of the effects of hoasca (ayahuasca), a potent concoction of plant hallucinogens, was conducted in the Brazilian Amazon during the summer of 1993. This report describes the psychological assessment of 15 long-term members of a syncretic church that utilizes hoasca as a legal, psychoactive sacrament as well as 15 matched controls with no prior history of hoasca ingestion. Measures administered to both groups included structured psychiatric diagnostic interviews, personality testing, and neuropsychological evaluation. Phenomenological assessment of the altered state experience as well as semistructured and open-ended life story interviews were conducted with the long-term use hoasca group, but not the hoasca-naive control group. Salient findings included the remission of psychopathology following the initiation of hoasca use along with no evidence of personality or cognitive deterioration. Overall assessment revealed high functional status. Implications of this unusual phenomenon and need for further investigation are discussed.

Topics: Adult; Brazil; Cognition; Hallucinogens; Harmine; Humans; Magic; Male; Medicine, Traditional; Mental Disorders; Middle Aged; Neuropsychological Tests; Personality; Plants, Medicinal; Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; Religion and Medicine; Substance-Related Disorders; Tea; Verbal Learning

Topics: Anthropology; Brazil; Hallucinogens; Harmine; Humans; Magic; Mental Disorders; Plants, Medicinal; Religion and Medicine; Social Change; Urbanization; Witchcraft

Although it has been known for many years that hallucinogenic drugs are used by witch doctors in the Peruvian jungles for therapeutic purposes, there have been no descriptions of their use. We studied one type of treatment carried out in groups of about 10 to 12 'patients', where the healer makes a magical diagnosis and provides a potion, usually ayahuasca (active hallucinogenic agent: harmine) which is drunk by the witch doctor, his assistant and the patients. The groups meet one a week in the open air in the jungle, at dawn and for an average of 5 h. The patient attends the weekly sessions until he feels well enough to leave, and only then does he pay a voluntary fee. One of our main tasks was to study the group processes.

Topics: Anxiety; Female; Harmine; Humans; Magic; Male; Medicine, Traditional; Mental Disorders; Middle Aged; Peru; Psychotherapy, Group; Time Factors

Topics: Alkaloids; Harmine; Mental Disorders; Nalorphine; Parasympatholytics; Psychotic Disorders