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social ties and support from a community. These rituals provide just that. Additionally, “the patient's story and

what he thinks may be wrong with him are significant” (Cloudsley, 1999, p. 68). This validation of the

individual’s concerns and experiences can help support the person on a path to healing. Built into rituals’

structure are aspects that can help treat mental illness.

PSYCHOTROPIC PLANTS

Andean shamans are well-known throughout the world for their use of psychotropic plants to help commune

with spirits and other realities. However, these are also healing practices. It may seem counterintuitive for

someone with a mental health disorder to take hallucinogenic substances, but it is effective for the indigenous

people of the Andes. One of the common psychotropic plants used is the San Pedro cactus:

Throughout the north, a medicine prepared from the psycho-active San Pedro cactus is taken by the curandero

and all his patients at the beginning of the mesa. A mild dose has gentle hypnotic effects as though one is

being wakened in a dream. It is both sensitising and calming. (Cloudsley, 1999, p. 67)

This calming and peaceful experience could potentially help those with anxiety and depression. In modern

medicine, psychotherapists utilize hypnosis; this is also getting someone to a trance state, just through

different methods. The other well-known and frequently used psychotropic plant is ayahuasca. Ayahuasca is

made from the ayahuasca and chakuna plants; it is used to have hallucinations and be put in a trance state.

Ayahuasca has helped shamans connect to the other side for many years within different jungle tribes in the

Amazon. While some may be fearful of using a hallucinogenic as frequently as certain tribes do,

results indicate that, aside from the chronic use of ayahuasca not causing any kind of problem, it probably

brings benefits, acting as a factor of psychopathological and neuropsychological protection. We need urgently

to develop clinical protocols to investigate the therapeutic potential of ayahuasca. (Labate, 2010, p. 41)

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