2.4 Shamanistic aspects

The Sacred Voyage: a holotropic perspective on mental health

Rather than on targeting the negative, our operational method aims to promote the positive, which presents itself in the form of emotions, feelings, thoughts and symptoms. This holistic approach is deeply rooted in the shamanistic traditions and views, as the following excerpt from “The Shaman’s Last Apprentice” illustrates. Shaman Don Juanito:

“Disease is only a wake up call to start living.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, you see Rebekita, when we are attached to illness we only focus on disease. We forget to see life as a journey where everything is flowing in motion, so that illness and disease are actually opportunities for growth.”

“I’m still not sure I understand.”

“Disease is the spirit’s way of expressing that it is unhappy and in pain, and that it can no longer be ignored. Most people become distressed by illness, and this only increases suffering because our fear of death causes us to fear disease. We have been taught to believe that death is punishment, and if we are good people we will not get sick, or we will be cured. It is time we start to embrace death and accept it as part of the inevitable experience of life. Illness is a chance to make life changes, to start really living. It gives us the opportunity to remember what is important in our lives, to follow our dreams, to heal old wounds and say goodbye. Illness empowers the spirit to be heard and to show the way to a more fulfilling life, for however long that is.”

Further on in “The Shaman’s Last Apprentice”, the shaman says:

“The Amazonian plant, the Mother of all Medicine, Ayahuasca, will teach you to love and accept yourself. But first you must go deep within to heal your own pain and suffering. True shamans first learn to heal themselves before they can heal others. This is Ayahuasca’s gift.”

In our holistic perspective we embrace this shamanistic approach to the healing of pain and suffering, in which ayahuasca plays a major part. In our views, this approach offers openings to a better life. Instead of emphasising the negative, and attempting to eliminate it (be it with or without the use of medication), which is common in the conventional Western approach to mental health, we welcome the symptoms experienced by our clients, regarding them as an opportunity in fulfilling the act of becoming. This research project will not focus on these symptoms, stressing their possible disappearance, but will emphasise the effects of the ayahuasca experience on certain parameters associated with mental health. These parameters will be defined elsewhere.

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