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CIERA - Integrative Study and Research Centre for Therapeutic Use of Ayahuasca “House for therapy”

Abstract

We have the plan to open up an integrative centre of care on the Canton of Vaud focused on manual therapy and physical therapy in a context of traditional Amazonian care with Ayahuasca drink. Many scientific publications describe the therapeutic use of Ayahuasca as a means of facilitating states of meditation and interception leading to a decrease in addictive behaviour, improved mood disorders, decreased chronic pain, improved bio-psychosocial behaviour. The consumption of this drink is now experiencing a strong enthusiasm in Europe and Switzerland. However, in the absence of control over its administrative arrangements (drinking composition, routing, quality and ethical framework of organisers) there would be a risk of disregarding the potential therapeutic effects of this drink, as well as disregard the potential iatrogenic effects of its use with participants in public health. For therapeutic, ethical and adapted use in our European context, the cantonal commission on ethics for human research will be asked to keep the entire biomedical data of each patient in our integrative centre for descriptive or epidemiological studies anonymously. The aim is to analyse in an objective manner the already documented therapeutic effects related to this type of approach and to study potential risks, despite the lack of documented contraindications and risks. This centre will first offer between six and eight sessions of two days of work per year, in a rental centre with hotel reception. Before, during and after each session, patient medical and paramedical monitoring and research protocols will be established through individual interviews conducted outside the centre and anonymized self-questionnaires. This will allow us to monitor our results with those of studies already carried out and published on the physical and behavioural benefits related to this type of care, as well as an assessment of possible side effects and/or iatrogen effects. Care sessions will be held in a traditional ritual setting suited to the European context, with the aim of including the perception of a form of sacred respect for the beliefs of each person related to the ritual use of this plant in South America, in addition to current care and manual therapy. Several partnerships have already been established: - for the therapeutic part with doctors and osteopaths who have been practising these traditional approaches for several years in the Amazon and the Netherlands where they are legalized for religious use in the Santo Daime and certain shamanic ceremonies, - for the traditional part with representatives of the largest tribes of the native Amazon people who are practising this type of care. They take respective stays between Peru and Brazil and Europe and who officially mandated the people we are already working with in Holland for the therapeutic use of Ayahuasca according to their technical and ethical lessons. - for the scientific side with the collaboration of international scientific researchers who publish around the therapeutic use of Ayahuasca and who will be part of the Scientific Committee, including through the International Center for Ethnobotanical Education Research & Services, www.iceers.org ). Other potential partnerships that may be established to monitor patients and also propose research projects are subject to the opening authorisation of this centre and therefore the positioning of the cantonal physician: we have the objective of reserving first our approach to the following indications: 1/ chronic pain, 2/ addiction including tobacco, 3/ mood disorders involving bio-psychosocial risks. We would like to present our approach to anti-addictive centres such as the Swiss Society of Addiction Medicine (SSMA) and the multidisciplinary pain-reduction centres in Lausanne, among other things. We also wish to get closer to the psychiatry service of the University Hospital Centre Vaudois (CHUV) for research in the field of addiction.