Berlowitz, Ilana; García Torres, Ernesto; Maake, Caroline; Wolf, Ursula; Wolf, Ursula; Martin-Soelch, Chantal (2023). Indigenous-Amazonian Traditional Medicine’s Usage of the Tobacco Plant: A Transdisciplinary Ethnopsychological Mixed-Methods Case Study. Plants, 12(2), p. 346. MDPI 10.3390/plants12020346
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Harmful usage of tobacco is a global public health problem associated with adverse health effects and addiction. Yet, in the Peruvian Amazon, the native region of Nicotiana rustica L., this plant is used in remarkably different manners: it is considered a potent medicinal plant, applied in liquid form for oral ingestion to treat mental health problems, a common and ancient healing practice in this region. Using a transdisciplinary field research approach with mixed ethnopsychological methods, this work aimed to report for the first time a case study in this context. The intervention took place in the Peruvian Amazon (Loreto) and involved ritual tobacco ingestion in a weeklong retreat-like frame, administered by a specialized traditional Amazonian healer. The patient was a 37-year-old woman with diagnosed mood, anxiety, and attention deficit disorders, as well as a chronic somatic condition. We applied qualitative experience-sampling during and quantitative symptom assessments pre- and post-treatment. Our findings offer a detailed description of the experiential therapeutic process during the treatment week and suggest clinically relevant improvements in patient well-being. This work is significant in view of the globally prevalent harmful uses of tobacco and the current scientific trend of revisiting herbal psychoactives (e.g., cannabis, psilocybin) for their therapeutic potentials.
Item Type: |
Journal Article (Original Article) |
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Division/Institute: |
04 Faculty of Medicine > Pre-clinic Human Medicine > BioMedical Research (DBMR) 04 Faculty of Medicine > Medical Education > Institute of Complementary and Integrative Medicine (IKIM) |
UniBE Contributor: |
Berlowitz, Ilana, Wolf, Ursula |
Subjects: |
600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health |
ISSN: |
2223-7747 |
Publisher: |
MDPI |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Maurice Gisler |
Date Deposited: |
19 Jan 2023 12:20 |
Last Modified: |
22 Jan 2023 02:16 |
Publisher DOI: |
10.3390/plants12020346 |
Additional Information: |
Ursula Wolf and Chantal Martin-Soelch contributed equally to this work. |
BORIS DOI: |
10.48350/177643 |
URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/177643 |
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