Ayahuasca-assisted meaning reconstruction therapy as an early resource for bereavement: a non-randomized clinical trial

Introduction

Soto-Angona and colleagues frame bereavement as a normal but variably prolonged response to loss, noting that a subset of bereaved people develop persistent, functionally impairing grief within the first year after the death. Earlier research has suggested that ayahuasca can induce phenomenological experiences that correlate with reductions in depressive symptoms and may support emotional processing, meaning-making, and the redefinition of attachment to the deceased. The authors note that existing early interventions have not reliably prevented Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) and that antidepressant medication lacks evidence as a standalone treatment for PGD, highlighting a gap for effective early supportive therapies that might reduce both psychological and early physical risks after bereavement. This study set out to evaluate whether an ayahuasca-assisted therapy integrated with a meaning reconstruction framework (A-MR) reduces grief severity and PGD symptoms more than the meaning reconstruction therapy alone (MR) or a no-treatment control (NT) in people who had lost a first-degree relative within the previous 12 months. The investigators also examined secondary outcomes of post-traumatic growth and quality of life, and assessed safety and tolerability. They hypothesised that A-MR would produce larger reductions in grief and PGD symptoms and greater improvements in post-traumatic growth and quality of life that would persist to a three-month follow-up.