"Psychologization of spirituality": crosses between psychology, Amazonian vegetalism and anthropology in a Community and Therapeutic Center of the city of Buenos Aires

Abstract

This work explores how ayahuasca ceremonies have been appropriated by a Community and Therapeutic Center of Buenos Aires City that highlights the healing/psychotherapeutic effects of the ayahuasca. To account these effects I will use the concept of "psychologization of religion" by Pablo Semán (2000) but changing "religion" to "spirituality". Although it is not a group that defines itself as religious, there is a concern for "spirituality". On the other hand, these healing effects do not appear as mere "beliefs" or "representations" but arise from experience, from a situation of encounter between humans and the ayahuasca plant. Starting from the "native theories" and from my own immersion in the field work, I will try to show how the human-non-human relationship constructs a way of thinking the “self” from the native category of “el sentir”.