Treatment steps

The minimum time of treatment for interned patients is between 9 and 12 months, without any contact to see their relatives the first three months. The treatment is divided in four stages:

1. Physical detoxification

The work is basically centered in the integrity and physical recovery. First of all he will have a medical evaluation, including clinical analysis, to know his state of physical health. This stage is to part with drugs of the body through purgative plants, baths with plants, saunas, massages and physical exercises, following a special diet that is also part of the therapy. The minimum time to be alone in a room to start the physical detoxification is 8 days.

This stage lasts 2 months approximately, before to do the first Diet, that is a retreat in the jungle to drink a medicinal prepared plant during 8 days with no salt and no sugar.

To cut the hair is a tradition made by the same resident patients, and all the patients must do it, without exceptions.


2. Psychic detoxification

The work of emotional cleaning is about 4 months. The therapeutical work is centered on the opening of emotions (sorrows, sadness, family resentments, inappropriate life style, etc) which are hidden in the person’s heart. These emotions are generating directly the addictive behavior without the patient be conscious of this. Also is a way to explore the inner world and research the potentialities that the person has on the inside.

Through individual and group psychological techniques, the traditional use of the plants that act on the mind and nervous system, and the diets with plants, that are every two months, which help the self-knowledge and to take consciousness of all the hidden emotions that the patient, guided by doctors, psychologists, teachers and healers, will take off (evacuate) all these negative feelings that are inside of him and they have caused the problem of drugs consume.

There are also other therapies that help in the integral healing and in the change of the life style, such as:

  • Group dynamics, that help in the dialog, the communication, the creativity, the work in group and the life together.
  • Group psychotherapy, directed to the healing of the person and collective aspects.
  • Workshops of corporal therapy, such as physic education, biodance, which look for the reconnection between the person and his sleepy body because of he ingestion of toxic substances.
  • Workshops of occupational training, like carpentry and handicrafts.

3. Family, work and social reinstatement

In this stage, it gives an individual guidance considering the characteristics and particular interests. We don’t let any patient, who has finished his treatment, goes out of Takiwasi without knowing what he will do outside. In an individual way, he will be guided to a project of life that points to a real change of life style that he was carrying it before . In this stage we also consider the spiritual stature, aspect of great importance in a process of healing, which he will respect again the nature, the life and the sacred, dimensions that were forgotten because of the lost way of drug addiction.

The patient will follow a program of departures to contact again with his family and specially with jobs. Besides the young people without any kind of education, will follow a short technical - occupational course. Takiwasi has its own bakery for the internal bread supply and to sell outside, which it is an immediate possibility to work if the patient wants to do it so he could make firm his basic expenses. Any patient is obligated to go out of the center overnight. As long as we made the external contacts, the patient still being in the center, participating of the therapies. When he definitely goes out, he will go to the center, according to a program of dates, for his following up, which form part of the fundamental stage to consolidate what he had learned during his treatment. We will also give psychological care to the patient’s wife and children.


4. Reinforcement

The center is always available to receive, for short periods, patients who has finished satisfactorily his treatment and wants to participate of a therapeutical process of reinforcement to reinforce or renew his energies, to get rid of the tensions because of the job and the daily life, to learn to solve his insecurities (with the help of the psychotherapists) and the lack of trust in his capabilities. This reinforcement includes: plants, Ayahuasca sessions, a final interview and a retreat (diet).

It is not necessary to wait for a slip or a relapse to ask for a reinforcement. During the treatment, every resident learns how to know his body and his emotions when he starts to discriminate situations that could become a crisis.

If you want to be included in this reinforcement program, you have to ask for this with anticipation, so we can prepare it without having superimposed activities.