Roughly a third of the applications we read list an SSRI or SNRI. If that is you, nothing about it disqualifies you from this work, but it does start a conversation that cannot be skipped, rushed, or settled by a blog post, including this one. What we can do here is lay out why the question is serious, what the research actually shows, and what a responsible process looks like from the inside.
Why the combination is taken seriously
Ayahuasca works because the Banisteriopsis caapi vine contains harmala alkaloids, reversible monoamine oxidase inhibitors, which allow the DMT in chacruna leaf to survive digestion. That same MAO inhibition slows the breakdown of serotonin. An SSRI, by design, raises serotonin availability too. Stack the two and you are pressing on the same system from both sides; the theoretical endpoint is serotonin syndrome, which is rare but genuinely dangerous. The concern is not retreat-industry folklore: it was set out in the clinical literature decades ago, most cited in Callaway and Grob’s 1998 paper on ayahuasca and SSRI interactions, and it is why this question sits at the top of our application rather than in the fine print.
What the research does not support is the one-size-fits-all rule you will find on many retreat websites, “stop your SSRI two weeks before.” Half-lives differ enormously: fluoxetine’s active metabolite lingers for weeks, sertraline clears far faster, and discontinuation effects have their own timeline and their own risks. A review of the interaction literature, such as the material collected by ICEERS in its ayahuasca safety pages, points the same direction: the decision is individual, and the person qualified to plan a taper is the prescriber who knows your history, not a retreat center.
What our screening does with your answer
When your application lists an SSRI, three things happen in order. First, our physician reads the full file, dose, duration, what the medication is doing for you, and your psychiatric history, because whether to taper at all is a bigger question than how. Second, if a taper is medically reasonable, it is planned with your own prescriber on their clock; we move your retreat week rather than compress a taper, every time, and we explain how that works in the screening section of our application. Third, if the honest answer is that coming off your medication is the wrong trade for you right now, we decline in writing, with the reason and a referral list, that outcome is one of the commonest behind the one-in-five figure we publish.
One more thing the research is clear about: never taper alone, and never quietly. Guests occasionally consider stopping medication without telling anyone in order to pass screening. Every layer of this system exists to make that unnecessary, tell us, tell your prescriber, and let the timeline be what it needs to be. The medication conversation also does not end when the retreat does; it is part of the year of integration calls, and of the first month home, which we wrote about separately.
We make no medical claims. Ayahuasca is not a treatment for any condition, and nothing in this article is medical advice or a substitute for your prescriber’s judgment. MAOI medication of any kind is a full stop. Every place at this center is confirmed only after physician review.