DMT MANDALAS: how art can contribute to psychedelic therapies.

Today, in this column, we highlight another publication resulting from psychedelic research conducted by the Brain Institute (ICE) at UFRN.

The study, titled "Expressive resource in a clinical study with psychedelics: Art as an integration tool" (free translation), took place in the context of a Phase I clinical trial with DMT, a classic psychedelic, aimed at investigating the safety and therapeutic efficacy of vaporized DMT in the treatment of depression. The current article presents a theoretical discussion on the use of art as a tool to facilitate psychotherapeutic processes, with great potential for application in the integration stages of psychedelic experiences.

Integration protocols

According to the article, in the growing field of psychedelic research and therapy, integration protocols have become essential to:

• Ensure participant safety and comfort;

• Facilitate the therapeutic process.

These protocols aim to provide support to help volunteers make sense of their psychedelic experience — often characterized by ineffability, meaning the inability to translate the complexity of the experience into words.

Art, as a therapeutic resource during the integration process, aims to facilitate access to and expression of aspects of the experience that escape a linear verbal narrative.

How the research was conducted

The study involved 27 healthy volunteers who accepted the invitation to draw and paint a mandala (“sacred” or “magical circle” in Sanskrit) after the vaporized DMT session, during the integration session.

Each participant was given a set of 50 colored pencils and a square sheet of paper (45 cm) with a graphite circle in the center for the mandala drawing.

Participants were instructed by psychologists to express themselves through lines, colors, and symbols related to their experience or some aspect of it, emphasizing that the value of the activity lay in the process, not in the aesthetic quality of the final result.

A neurophenomenological approach was adopted, which did not intend to interpret the mandala but to support participants in building their own narratives relating the mandala to the psychedelic experience.

Foundations and references

The article also serves as a record of the contribution of psychology professionals to the Brain Institute’s multidisciplinary team: both Handerson Barros (first author) and Sophie Laborde base their clinical practices on Transpersonal Psychology theories, which have historically advocated the use of art techniques as psychotherapeutic tools.

Stanislav Grof, a Czech psychiatrist and pioneer in LSD research and one of the founders of Transpersonal Psychology, observed that mandalas are commonly created by individuals who have undergone intense psychedelic experiences, interpreting them as visual expressions of psychological healing and inner reorganization processes, serving as a means of integrating emotional, transpersonal, perinatal, and archetypal aspects.

Carl G. Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist who founded Depth Psychology and was a precursor to the transpersonal paradigm, is also cited as a pioneer in recognizing the psychological value of mandalas as symbolic representations of the process of inner transformation and individuation.

Although Jung did not support the therapeutic use of psychedelics, the authors also ground their practice in Jungian literature, as he not only analyzed mandalas created by patients but also produced artistic works himself as part of navigating a psychological crisis.

In conversation with Handerson, he states:"Jung did not support the use of psychedelics in the therapeutic process, but he did support the idea that the symbols emerging from subjective experience can be used in psychotherapy."

Study conclusion

The authors argue that the use of mandalas in clinical contexts involving DMT is supported by a therapeutic tradition that values symbolic imagery as a tool in the process of integration and inner transformation.

For them, the mediating function of the artistic resource:

• Enabled the expression of non-conceptual aspects of the experience;

• Favored the construction of meaning;

• Proved powerful as a tool for elaborating the ineffable, connecting the experience to discourse.

The authors now intend to apply this same protocol in other clinical research contexts, aiming to strengthen evidence for artistic resources as tools to enhance the integration process and even the therapeutic effects of psychedelic-assisted care.

The text concludes that art:"(...) by allowing the non-verbal expression of elements of the experience, acts as a facilitator in the construction of meanings: even in contexts where logical and verbal sense breaks down, the symbolic and aesthetic language of drawing enables a sensitive and coherent integration of the experience. Therefore, rather than simply representing an expressive activity, the creation of the mandala can be understood as a powerful strategy for accessing deep layers of meaning, mobilizing internal resources in an integrated and therapeutic way."