Women's retreat · Next date to be announced
One retreat a year where every guest is a woman and the team around the ceremony is led by women: our lead provider, our psychologist, our onboarding lead and our physician. Eight places. Grief, anxiety, trauma, and the exhaustion of holding everyone else.
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A Night for No One but You
Women: the ceremony, the numbers, the research and how to prepare.
Why women come
Women arrive with different stories and the same fatigue: years of being the one who holds. The ceremony is a night where nobody needs you, and the days around it are built so that what surfaces is met, not managed.
A parent, a child, a marriage, a version of yourself. Iboga tends to bring what was unfinished to the surface with unusual gentleness. The practitioners hold the night; the psychologist helps you carry it home.
For trauma, the setting matters as much as the medicine: a women-only group, a woman beside your mat, a physician who explains everything twice. Nothing happens to you that you have not agreed to.
Sleep, heart-rate variability, cortisol, thyroid and iron are part of the diagnostic. Many women discover a body that has been running on empty for years. The three months after are for rebuilding it.
Common reasons
Some of what women carry is more common in women. About 8 in 100 women will have PTSD at some point in their life, compared with about 4 in 100 men, and sexual assault, one of the traumas most likely to lead to it, happens to women more often. In 2021, 10.3% of US women had a major depressive episode in the past year, against 6.2% of men.
None of this is a diagnosis, and you do not need one to talk to us. Below are the reasons women name most often on the discovery call. Each has its own page, with what we know, what we do not, and how the week is shaped around it.
Abuse, assault, a hard childhood, a birth that went wrong. Guests often describe seeing old scenes from a distance, as the woman they are now. Read about complex and childhood trauma and PTSD.
A parent, a partner, a pregnancy, a child. The Missoko Bwiti ceremony gives the dead a place in the night. Read about iboga for grief.
Low mood that has outlasted every reason, panic, worry that runs the day. Read about depression and anxiety, and who should wait.
Alcohol, sleeping pills, opioids, food or the phone, often hidden well. Start with alcohol, benzodiazepines, food or our medically supervised detox.
Giving too much, holding on too tight, choosing the same kind of partner. Read about love addiction and codependency, fear of abandonment and the savior complex.
When the tiredness is in the body as much as the mind. Read about our burnout retreat and the measurements around it.
Why it keeps going
Many women describe the same circle. Everyone needs something from you. You hold it all, because you can and because nobody else does. There is no time left for you, so what hurts is put away for later. Later never comes, and you run on empty until the body or the mood says stop.
The loop is not a weakness. It is a habit that once kept things running, and habits like that are hard to see from inside. What we offer is a week outside it: a night where nobody needs you, and days where what comes up has time and company.
How it works
The same loop, every day.
Everyone needs you, you hold it all, no time for you, running on empty.
In the ceremony, many guests describe stepping outside the loop and seeing where it began.
Therapy and three months of follow-up help the new path hold.
Integration calls, new habits, support at home.
Who holds it
Jenny leads the ceremony support, Tania holds the psychological arc, Lisa is your single point of contact, and Dr Villarreal clears you and leads the medical protocol. Michael, our senior practitioner, opens the ceremonies with Jenny.
Safety and privacy
Many women who come have been hurt by someone they trusted. So we say plainly how the week is held, before you ask.
Every step is explained before it happens: the medicine, the vitals, the IV line if one is needed. You can say no, ask for a pause or stop at any moment. Nothing happens to you that you have not agreed to.
On the women's retreat a woman from the team stays beside you through the night. You lie on your own mattress, with your own blanket and eye mask, and the physician stays in the palapa until morning.
You sleep alone in your room, never in a dormitory. The group is eight women. You choose what you share at the fire and in the circle, and how much. Silence is allowed.
The psychologist needs to know enough to keep you safe, not every detail. What you share with Tania stays with the clinical team. A summary goes to your own therapist only if you ask for it.
Your questionnaire, ECG and bloodwork are held to HIPAA's safeguards with a provider that has signed a Business Associate Agreement. Read what HIPAA-aligned means.
The team meets you at Cancún airport and drives you to the center, twenty minutes away. You stay at the center for the whole retreat, and we drive you back at the end.
Your body, honestly
The physician reviews every application one by one. Here is what applies to women in particular. Never stop or change a medicine on your own: tell us what you take, and the plan is made with your own doctor.
Iboga is not given during pregnancy or breastfeeding, without exception. If you might be pregnant, or are trying, tell us; the retreat waits. If you are breastfeeding, the right time is after weaning, and the physician will talk you through it.
Most hormonal contraceptives are compatible. Vomiting is common on a ceremony night, and vomiting can make the pill less reliable; US guidance from the CDC sets out what to do when it happens. Ask your prescriber which steps apply to your pill before you fly.
Your cycle is no reason to change your dates. Bring what you usually use, tell the woman beside you if you need anything in the night, and rest on the processing day. If your periods are very heavy or painful, mention it on the questionnaire.
Hormone therapy for menopause, thyroid treatment and other hormonal medicines are reviewed with the rest of your list. Most thyroid treatments are compatible. Perimenopause, hot flashes and poor sleep are worth naming too: they change how a week like this feels.
SSRIs, some other antidepressants, benzodiazepines and sleeping pills, ADHD stimulants, some antibiotics and antifungals can interact with iboga. Some need a taper planned weeks ahead with your prescribing doctor and our physician. The physician decides, not the calendar.
Iboga can slow the heart and lengthen the QT interval. Women are more often affected than men by rhythm problems linked to QT-lengthening medicines in general. That is why every guest has an ECG and bloodwork before travel and cardiac monitoring in ceremony. Read how we protect your heart.
Who it is for
Women 18 and over who feel ready to look at what they carry, with company. Women who want a group of women around them, or who would not feel safe enough in a mixed group. Women already in therapy, or willing to start it at home, who want a careful opening rather than a quick fix.
Pregnancy or breastfeeding. Active psychosis or recent mania, acute suicidality, an unstable eating disorder, or a medication that cannot be tapered in time. A heart condition needs a careful look first. If you are in danger at home right now, your safety comes first: in the US, the National Domestic Violence Hotline answers at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), or text START to 88788. The psychologist and the physician decide together, and sometimes the answer is a later date.
How it unfolds
A discovery call with Lisa or Tania, the medical questionnaire, an ECG review and bloodwork. Hormonal treatments, antidepressants and pregnancy are discussed openly with the physician; some need a plan, some are a no.
Cancún pick-up, your own room, vitals, a spiritual shower and the first fire talk. You meet the seven other women over dinner.
Two ceremonies over seven days, more on longer programs. A woman stays beside your mat, the physician stays in the palapa. Processing day in bed, integration day at the cenote with Tania.
Four calls over three months, more if you need them, your data reviewed against baseline, and a plan for sleep, boundaries and the people you go back to.
Day by day
An example. Each ceremony is a cycle of three days: the night, a processing day and an integration day. In seven days you go through it twice; ten and fourteen days add more. The team sets your own rhythm with you.
Pick-up at Cancún airport, your room, intake with the physician and vitals. The first fire talk in the evening, where you can say your intention aloud. Nothing is given on day one.
A quiet day, then the fire circle at night. The practitioner gives the root in steps and watches you before giving more. A woman stays beside your mat, the physician watches your heart on the monitor, and the ceremony runs until sunrise.
You rest in your room. Most guests stay awake and keep feeling the medicine. The team brings water, fruit and light food, and checks on you. Write down what came before it fades.
A day at the cenote with Tania and the group. What came in the night is put into words, gently, and given a place. Many women say this is the day they feel lighter.
You decide whether to take it. Guests who choose not to still take part in every other day. The second night often goes further, with what the first one opened.
Rest again, with the team nearby. Balance is unsteady for a while after a ceremony, so someone walks with you when you get up.
A last circle, then a plan with Tania for the first weeks back: sleep, boundaries, the people you go home to. The team drives you to the airport when the physician is happy you are ready to travel.
The research
The short answer: very little. Iboga is not an approved treatment for anything, and no study has looked at it for women in particular. The studies we have are small, open-label (no comparison group), and they used purified ibogaine in clinics, not the whole root bark in a Bwiti ceremony. Many of them included few women, and the best-known recent one included none.
Thirty special operations veterans with brain injuries were treated with ibogaine and magnesium in Mexico. Disability, PTSD, depression and anxiety scores improved a month later. All thirty were men, so the study tells us nothing yet about women.
An observational study of 30 people with opioid dependence treated with ibogaine: 25 men and 5 women. Withdrawal fell and drug use was lower over twelve months. Too few women to say anything about them on their own.
Fourteen people treated for opioid dependence, half of them women. Drug use and depression scores were lower at twelve months. One participant died during treatment, a reminder of why medical screening and monitoring matter.
In a 1997 study, female rats given the same dose had higher levels of ibogaine and noribogaine in the brain and blood than males, and stronger effects. Rats are not women, but it is one reason the practitioner gives the root in steps and watches each person before giving more.
In a review of 332 reported cases of a dangerous heart rhythm linked to heart medicines that lengthen the QT, 70% were women. That work was not about iboga, but iboga lengthens the QT too, which is why every woman has an ECG first and a monitor in ceremony.
The menstrual cycle, contraception, perimenopause and menopause have not been studied with iboga or ibogaine. What we share about them comes from medical caution and from our own experience, and we say so.
What guests describe since 2012, more clarity, a lighter heart, a pattern finally seen, is their experience and not a medical claim. Read ibogaine success rates and iboga vs ibogaine for the wider picture.
For the people at home
The hardest part for many women is not the ceremony. It is leaving. Children, a parent you care for, a business, a partner who is not sure. A week away is easier when it is planned.
Who has the children, who checks on your parent, who answers for work. Write it down once, so you do not carry it in your head through the week.
Share Lisa's number with the person at home who needs to reach you. If something happens, they reach the team, and the team tells you at the right moment.
On ceremony nights and processing days you will not be answering messages. Tell the people at home in advance, so silence does not worry them.
If you can, keep the first two or three days after you land light. Tired is normal. A partner or friend can join one integration call if you want them to.
If you are reading this for your mother, sister, partner or friend, the best first step is a call together: book a discovery call. We only go ahead when she wants to come for herself.
After the retreat
The week opens something. The months after decide what stays. Old roles are waiting at home, and the pull to slip back into them is strong.
Integration calls with Tania and the team over three months. What came in the ceremony, what is changing, what is hard. With your consent, a summary goes to your own therapist or doctor.
Sleep, movement, food and a few minutes a day that belong to you. Boundaries with the people who need you, practiced in small steps rather than announced all at once.
Old feelings can come back, and a drink or a pill can look tempting again. That is not failure; it is a reason to call. We agree on the warning signs and who you reach before you leave. In a crisis in the US or Canada, call or text 988.
Dates
The next date is being set. Seven, ten or fourteen days from the same arrival. Talk to Lisa to hear first when it opens. Women are welcome on every open date too; see the schedule.
We look forward to welcoming you, as you are. Thank you for trusting us with your healing.
Pricing, US dollars
All inclusive from Cancún airport: screening, ceremonies, room, meals, three months of follow-up. Apart from the deposit refunded when we cannot clear you, payments are final, see the terms. Full pricing.
Questions women ask
The eight guests, Jenny and Michael as practitioners, and the physician. On the women's retreat a woman from the team stays beside you through the night. You have your own mattress, blanket and eye mask in the palapa, and your own room to return to.
Sometimes. SSRIs and some other antidepressants interact with iboga and need a taper planned with your prescribing doctor and our physician. Most hormonal contraceptives and thyroid treatments are compatible. Tell us everything on the discovery call; the physician decides, not the calendar.
No. Iboga is not given during pregnancy or breastfeeding, without exception.
You are met at Cancún airport by our team and driven twenty minutes to the center, where you stay for the whole retreat. The center sits in a quiet fishing town on the Mayan Riviera. Lisa shares her number before you fly and stays reachable throughout.
You can stop at any moment, in ceremony or in the week. The medical team can pause a ceremony, and the practitioners never push. Guests who choose not to take the second ceremony still take part in every other day.
Your cycle is no reason to change your dates. Bring what you usually use, and tell the woman beside you if you need anything in the night. If your periods are very heavy or painful, put it on the questionnaire so the physician knows.
It can. Vomiting is common on a ceremony night, and the CDC gives specific steps to follow when you vomit while taking the pill, which depend on the kind of pill. Ask your prescriber before you fly which steps apply to yours.
Barely. The studies are small and often mostly men; the 2024 Stanford study included only men. A New Zealand study of 14 people was half women. No study has looked at iboga for women in particular, or at the cycle or menopause. We would rather tell you that than pretend otherwise.
Every guest is a woman, and the team around you is led by women. Michael, our senior practitioner, opens the ceremonies with Jenny. If that worries you, tell us on the discovery call and we will talk it through honestly.
Yes, menopause itself is not a reason to wait. Hormone therapy and any other medicines are reviewed with the rest of your list, and the heart check is the same as for every guest.
Only if you tell them. We contact the people you name, and only for what you agree to. Your medical file is kept to HIPAA's safeguards; read how we protect it.
Sources
The programSafety and medical protocolThe risks, the screening, what happens around your mat, and who we decline.11 min readMind and bodyIboga and the heartQT risk, the ECG, electrolytes and how we keep your heart safe, in one place.10 min read
The programHow it worksFrom your application to the month after you land, in eight steps.5 min read
The programThe Bwiti iboga ceremonyPreparation, the night ceremony, the processing day and integration at the cenote.7 min read
The programPreparation and continuing careHow to prepare body, mind and soul, and how to integrate afterwards.9 min read
You've carried this long enough. Start with a conversation with our medical team.
