Psychedelic Integration Therapy

Psychedelic integration therapy does not refer to ingesting legal or illegal psychedelic substances during a therapy session. It can be supportive to sit with a therapist in a safe, non-judgmental safe, confidential space to process, explore, and share challenges and insights from non-ordinary states and the potential for personal transformation that they offer. While integration therapy varies from session to session, it can often include somatic, mindfulness, art, and talk interventions. I take a harm-reduction approach to promote education and safety in the psychedelic process appreciating the value of set and setting. In 2009, I completed my dissertation on Ayahuasca as an intervention for chronic, treatment resistant depression. I understand that often, the actual experience is only the beginning of a grander process and in an effort to meaningful incorporate the insights of such an experience it can be helpful to sit with a trained practitioner. 

My training is based on an integration model called the Holistic Model for a Balanced Life and includes domains of Body, Mind, Spirit, Community (including personal relationships), and Natural Environment. The creators of this model organize integration around a three-part framework of returning from the psychedelic experience (with a focus on capturing a narrative of the experience), understanding the experience (identifying themes present within the experience and decoding the content), and implementing concrete integration practices. The model draws from interpretations of Indigenous understandings and practices. Congruent with the Holistic Model for a Balanced Life, the focus is on integrating body-centered, mind-centered, spirit-centered, community-centered, and environment-centered experiences, followed by sharing one’s transformations with the world, for the purpose of moving oneself and one’s life in the direction of holism.