What is psychedelic integration therapy?

Psychedelic experiences can be like rocket fuel for personal and spiritual growth. However, for some, they are the start of a long journey of suffering, leaving in their wake a feeling of being psychologically or even spiritually wounded. For these people, attending to the psychological forces that have been set in motion with the caring support of another can make the difference between continuing to feel stuck and experiencing deep transformation.

Psychotherapy is particularly well-suited to creating a container that can nurture the process of growth and change that psychedelics so often invite, and at times, force us to participate in.

This article explores psychedelic integration therapy: how psychotherapy can help people after their psychedelic experiences to process the difficulties that they have been left with. Initially, we will explore some of the challenges psychedelics present before outlining some of the ways in which therapy can help.

Losing our stories

Psychedelics can appear to disintegrate the personal and cultural narratives through which we perceive the world, allowing us to see both ourselves and the world in new and revelatory ways. This can be a blessing, but also a curse. While it can be profoundly liberating, it can also be incredibly destabilising, leaving us without the psychological framework that supports us. Furthermore, our modern culture does not provide any narratives that address the depths of the psychedelic experience, which can leave us feeling even more adrift and alone.

In the aftermath of this dissolution process, psychotherapy can provide an ideal space to support growth and change whilst going through the temporary vacuum of meaning and heightened perception that can follow a psychedelic experience. This can be a fertile time for personal growth, but also a vulnerable time for the psyche. The support of the psychotherapy container affords the time needed in order to live alongside this uncertainty and to allow for new meanings and stories to grow organically in the place of the ones that have been dissolved.

Awakening what lurks beneath

In addition to the challenge of having previous beliefs and narratives challenged, psychedelic experiences can precipitate parts of the subconscious that may be deeply unsettling and difficult to process, such as bringing to the surface repressed traumas.

To integrate these traumatised parts of ourselves, we need to forge new relationships with them that are kind, understanding and inclusive. To begin with, we usually need to receive this kind of care from another before we can internalise it for ourselves. Psychotherapy aims to provide exactly the kind of empathic relationship and understanding needed to develop a healing relationship with trauma.

In addition to triggering conflicts from our personal subconscious, psychedelics can at times be a catalyst for bringing forth other experiences that can feel as though they come from somewhere beyond the realm of our personal psyches. These experiences often include bizarre, ecstatic or disturbingly dark elements that can be intensely overwhelming.

Indeed, there are many parallels and, at times, intersections with what we commonly call psychosis. Experiences of this intensity have been famously referred to as ‘spiritual emergencies’ by Stanislav and Christina Grof, who saw that these experiences can lead to deep and profound transformations when attended to with compassionate attention and adequate support.

In such an acute stage of ‘emergency’, help from the community or other professionals may be needed in addition to psychotherapy. For many, however, the challenges and difficulties posed by psychedelics do not present in such an acute way, but instead, accumulate in the background and need to be attended to over time in order to run their course.

In either instance, psychotherapy can provide a space where the processes that have been set in motion can be supported so that they can complete their trajectory. The psychological terrain that may be traversed during these times can be extremely challenging. However, by attending to these difficulties with awareness, compassion and the presence of another, the best conditions needed are provided for the processes of the psyche.

My personal approach is to be non-directive, trusting in the intelligence of the unconscious mind, which far exceeds our limited awareness, to be able to orchestrate and complete the process needed over time. This can be thought of in a similar way to gardening: we plant the seed, keep it at the right temperature and water it where necessary, but the intricate growth that takes place is not of our design. Rather, our role is to establish and maintain the best environment to nurture this growth, so that it can unfold as it needs.

Interpersonal work

An occasionally overlooked aspect of psychedelic integration therapy is attending to the personal and interpersonal difficulties that are so foundational to our human experience. Whilst for some, their psychedelic experiences may be very introspective, for others, the cosmic nature of their journeys may direct their attention away from the mundane interpersonal aspect of their lives.

However, either knowingly or not, often the challenges that psychedelics present us with are shaped in some way by unresolved subconscious dilemmas that originate in our early lives. This is not to say that the crises psychedelics confront us with can be reduced entirely to projections from our past. Rather, by engaging with the relational and personal dimensions of our psyche, we can deepen our psychological roots so they are better able to sustain the branches reaching ever further into the sky.

Integration is not about diminishing our experiences so that we can fit them in more easily. It is to undergo a profound process of inner transformation so that we can expand enough to include what is challenging us. It is to tend to the seeds that have been planted with time, attention and compassion, responding to a call for growth and allowing ourselves to be deeply changed.

Disclaimer: The use of many psychedelic substances is currently illegal in the UK, so neither the author nor the Counselling Directory encourage or assists with the use of psychedelics. This information is offered for integration and harm reduction purposes only.

References:

Grof, S. and Grof, C. (1989) Spiritual emergency: When personal transformation becomes a crisis. Los Angeles: Tarcher.