Psychedelic integration refers to the process of taking insights, lessons, visions, perspective shifts, and emotional breakthroughs from a psychedelic experience and applying them to one’s daily life. This can encompass our attitudes, worldview, mental health, career, relationships, lifestyle etc.
This process of incorporating meaningful moments from a psychedelic experience into one’s life raises many questions. Some of these concerns may be pragmatic – such as trying to figure out relevant and effective life changes in light of the experience.
Other points of concern, however, may centre on ethics. For example: what role should a psychedelic therapist play in aiding a person’s integration? During the so-called ‘critical period’ (up to around four weeks post-session, corresponding to the afterglow), a person will be more susceptible to change because of increased neuroplasticity. This holds important therapeutic potential in terms of what talk therapy can achieve, but this also means that the influence of a therapist can be particularly powerful. If a therapist forces their interpretations and worldview onto the client’s experience, this can be seen as both an affront to that client’s autonomy and a kind of epistemic harm, since it frustrates the client’s capacity to make sense of his or her experiences.
These pragmatic and ethical aspects of psychedelic integration matter, especially since psychedelics are being accepted into the mental health industry, and society more generally. I hope to cover these topics in the future. But for now, I want to focus on a question that has been on my mind lately, because it seems particularly tricky to answer:
- Does psychedelic integration have an endpoint?
There are now many articles, guides, courses, workshops, support groups, and books on psychedelic integration, but what I haven’t heard discussed much, even in conversation among psychedelic users, is:
- How do you know when you have integrated a psychedelic insight?
- Can there ever be a point when you have ‘fully integrated’ a psychedelic experience?
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very true everyone should read that
You are making such an interesting point with this, I can only agree, that there should be better integration, giving a better benefit on mental health than weve seen before
Nice, text. Never thinked about it before