Psychedelic Therapy vs. Psychedelic Integration Therapy
More and more research continues to come out on the benefits of psychedelics and their implications for therapy. As exciting as this may be, we’re not yet at the point where their use within the therapeutic context is legal. This is why I do not currently provide guided psychedelic sessions as part of my services. Psychedelic Psychotherapy utilizes mind-altering substances during therapy sessions, whereas psychedelic integration therapy works to process past experiences in order to help clients extract the maximum benefit that their psychedelic experience has gifted them. Integration therapy can also aid clients in preparing for safe use of psychedelics if they feel inclined to do so on their own.
Safety and Preparations
Safety and preparation are of the utmost importance when choosing to partake in mind-altering substances. While I cannot promote use of psychedelics, I believe in autonomy and understand that people, with their inherent sense of curiosity and hunger to connect with themselves and explore their consciousness, will continue to ingest these substances despite most of them being labeled as a Schedule I “drug”.
I am also a believer in harm reduction and that psychotherapy, prior to taking a psychedelic trip, can help to maximize the experience and reduce harm. If you are considering using mind-altering substances, please feel free to contact me for therapy to explore safety, psychological and practical preparations, as well as engage in post-integration work so that you can make the most of your inner journeys.
Resources and Research
These are exciting times as interest and research are increasingly focusing on the therapeutic effects of psychedelics and plant medicines. Informing yourself about the many different mind-altering substances can greatly improve your experiences with them as well as help to de-stigmatize how society views psychedelics. In the forefront of the psychedelic movement is the organization called the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS.
“Founded in 1986, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit research and educational organization that develops medical, legal, and cultural contexts for people to benefit from the careful uses of psychedelics and marijuana.”
Books:
“Psychedelic Healing” by Neal Goldsmith Ph.D
“The Divine Spark: Psychedelics, Consciousness, and the Birth of Civilization” by Graham Hancock
“The Doors of Perception” by Aldous Huxley
“How to Change Your Mind” by Michael Pollan
Documentaries:
Neurons to Nirvana
Research:
I want to bring attention to and emphasize the mind, body, spirit connection when addressing health. It is impossible to describe health without all three.
Everything is Energy
When I teach my clients that everything is energy, this allows us to understand what is going on inside of us in a simplistic yet foundational way and allows us to understand how the unseen can impact us in a very physical and tangible way.
“There is no different between energy and matter except for the rate of motion…matter is spirit vibrating at its slowest and spirit is matter vibrating at it’s fastest”
-H.P. Blavatsky
There’s truth to these sayings we normally throw around such as “I liked their vibe” or “we just weren’t on the same wavelength”. We resonate with people vibrating at similar frequencies. When a tuning fork vibrates and there’s another tuning fork in the same room of the same frequency, that tuning fork will also vibrate. We can take these concepts and look at ourselves as this vibrating energetic being and realize we hold a lot of power.
Traumas Disrupting Our Bodies
Not only do we have a physical body, but we have an emotional, mental, and spiritual “body” as well. Our thoughts are energy, our emotions are energy, our bodies are energy, and these different parts of ourselves are deeply connected and influence one another.
We hold the energies of our traumas in our bodies. If we look closer at our body’s physiology, we can see where these unseen energies are making impact, often manifesting as physical ailments. Dr. Joe Tafur goes into detail in his book, “The Fellowship of the River”, about our emotional body and the role of our PNEI network in trauma and healing. The PNEI network is the embodiment of our emotional body, and describes the connection and impact of psychological stress on our neurology, endocrine system, and immune system. Essentially connecting our mental (mind) to our physical bodies. We can even see concepts related to this in therapeutic approaches such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for example, where it emphasizes how our thoughts impact our emotions, which in turn might drive our behavior, but digging a little deeper we see that those emotions also impact our physiology. When looking at chronic and psychosomatic illness, we can turn to this PNEI network, our emotional body, to gain a better understanding of how our emotional traumas can be at the root of chronic diseases, what Western medicine does a poor job of addressing.
“Emotion arises at the place where mind and body meet. It is the body’s reaction to your mind-or you might say, a reflection of your mind in the body”
-Eckhart Tolle
Another system within the body we can look at is the Default Mode Network, located in the brain this network appears to be more active during introspective thought and ingrained patterns of behavior. This has been said to be where our ego resides, or at least is a structural network which reflects processes related to our ego. We all have had experiences of thinking too much about the regrets of the past and the worries about the future or believing in unhelpful narrative we’ve been conditioned to believe about ourselves, this is the more unhealthy aspects of our ego. Recent research have made connections between the DMN and anxiety and depression, and fortunately more studies are also coming out around the positive impact of psychedelics and meditation on the DMN.
“Ego is simply how much conditioning runs and governs your perceptions, choices and behaviors.”
-Matt Kahn
“It is within the experience of mindful awareness that one can detach from ego identification and open to the essence of self.”
-Irene R. Siegel
art by Olga Klimova
Epigenetics
The study of epigenetics, putting it simply, is how external influences such as lifestyle habits, environmental stress etc. impact the turning “on” or “off” of our genes, and how it’s possible to pass down epigenetic changes to future generations (think intergenerational trauma). Experiencing prolonged stress or any kind of traumas can activate certain gene expressions that have been passed down from generations, which can result in health related issues such as inflammation in the body or various diseases. Spiritual healing can be seen as clearing out these accumulated energies in the body that are impacting our gene expression. Trained shamans know how to work with the emotional body to clear energies, this is where spiritual healing meets the physical.
“Spiritual healing interacts with biochemistry at the epigenetic level”
“Our epigenetic machinery does appear to respond to metaphysical intervention: love, altered states of consciousness, mystical experiences, and shamanic techniques”
-Dr. Joe Tafur, “The Fellowship of the River”
Spiritual Healing
Indigenous healers would look at today’s mental illnesses and see it as a spiritual illness, a disconnection from spirit and a disconnection from ourselves. When we really begin to understand how our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of ourselves are interconnected, we begin to see the truth in their ancient wisdom. When we experience trauma on any level, we experience disruption in all other levels.
Plant medicines and psychedelics have the potential to help us understand and process emotions, help us to discover new perspectives and shift our mindset, and help us to remember our connection to ourselves, to others, and to something greater than ourselves, bringing us back to spirit.
Our spiritual wellbeing trickles down through our energy bodies and we may find greater mental, emotional, and physical health. When our spirit body is healthy, we have the capacity to think healthier thoughts, impacting how we feel, which in turn causes less disruption to the processes in our physical body. Tapping into the wisdom of our bodies and our emotions is tapping into our spiritual nature. I think it’s important to not only work on releasing old energies holding us back, but also allowing for new and high vibratory energies to integrate in order to heal ourselves. When we allow ourselves to receive and give love and compassion, we receive medicine.
