Integration

Integration transforms peak experiences into lasting positive change.

Integration is the process of making sense of your psilocybin experience and incorporating the insights, emotions, and perspectives you gained into your daily life.

While the journey day provides profound experiences and realizations, integration is where the real therapeutic work happens. Without proper integration, insights can fade or feel disconnected from everyday reality.

Through structured integration sessions, we help you understand what occurred during your journey, identify meaningful themes, and develop practical ways to embody new perspectives in your relationships, work, and personal growth.

Integration typically begins within 1-3 days after your journey day with an initial processing session while the experience is still fresh. The goal is to maintain momentum while allowing time for insights to naturally unfold in your life.

Most clients benefit from 4-8 integration sessions over the following 6-12 weeks, though this varies based on individual needs and the depth of your experience. Some clients prefer intensive weekly sessions initially, then space them out, while others benefit from consistent bi-weekly meetings.

No need to think about scheduling these out quite yet - your journey will partially determine your integration work, and we'll work together to determine the right frequency and duration for your integration process.

Integration sessions combine traditional talk therapy with specialized techniques for processing psychedelic experiences.

We'll explore the content of your journey, identify key insights or revelations, and examine how they relate to your therapeutic goals.

Sessions might include artwork, journaling, guided meditation, or body-based practices to help access and integrate non-verbal aspects of your experience.

We'll also address any challenging material that arose and work on practical applications of insights.

Each integration session builds on the previous one, creating a coherent narrative of your healing journey and sustainable change strategies.

It's completely normal for journey experiences to feel fragmented, symbolic, or difficult to put into words immediately afterward. This can actually be a good sign for lasting change! Research reliably suggests the more mystical, hard-to-describe journeys tend to have long-lasting positive therapeutic and spiritual significance (see Griffiths et al., 2008)

We use various techniques to help you access and understand your experience, including guided reflection, creative expression, and somatic awareness practices.

Memory of psychedelic experiences often returns in waves, and some aspects may only become clear through the integration process itself. Sometimes the most important insights aren't the dramatic revelations but subtle shifts in feeling or perspective that emerge gradually.

Trust that your psyche will reveal what you're ready to integrate when you're ready to receive it.

This is the heart of integration work.

We'll identify specific insights or shifts in perspective from your journey and collaboratively develop concrete strategies for implementing them. This might involve changing communication patterns in relationships, setting new boundaries, pursuing different life directions, or developing healthier coping mechanisms.

We'll practice new behaviors in session, anticipate challenges you might face, and create accountability structures.

Integration isn't about forcing change, but rather about creating conditions for natural, sustainable transformation based on your authentic insights and values.

Yes, increased emotional sensitivity and feeling "different" is very common in the hours, days and weeks following a psilocybin experience. Many clients report feeling more open, empathetic, or emotionally available (lovingly termed, “cracked open”), while others might feel more sensitive to stress or overwhelmed by previously manageable situations.

These changes typically stabilize as integration progresses, but we'll work together to navigate this transitional period. We'll develop strategies for managing increased sensitivity while honoring the positive aspects of your newfound emotional awareness. After all, this heightened sensitivity often reflects meaningful shifts in your emotional processing and capacity for connection.

Continued processing of difficult material is a natural part of the healing journey and often indicates that meaningful therapeutic work is occurring.

Your psilocybin experience may have opened access to emotions or memories that need ongoing attention and support.

Integration sessions provide a safe space to process these experiences with professional guidance. We'll use trauma-informed approaches when needed and may incorporate additional therapeutic techniques like EMDR or somatic work.

Remember that working through challenging material, while uncomfortable, often leads to the most profound healing and growth.

Successful integration typically shows up as gradual, sustainable changes in how you think, feel, and behave in daily life. Changes are often subtle at first—perhaps responding to stress differently, feeling more compassionate toward yourself, or having clarity about life directions.

You might ultimately notice improved relationships, better emotional regulation, clearer decision-making, or a stronger sense of purpose and authenticity.

We'll regularly assess your progress together, celebrating small wins and adjusting our approach as needed.

The goal isn't dramatic transformation overnight, but meaningful, lasting change that aligns with your authentic self and values.

Many couples discover new levels of intimacy and understanding through sharing their journey insights in a structured, therapeutic setting.

Couples integration involves processing both your individual journey experiences and the shared aspects of your psychedelic session together. We'll explore how each partner's insights relate to your relationship dynamics, communication patterns, and shared goals.

Sessions balance individual processing time with joint exploration of how your experiences can strengthen your partnership. You'll learn to hold space for each other's unique insights while identifying common themes and mutual growth opportunities.

We'll also work to address any discrepancies in your experiences and help you support each other's individual integration process.

Group integration sessions bring together participants who journeyed in the same small group setting, creating a unique opportunity for collective processing and mutual support.

These sessions combine individual sharing time with group discussion of common themes, challenges, and insights.

The group dynamic often helps participants remember aspects of their experience they might have forgotten and provides validation for shared realizations. Members support each other's integration process, offer different perspectives on similar experiences, and create accountability for implementing insights.

Group integration can reduce isolation, normalize the range of psychedelic experiences, and foster lasting connections with others committed to personal growth and healing.

In addition, many experienced facilitators like to say that mushrooms grow together in community, and they like to be eaten in community, and some of the best communal healing happens when these conditions are created!