Hello and welcome back to Psychedelic Therapy Frontiers, the podcast devoted to exploring the frontiers of psychedelic medicine and what it takes to cultivate healthy mind, body, and spirit. As always, psychedelic therapy frontiers is brought to you by Numinus. I'm Dr. Steve Thayer, and today in my co-host, Dr. Reed Robinson and I, talk about how to integrate a challenging psychedelic experience. You may have heard the term bad trip used before
in reference to challenging psychedelic experiences. We thought it might be useful to discuss this phenomenon and what one might do to successfully integrate a challenging psychedelic experience. So in this episode, we discuss what the integration process typically entails, some recent research on integration, what can make a psychedelic experience challenging to integrate, how the preparation process affects the integration process, special tips for integrating, challenging
psychedelic experiences, and much more. If you announce this for you, before we get into the episode, if you're looking for professional training pursuant to becoming a psychedelic assisted practitioner, please check out the courses we offer here at Numinus. You can click on the link in the show notes or go directly to Numinus.com forward slash training, and you can use the code ptf10 for 10% off selected trainings. You here, Reed and I talk a lot about
the psychedelic clinical trial work that Numinus does. If you or someone you know is interested in being a participant in a psychedelic clinical trial, you can click on the link in the show notes or go directly to Numinus.com forward slash research to learn more about the trials we're currently running. If you'd like to support our show, you can do so by leaving us a reading or review in places like Apple podcasts or Spotify. If you're watching on YouTube,
you can like the video, subscribe to the channel, leave us a comment. Without further ado, here is our conversation today about integrating challenging psychedelic experiences. Here we are again, another episode of psychedelic therapy frontiers. Reed, where are you right now? I am in Miami. I could turn my screen around and show you the view, but I already did that and I won't let that up. But yeah, I'm at the American Society for Clinical Psychopharmacology,
annual meeting. Oh, fancy. Yeah, it's basically where all the psychiatry clinical trials people gather. I enjoy it. I have a poster here with our friends and colleagues at MindBad on the LSD study we did and a bunch of fun meetings coming up. Before you get off to your fun meetings, we thought we would record a quick podcast. We're talking about integration again today. We were discussing what to cover. We reflected
that we talk about integration quite a bit. This is the psychedelic therapy frontiers podcast after all. We talked about integration being a very, very important part of this process when you have a psychedelic experience that could be potentially life altering. So we thought we'd talk a bit about integration, just per review and maybe add some updated information on what integration is. But more particularly talking about how to integrate
a challenging psychedelic experience. Because we get that question a lot from our clients and from our listeners. The so-called good ones aren't that tough to integrate and make meaning out of, but the challenging ones are more challenging. They don't make it into clinic or to see us, for example, if it's not very challenging, if it's easy, easy, and easy integration. But Steve, what do you think of the term integration?
It's been around a while. It's almost part of our everyday lexicon outside of psychedelic circles, outside of clinic, outside of the underground. It's almost part of this narrative that, yeah, you have to integrate. But what do you think of the term? I still like it because to me, the term integration taken literally, like you've had this experience that by itself, it might not be immediately clear on what it has to do with your everyday
life. So now you're called upon to actually make it part of your everyday life or leverage it for change. Most, a lot of us, especially if you're coming to somebody for psychedelic assisted therapy, are looking to make changes. You're looking to get insights into patterns or problems or situations that have perturbed you. So I think it's a good term. It is face valid, right? When you think of the word integration, it kind of makes sense. What it means.
How do I shoehorn this in or puzzle piece it into my life or change my life as a result of your psychedelic experience? So I don't know. What do you think about integration? I like it as well. I like that it is intuitive and was pre-existing, meaning like Dan Siegel, neurobiologist, would talk about integration in his mindfulness and therapy, books and teachings. It would say it's integration is this unifying of previously disconnected parts,
reconnecting them, if you will. Reflecting on my IFS trainings, integration shows up in that framework as well. Bringing all the parts in this loving way back into the light and compassion, integrating them if you will. But one caveat I think is there's a risk of adopting this narrative or assumption that psychedelics will reveal wisdom and insight that need to be learned and incorporated. Bad integration means you didn't heed the lessons
or the medicine or you failed to become whole. Things like that. But I don't think that specific to the term. I think that's just a reminder of the open-mindedness that we all need going into this topic. Yeah. That attitude that you described can be what makes a psychedelic
experience challenging. If you come to it with this attitude that I must get the answer from the oracle and it's this riddle that I've been given that I need to find the answer to, it can set up some expectations that if aren't met, can lead to some confusion, some disappointment, some destabilization after a psychedelic experience. Yeah. And it's certainly been interesting to see it progress, right? The term has been
I think a soft landing in the field. But we're still at a place in our understanding of this part of the universe, like most things in the universe that we don't have all the answers. And I think the more it gets, it shows up in the literature, the more we have common terms, the more we have some models that have been described, the more we can test them, the more clinical trials that are being done, like look at a Yale study on psilocybin for depression
where they put out an integration manual using ACT, for example. So there, that's not testing ACT integration versus the maps, interhealing intelligence, that kind of approach, it's not comparing those. And we hope that'll happen one day and that's, you can see early signs of it. But I think we're still in the wild west in terms of how to integrate. And you'll get as many approaches to integration as there are therapists and coaches out there in
the universe, right? Right. Yeah, there seem to be some common themes often. But yeah. And of course, a lot of what informs integration in the clinical trial world or the modern quote unquote, Western clinic world are the, it's the wisdom from indigenous cultures that have been doing psychedelic work, whether it's medicine or ceremonial work, especially integration as it relates to like connection with community and existential questions, rights
of passage, spiritual transformation. So you see that a little bit in some of the maps work, like you mentioned with, you know, connecting with and following the interhealing force or interhealing intelligence, or maybe an integration process like you described based in IFS, where you're trying to connect with the capital S self or transcend itself. Yeah. So there, because we live in this world of like you and I are in the clinic and
in the research space. And of course, touch into, you know, the retreat world and like the ceremonial approaches to this, but, but we're focused day to day on how to weave this
into like everyday health care, if you will, or everyday life in the Western world. And of course, we draw on this wisdom, this age old wisdom, but to get it through, to jump through the right hoops and get something approved and covered by insurance and all those other things, we do need common terms and we do need evidence to support it and all that stuff. But one thing I came across recently, because now we're finally seeing a lot of
papers on integration. Like I've just noticed the past couple of years, there's been a nice little spike, lots of different models described, et cetera. But one thing out of Yadon's group was how do we, how do we measure and track integration? I think it's a helpful way to look at it because that group made the psychedelic integration scales and specifically the integration
engagement scale and the experienced integration scale. You know, we could, we could dive into those if you want, but, but I'd bring them up because it highlights two things for me of, to integrate, we need engagement. Like our clients need to engage with it. They need to be active participants in it. They need to actually do the reflecting the journaling, the XYZ things we'll talk about. And then two, you need the application of it. You need
to act on it, apply it in your life. So that's the kind of the first part of it. The second is why, why do we do this? What's the angle? And, and that paper describes three kind of domains of integration success, if you will, the measure, feeling settled, feeling harmonized and feeling improved. Yeah. So through the lens of what makes a psychedelic integration process challenging, you could imagine it being challenging any one of those domains, right? Unsettled. You're
not experiencing the improvement. Yeah. Especially the unsettled, I think that would be where, like in the aftermath of an acute dosing day experience or ceremony experience, where your ego may have dissolved, you may have come across all this stuff in your shadow work closets that you're feeling a bit overwhelmed by. And that's been, I think, a relatively common theme among, among difficult experiences is like nervous system dysregulation afterwards.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Agreed. Yeah. So there, and there's a lot of things that can come up, right? That make a psychedelic experience challenging to integrate, we're just challenging to be old and, and move through. So there's the, what you described, what makes a person feel unstable or unsettled, right? The snow globe has been shaken so violently that you're just in the, in the
blizzard now. And there might be a sense of self that you that dissolved, like you said, there might be really, really intense emotions that are person experiences, intense sadness, intense fear, even intense so-called positive emotions that are difficult to make sense of, especially if they're all happening at once, right? You get this emotional ability in going to
and fro. Yeah, they can be confusing, they can be destabilizing, even the, when you catalyze radical changes in life, and we've talked about this before, that can be very disruptive in one's life. Like, you know, the quicker you change the more there are shockwaves running through your circles of people and life that you interact with or how it was before. Yeah, and I was thinking about sort of the different categories that make an experience
challenging. That was one of them. It's maybe it's challenging because of the implications of your experience. So as I think you've said, change can be disruptive or healing can be disruptive. So maybe you're coming out of a psychedelic experience a little unmoored and what you have this sense like, oh no, I feel like I've been called upon where I've gotten insights related to this need to change relationship or to change my career, to change my life trajectory. I don't know if
it's quote unquote true. Is that what I need to do or I feel like it is what I need to do? And I don't know if I really want to do it. Now that I'm back on solid ground and trying to integrate this experience, can be really intimidating. Yeah, yeah, overwhelming. And that's where the confusing part. So you say you're destabilized, your nervous system is frazzled, if you will. And you might be confused feeling discombobulated, where do I begin, what do I do, how do I,
what do I do with this? Is another big chunk of the challenging experience, I think. And the disruption, the shock waves in your life, the disruption of unconscious contracts that you have or had before with all these humans in your life, especially the close relationship. Like if you don't sit down with your intimate partner, your close family members and say, you know, this is, if it feels safe to do so, this is what I've, what I've been working on and
going through and how I'm trying to show up in a new way. And I would love your support to smooth it. It can be, you know, you could have all sorts of other resistance that shows up as you, you know, walk through life as a changed human or try to. So that makes me think of a, some advice that is often given to people when they're seeking for help, integrating a challenging experience. And it's often something like psychedelics don't give you always what you want,
they give you the experience that you need. What do you think about that particular advice or that perspective? Yeah, I think so it's, it's interesting. I was in an Iowaska ceremony years ago where the shaman was from an interesting lineage that had ties to some Brazil Iowaska circles. And she, I remember it very clearly. She used cannabis to close the ceremony and it was a really fascinating thing. And she said something about cannabis there. It said cannabis
gives you what you want, not what you need. And I think that, you know, it's a riddle and it's not literally easy to interpret or would be highly debatable. But I think the same could apply to any substances. It depends on your intention. You can use things just as an escape. You can use things to go on a different channel of consciousness for a minute and come right back. And that maybe what you wanted, not what you needed. For example. Yeah. And so I'm curious about the opposite of
giving it what you need and not what you want, right? Because I get it that it's a heuristic that can help somebody open up to a very difficult experience, or I'm trouble making sense of. But I can also imagine a person getting stuck in that, right? Okay. So apparently no matter what happens, I should be able to make use of this, right? It gave me what I needed, even though I didn't want it. I was resisting it or whatever. It was really difficult. So now I've got to figure out
why I needed it. Do they give you what you need, not what you want? Yeah. Yeah. And it's just, I bring up that other example because you could, it's kind of the other side of that debate in a way. But I also can get heavily behind, you know, the fact that when you go into a psychedelic experience, you sign on for the ride. You don't sign on for the specific, you know, direction of your rollercoaster
ride or where it's going to go or what's going to come up. You can influence it, set in setting and um, tilling the soil and planting seeds of intention, have an influence, but, uh, but you've surrendered and you don't know what's going to come up. And does it give you what you need? Uh, I think that's a
risky thing to say universally it would. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it makes me wonder risky how. And one of the reasons that might be risky is perhaps it's the case that some psychedelic experiences are just trippy, weird, drug-induced experiences. And we've talked about before, like sometimes a psychedelic experience can be traumatic, right? It's not always, it's not healing all the way down for everybody.
And so I don't know, I think it might be important to at least have that in your mind as a possibility while you're working with a community or a loved one or a therapist or a coach or, you know, a facilitator, um, to allow that to be possible because sometimes if you're fixated on, I have to make sense at this experience because I've been told, you know, they'll, you know, psychedelics only give you what you need, sometimes not what you want. Um, then I might be doing myself a
disservice. I might be trying to dig for gold whether where there is no gold and wasting effort or,
you know, beating myself up as we're not finding the gold. Yeah. So I, again, I love the adage, but it reminds me of the personalized nature of supporting people through their experience and especially, well, and including the integration because someone may need a reminder to, you know, surrender and, and let it take you to places you would not maybe set your intention to, but, but that you're, you know, your higher self, if you will, knows you need to work on and
in the right, uh, safe container and with the right catalyst on board, it might come up. But, uh, also on the flip side of that, some people, some people, psychedelic experiences were just pointless, trivial fun, uh, damaging, like it could be all sorts of things like some people, I was at, uh, this was, I think, um, I think it was last time I was in Miami last year at the Wonderland conference.
There was a maps, uh, party fundraiser. There's a DJ, uh, Rick Doblin was there. Um, it was a fun event, but, and I was at the, at the back, uh, one minute chatting with Hamilton Morris as he was waiting
for a drink and another trying out this trippy recliner that vibrates and you put VR on. But then these guys were there who were just bragging about how many tabs of LSD they were on and how many they'd been on for how many days in a row and it was ridiculous and I just, and I got this like, you know, my, my energy radar, my, uh, micro processing, uh, you know, work skills, if you will, or just all the alarm bells were going off of just like, uh, you know, just the way these guys
were talking about it and, uh, the energy about them was, was totally off-putting and concerning. But, um, so I just bring that up because there are all sorts of flavors of this and, and we talk most on here about the therapeutic use of psychedelics, right? But, uh, but there are a lot of people using them with either zero intention or sometimes in reckless ways.
Yeah, I think we had an episode on a while ago on like, responsible use of psychedelics. So if you, if your listeners want more sort of on that topic, you could check that episode out, but it is true that a lot, sometimes a psychedelic experience is challenging, um, as a result of the kind of or lack of preparation, um, or the kind of or lack of intention, um, an expectation that you have.
So, you know, we've all had those of us that are in the space, we're familiar with this space, of known people or maybe experienced ourselves, who have, you know, taken a psychedelic, quote unquote, recreationally and been dragged into the seventh circle of hell or taken to the psychedelic church or hospital unwittingly and unwillingly and it resulted in something that was really,
really challenging. And like you said, potentially damaging. Yeah, um, and I know I'm meandering into some tangents here before we get into the meat of it, but, uh, but I think it's useful context, just because, um, whether you went in with intention or not, uh, it can bring stuff up and what do you do with that? Um, whether it was anywhere near your intention, whether you did it in a clinic or in a jungle or in someone's someone's backyard barbecue. Right. Right.
Well, maybe pivoting back to challenging psychedelic experiences in a therapeutic context and how to think about them, what to do with them. One thought I had was it can be okay to put an experience on a shelf for a while, right? If you come out of a psychedelic therapy session and
really struggling to make heads or tails, like, well, this was my intention. This had nothing to do with my intention or at least it doesn't appear to, um, you're in the integration process, you're journaling, you're meditating, you're spending time in nature, all those sort of boilerplate recommendations that we give people. Um, and it's just not clicking for you. It's okay to give it time
in space. It's okay to let it breathe. Yeah. You know what, what I'm kind of used to in the general clinical world, whether it's outpatient or even in working in residential and inpatient facilities, is before embarking on an intense deep dive of trauma work, for example, there's this treatment team discussion of is the individual ready, like, including them, of course, but like, uh, are you
ready for this? And I think, uh, we talk about that a lot in the preparation and the readiness for psychedelics, but I think, um, I think it's just worth highlighting and emphasizing is like, you know, it probably should be treated like that. And the integration can be as well. You don't
have to make sense of it all, even if you could in the night, right? Um, and you have to, you can only do what you can do within your window of tolerance or it can become extremely, uh, unproductive, counterproductive, more destabilizing, um, even retraumatizing in a way or counterproductive in one's
life. Yeah, it's a good point. So there's a readiness aspect, maybe to integration, like you're saying, and maybe you're having trouble integrating because you're psyche, your soul, your mind's just not ready to integrate this particular experience. And like we're alluding to, it could be the case that it goes on the shelf and stays in the shelf forever, you know, it might not be something to mind.
I would still call integration, you're doing integration work, even if it is all focused on grounding and day to day function and self-care and good mental hygiene and all that, right? Uh, bottom of the pyramid stuff. Yeah, it's a good point too, because it might be the case that let's say you have a really, really challenging psychedelic experience and the content is not revelatory. Really, she can't make heads or tails of it. Um, but there's something to be gained
from having a challenging experience of any kind and grounding thereafter, right? There are lessons to be learned and skills to be built when you, like you said, are paying attention to and resensitizing yourself to those bottom of the pyramid things. So, you know, you've been perturbed and now here's an opportunity to ground to center to put the pieces back together,
and maybe you're stronger for it. Yeah, we, I've mentioned this before from the, it was from the Denver Maps Conference last summer at a difficult experience panel with Yaden and some other colleagues who said, uh, a key question to ask yourself before embarking on a psychedelic experience is, do you feel stable enough to allow yourself to fall apart? Allow yourself to fall apart? And like any question, of course, is debatable, but I quite like it as a, as a, at least a thought
exercise, um, because, and sometimes you don't have control over that. You don't know the answer until you go through it. Um, but it is, uh, yeah, that is kind of what's at the heart of it is, like, can you piece yourself back together and how do you do that? And, uh, some people have a much easier time with that and it does matter if it's your first experience or your tenth, right? Uh, it could be completely foreign territory of first and extra confusing, extra challenging.
I like that question because it also informs the preparation structure in process, right? So, if you've been asked, do you feel stable enough that you can fall apart and you're like, why don't
know? I'm not sure. Then maybe preparation involves resourcing. We talk about that in our fundamentals of psychedelic existed there, because is in preparation, helping people develop resources, internal, external resources, helping them elaborate those resources so that if at first they don't feel stable enough to allow themselves to fall apart, we can help get them there.
Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so, but, but I like the, the general idea of pace yourself, you can only do what you can do and give yourself way more time and space than you think you need, um, you know, like the old Zen masters would say, spend one month in retreat, spend six months working on it and then go back to your chop and wood, carrying water. Right. Yeah, I had the thought that, you know, sometimes you're confused, you're suffering, you're seeking psychedelic therapy or
experience to help you make sense of things to help ease suffering. And you've come out with, with the dots haven't been connected for you. It could be the case that you just need more dots before the picture can be connected before the dots can be connected. So, to your point, it might mean, you know, taking care of yourself, grounding, it can mean going out and living life as you continue to integrate and do those good mental hygiene activities. And eventually it could mean
more psychedelic experiences too. We talk about the caution around jumping right back into the medicine before you quote unquote fully integrated a psychedelic experience, but those experiences can
build on them, build on each other. Yeah. Yeah, I've certainly experienced that in big ways, like, I remember having a common very similar intention over years and years and then it wasn't until one like random kind of, um, Bufo experience that, uh, that I had this, uh, I like, whoa, I got to see the progress I've made on that front, but, but I like what you said about the dots. It reminds me of that often quoted Steve Jobs famous negative wisdom that you
can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. You have to just trust the dots will somehow connect as you go. Yeah. Yeah. It speaks to the whole trust of process advice that is often given, which can be really difficult, right? When you're in the middle of those dots and it just isn't clear to you, which is again, why it's important to have a lot of good education, but a lot of good support when you're seeking transformation in this way.
Yeah, and I'm just maybe I'm, uh, in a, in a feisty mood because I took a red eye out here last night and, uh, like a four hour red eye. So there was too much sleep and time on that plane, but, uh, so maybe that's behind my need to debate everything, but, but the trust, the process I think can also be tricky territory because who, uh, who are we asking someone to trust and what, what do they have to go on in that trust? Like, it's a great reminder again that works for many people, like, but,
but not everyone. Yeah, I'm glad you push back because, you know, we're asking them to trust us. We're trying to build a good therapeutic relationship in our case and, um, we're asking them to trust the medicine, maybe trust the research that's been done that gives us confidence in this particular medicine. We're asking them to trust themselves, um, but we should, we should handle
that process with, with a lot of care, right? To your point because it's a big ask, especially for somebody who's, uh, had it as experience with trauma where trust has been broken or they've, they don't know what it's like to have confidence in themselves or a process, right? They never experience that trust paying off. Yeah. And one way I've, I've seen that, um, being effective and conveying a sense of safety to an individual is if they're going through something, like, I'll
give you an example. I was asked to, um, I was, uh, the MD for a psilocybin dosing session, the other day in clinic, right? It's a pression study. So I'm not in the room, um, but, uh, you know, with a therapist is in there and I, I got called because blood pressure is, uh, spiking, you know, it was an individual with known blood pressure issues before. They're blood pressure, but to check it a couple times to get to the cutoff of the proceeding, but they were fine to
proceed. But then it's, it's going high and they see the number on the machine. They're on psilocybin. This was an open label study. So everyone knew that drug was on board. So I can speak freely about that, but, um, the, uh, the study, the individual was starting to worry a lot because they saw their blood pressure at 160 and then at 180 and they're like, uh, you know, you, your mind on a psychedelic
can spin out of control, right? Like, be like, oh, no, is my heart going to explode? Am I going to die? And, uh, so when I went into the room to, uh, to offer support, my main goal was just to convey that sense of safety. Like I, because I had seen this before, I knew the blood pressure was coming down and, uh, and my aim was just to, uh, calmly convey some confidence so they could
relax back into their experience. And then, uh, afterwards as we were debriefing a bit at the end, they said that, uh, they were just like, thank you from saving me from what I thought was my death, but I just needed to get out of my head and, and back on track because, yeah, their blood pressure did come right back down, uh, very quickly. And of course we have to monitor it. And,
but in that case, um, you know, I did have absolute confidence and I could convey that. And if, if someone's going through a difficult integration, um, process and we've seen it over and over again and we may not know the exact course, but we can say, okay, you know, this is going to take time. You know, and, and you're going to get there and we're going to figure this out. Um, um, yeah, so I think that's, uh, that's a big part of how it plays out for me. The trusting,
the unfolding isn't a blind trust necessarily. Yeah, I like that. We don't want to ask people to trust blindly. And so your example is a good one coming in with the experience, the expertise, the knowledge, the confidence in that experience and expertise and knowledge and then conveying that to the participant. Um, and it, for the, the psychedelic facilitators, therapist guides in the audience, it's important that if we are asking people to trust the process that,
we're doing that with integrity, right? We're not asking them to trust in something that we don't trust in ourselves or we don't have confidence in experience with ourselves, right? Yeah, yeah. And it's tricky in this part of, in this phase of the field where it's a new, relatively new tool from borrowed from age, old wisdom and indigenous practices. Um, but a new tool where you don't have,
um, a ton of people with a ton of experience over the long term. And, uh, so I think it's just something we have to be careful about and, uh, and one of the reasons we convene in forms like this to share, I think. Yeah. Well, any other tips and tricks you can think of to help people
navigate a challenging, uh, integration experience? Well, I like to, from a big picture standpoint, look at it, um, sometimes through, uh, like a shadow work lens to borrow from Carl Jung and, uh, uh, just see, okay, there are these, um, these part, these parts of ourselves, especially the negative aspects that we, that are holding us back. It can be negative thinking, suppressed emotions, self-limiting beliefs, et cetera, et cetera. Um, and, uh, and that's the kind of stuff that's
going to come up on a psychedelic experience. And so, you know, looking at it, uh, the stuff that comes up as, um, you know, in that way, it lines up with the, you know, giving you what you need, or trusting the unfolding, if you will, of that recurrent challenges in a particular area of your life, especially on addressed, unresolved ones, in that vulnerable state, they're going to spill out, if not on everything on that one dosing day, um, you know, over the over time and doing this work.
And, uh, and that's what, you know, that's what we're doing. We're embracing that. We're going in with, this light of awareness, um, loving awareness, and, you know, trying to shine a light on the
dark corners of ourselves and, and, uh, bring it into the light and look at it. And, and I think that's where the, the guide comes into this, like, you know, helping them with the intention, how it relates to the content of the experience, reflecting, uh, some of these things, expanding, helping them expand on the elements that come up, helping the journey or track themes, perhaps without giving them any of this, but just helping them along the way.
Yeah. I like that context of the shadow and shadow work, because for a lot of folks that have really, really challenging psychedelic experiences, thinking of the challenge in terms of shadow work, um, can help them make use of it and make sense of it, be open to it. I was, I'm thinking of, uh, a client I had once who their psychedelic experience was really just a struggle. They described it as a battle the entire time and the imagery was really grotesque and scary. And, you know, they
thought they were trying to surrender. This was their description, right? I thought I was trying to surrender by being open to the pain. I was saying, bring it, you know, give me the pain. I'll look at these monsters right in the eye, but upon reflection, they were saying what I was doing was thinking that as long as I was willing to look at the pain that I would get the outcome that I wanted, right? I would get the answers that I wanted. And it was almost as if the psychedelic was saying,
uh, oh, you think you have control here? Okay. I guess we're just going to grapple the whole time. And so at first, it was very confusing to this person like, I thought I was doing it right. I thought I was open to the pain. Um, but upon reflection, the lesson that I learned was, oh, I, I was thinking I was surrendering, but in truth, I was trying to control it. I was trying to get a specific answer to a specific question. And so for their integration process, it was, what can I
learn from this particular lesson? Uh, where else in my life? Am I thinking I am open and receptive and flexible? Where I'm really not. And so it was kind of a meta cognitive process, right? As we're looking at the message behind the message. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, it's about the process in therapy work in general, right? Uh, you know, and in some ways, it's not as much about the content. It's how do you interact with all that content and all the other types of content that show up in
your life? Hmm. I like that. So the lesson might not necessarily be all this particular content revealed, you know, this particular insight, maybe the insights around how I react to the content, right? Like you're saying, the process, it's, it shows me a certain pattern of, you know, resistance or a certain pattern of thinking or a pattern of avoidance or, yeah. And so the wisdom is not necessarily in the particular imagery or the particular insight. It's how I'm relating to the
imagery. Yeah. Yeah. The here and now work that therapists use so much in therapy, like everything that comes up in the course of a dosing session or an integration session, if you will. And using that as real living content, uh, to apply it, help the individual look at it and see how it relates to all the other examples in their life that would be harder to work with, um, because it's coming out of memory than coming up in real time. Right. Yeah. You and I were earlier today discussing
Irvin Yalum's classic book, The Gift of Therapy. And in there, he talks about the importance and the utility of, of here and now work, meaning that in a session like that, it's not that you're trying to think about and make sense of a particular psychedelic experience. It's, um, you know, the here and now process between you and the clients, between the client and the therapist. You know, I'm feeling this particular emotion toward you, or I'm feeling this emotion in your
presence and I'm feeling this reaction to your emotion. So it's almost like a little microcosm of life, a little laboratory within which you can, uh, touch into what's been experienced live and work with it and provide perspective in the moment. Yeah, totally. And it's, that's where we get the chance for a corrective emotional experience as well. One of the mechanisms of healing and growth. Right. Yeah. Another thing I'll tell people when they're struggling to integrate a challenging
psychedelic experience is to steep themselves in as much wisdom as they can find. And that might be from old texts, it might be from new texts, it might be from podcasts, right? It might be seminars, it might be stuff they've read before that now they can reread with this new lens that's been afforded them by this psychedelic experience and get new things out of it. So it's not always that you have to find new content, new information, new teachers to tell you things you don't know
to reveal things. It could be finding wisdom in old sources. So without the pressure to make sense of it, more just exploratory. Let me open myself up to new ways of thinking as I put this on the shelf or put it on the back burner and let it simmer. Yeah. And that's that's kind of a fun, almost serendipitous part of the unfolding for me anyway is the content that you that you turn to to help make sense of it to help feel better to help find some peace and harmony
and perspective. That hits different after a psychedelic experience, understandably. If you're a frequent consumer of this stuff already, you'll know you're go to people who speak to your soul. For me, people could probably guess that one of my top gurus to turn to would be, like, if I need a perspective, realignment, like listen to some Ramdas, but there are many on
that list or or even different flavors of it. If I want a little kind of mind bending perspective check a little Alan Watts way of thinking about the universe or or I know like that that book after X to see the laundry by Jack Cornfield have gone to it several times after a psychedelic experience because I just know I'm not even looking for specific parts of it. I just know I've gotten good content out of certain resources that I'll go to again whether it's
the same content or new stuff I stumble on. Yeah, I like that. Sometimes I'll also listen to a read, other people's descriptions of challenging psychedelic experiences just to sort of see how they've navigated theirs. You know, I recently read Alexander Biner, I think his name
is book, I think I've got it here, the bigger picture. I'm trying to get him on the podcast to talk about this, but he talks about his experience with the DMTX, oh yeah, yeah, the medical trial where they did IV DMT, kept him in the DMT experience for a long time. That's pretty revelatory. And then if you're a journalist, right? So I'm thinking of the person who's had several psychedelic experiences, they've journaled about them, they've got a fresh
experience that's challenging, they're having trouble make sense of it. Go back and read your previous entries, like look at the human being used to be, and it can be really enlightening and encouraging to see, oh, like I had this challenge a long time ago. And this new experience is offering me perspective on that challenge and how I've changed or it might give me clues about what to do in integration to leverage this experience for more durable change.
You know, if there's, it's, it's funny because this advice comes up so often, like right journal,
take time to reflect and it may sound so simple, but it's also so slippery. Like sometimes the easiest thing, as a simple and universally regarded as important as it is, it can slip away and take some discipline to make sure you spend the time on, especially if you're in like a group ceremony experience or if you have a day-to-day life that doesn't afford you many moments of solitude, you need to have the discipline to to retreat even if it's just for a few minutes here and there
to write and reflect, to go on that walk by yourself. In addition to with your support of others who are crucial in sharing the burden and helping you make sense of your struggle, but you also do need need to take the time to write and I'm speaking to myself here too. I love going back to my old journals after these experiences because you know, often, I'll often write a fair amount, but what I want to do more of is just revisiting those notes more and more often.
Yeah, they're called the fundamentals for a reason and it's easy, I'll speak from personal experiences, it's easy for me to sort of look past the fundamentals and think, okay, yeah, yeah, I get it. Meditation, spent time in nature, do yoga, journal, but what's the new stuff? What do I need to do to really make sense of this experience or really change?
And it could be just that. Go back to the fundamentals. Yeah, yeah, like we both just mentioned of, you know, if you're facing a difficult or challenging integration, be extremely helpful to just have someone to lean on, to listen and you want to look at not only the, whoa, could you hear my phone ringing? I am on do not disturb, but that that's not in there. So anyway, I lost my train of thought. Well, like you were saying, it's important that we seek community and talk to others about
challenging psychedelic experiences. Of course, with the added caution that we don't talk to just anybody, right? There could be people in your life who aren't going to hold you with compassion, openness, curiosity and understanding. Or, you know, maybe conversely, there are people who are going to be quick to interpret your experience for you. Oh, you, you saw this particular entity.
I know what that means. It means this and it means you need to do this. I would, I would be cautious of sharing a psychedelic experience with both kinds of people, people who are just like, wait, it's weird. What are you talking about or people who are saying, this is what you need to do? When you're checking out of the grocery store and the person asks you how you're doing, you don't say, I just did I was guy. Let me tell you how I'm doing. I just vomit it for three days straight.
Yeah, but, but you want people who are good listeners too, who, you know, and you can look at your
close circle this way. You know who they are. It's not hard to look at it, but, um, you know, some people will jump in and offer or try to fix things so quickly and, and if they're close people to you, you might even just remind them is like, you know, um, can, can you just listen, you know, you could say that in a nicer way, but, uh, but, uh, someone who really sees you validates and, uh, uh, and a bonus would be helps you ask the, the deep questions like, you know, what am I feeling
right now? What am I afraid of? Or, you know, what am I grateful for? Yeah. What am I trying not to see? What am I trying not to? Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, but that just brings up the other, the other big, big part of integration for me is meaning making by asking the deep questions. Um, and because I think the quality of your integration is directly proportional to the quality of the, the questions you ask of, of this content of this stuff that comes up. And, um, you know, why is this in my life?
Why is it showing up? What is it here to teach me? And, uh, you know, what if I were to think about this problem in my life in a different way? Or, you know, why do I have so much irritation or energy about this and in particular? Yeah, it's an opportunity to get curious about things maybe that you've been blind to or either willfully or unconsciously. Um, and that advice is good advice. And of course, it's given in the context of the other things we've said about putting things
on shelves is okay. It's okay if you can't make meaning of something. But there's a real opportunity in this period of so-called neuroplasticity or cognitive flexibility or that chemical perspective that a psychedelic medicine has given you. There's a great opportunity to really look at life with
fresh eyes through a, uh, a different lens and make some meaning. But to your point, um, if you can bring some deliberateness and discipline to that process, you might get more out of it as opposed to just sort of waiting around and waiting for the man I from heaven to distill upon you. And, uh, and just to, uh, I'm thinking about earlier when I was ranting a bit about, um, some people's
psychedelic experiences are without intention and, and reckless and whatever. But, uh, I will say that not all drug drugs are created equal, not all drug experiences are created equal and a classic psychedelic does, even by neurobiological definitions, uh, come with it, uh, you know, a decent chance of having some insight, some helpful insight. You know, this, uh, um, we're interested in in these things and talking about them for a reason because you don't get that same thing from your
caffeine experience, right? Um, but, uh, but that's, uh, there's still this question. It might be a broad, kind of, North Star, uh, or broad compass in your life, but that reflection, uh, meaning making, talking with your close, trusted, um, people, including your therapist, coach, whoever, um, that's where you chart the course towards this North Star in a more, kind of practical and well informed and the way that's reasonable too. Yeah, well said.
Well, Rita, I know you've got some activities to get to out there in Miami. Any final words about integrating challenging psychedelic experiences before we let you go? Um, no, I think, uh, I think, um, I'm feeling pretty complete for now in our discussion. We could talk about this forever, but, but how about you, any, any burning tips or last words of wisdom for us? I think maybe just a summary statement that yes, there are bad trips, bad in the sense that it's
can be harmful and difficult to integrate. A lot of the so-called bad trips can be simply challenging experiences that with the right support, the right time, the right self-care, the right questions, could be some of your most profitable, you know, helpful experiences. Integration is often a function of the quality of preparation. So yeah, I think we're just trying to give a little bit more nuanced perspective on what integration looks like, especially when your
experiences at face value, really, really obvious, obviously helpful. So hopefully this was helpful, folks, and if you'd like to ask us more about integration, you're welcome to do so. We're open to responding to questions. All life's the ceremony integrated as you go. There you go. All right, thanks, Steve. Thank you. See you soon.
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