Groups

Benefits from integration in a group format include:

• Sharing and listening to others which normalizes psychedelic experiences so that you feel less alone. This can also help reduce existing self-judgment or stigma associated with your choice to use psychedelics medicinally.

• Hearing about the way others have experienced psychedelics can be helpful in making sense of what is often an indescribable experience.

• Group support can be helpful in translating insights or wisdom gained from psychedelics into meaningful life changes. Groups can provide accountability, problem-solving, and a sense of community for individuals who value personal growth.

• Having an experienced group facilitator who is knowledgeable about psychedelics is important to create a safe, supportive environment for group members to share and learn from each other.

Entheogenic Research Integration & Education (ERIE) defines integration as “the process by which the material accessed and insights gained in a [psychedelic] experience are incorporated over time into one’s life in a way that benefits the individual and their community.”

From this frame, the power of psychedelic medicine work lies not only in the depth of the experience during use, but also in the post-experience exploration, processing, and application of insights that occurs days, months, and even years after a journey.

Commonly focused areas of integration:

• Examining meaning of visual and/or somatic experiences that arose

• Exploring the emotional impact of the psychedelic experience

• Contextualizing the “story” of the journey

• Grounding insights into meaningful behavior change

• Understanding a “bad trip” or difficult experience

• Exploring how to live from a newly recognized truth

• Examining how to share your experience with others

Integration focuses on how these themes and experiences in a psychedelic medicine session can be implemented into action and meaningful change. Integration can be viewed as the ground on which psychedelic experiences root themselves. Without the ground, these experiences may simply fade away over time.