Bridging Altered States and Transformational Healing

The Core of Psychedelic Healing: How Integration Transforms Psychedelics Experiences into Lasting Change

Integration, put simply, is how we translate transformational insights into meaningful connections to ourselves, others, and the world we live in. Integration is a necessary step for us to heal, create new habits, and make purposeful behavior changes. We begin the process by starting from within, acknowledging that how we heal individually is how we transform collectively.

Understanding Psychedelic Integration: The Key to Unlocking Full Potential

Humans - we’re such curious beings. And lately we’re becoming increasingly curious about “expanding our consciousness,” generated by an endless cornucopia of tools and modalities that help us reach such states. We’re inviting these tools, including psychedelics and other plant-based medicines, as part of a menu of mind-altering influential possibilities. 

I spent a long time thinking about why we’re being drawn to altered states at such an accelerated pace. I believe it’s because, as a community, we really want connection.

Altered states of consciousness are experiences akin to doorways— doorways by which we have the potential to step into reconnection to our natural states of being, unearth what was lost, hidden, or buried, and ultimately, heal. 

Psychedelic Science: Neuroplasticity

Psychedelics Through the Medical Lens: Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy and Beyond

For the past couple of years I’ve been entrenched in the business and investment sides of psychedelics with a focus on how they can be utilized as therapeutic tools. At Woven Science, I have had a panoramic view of how the industry is quickly evolving. The industry is thoroughly navigating both the promises and challenges around what it looks like for people to be using psychedelics for recreational, spiritual, and therapeutic purposes. In parallel, while  completing a Masters degree in Neuroscience from King’s College London, I studied the effects of using psychedelics like psilocybin (or “magic mushrooms”) with psychotherapy to help those with depression. I also became fascinated with the integration process, especially the importance of this for therapeutic and personal benefit as well as collective consciousness expansion. 

I continue to be endlessly curious about different perspectives on these altered states and how integration is viewed through the lenses of business, science, and sacred traditions. From my years embedded in this space, I believe that most eyes are looking at psychedelics through a medicalized lens of  drug development, delivery, and supportive mechanisms to treat mental illnesses. What’s also top of mind is how to develop the infrastructure needed to provide safe and accessible evidence-based clinical care. How do we do this ethically and at scale? How do we ensure there is sufficient scientific research on how psychedelic models of care are administered and managed long-term?

The Rise of Psychedelic Culture: Integrating Plant Medicine into Wellness Practices

Yet there’s so much more brewing underneath the guise of science and medicine. There’s a growing and thriving health and wellness movement, ripe with hundreds of self-development tools, practices, education, and experiences rooted in diverse sets and settings. From the clinical to the shamanic, the scientific to the sacred, the secular to the spiritual. Psychedelics and sacred plant medicines are fundamental to this wellness movement. The reality is that the culture of psychedelic wellness isn’t just moving from the margins to the mainstream: it’s becoming a massive trend. 

We’re finally beginning to acknowledge that our toxic society is making us sick, and that we each need to do our part in collective healing. That means we need to get well ourselves first, before we’re able to take care of others and our planet. 

I often feel that we live in a culture of the accelerated now: by the time we reach our goals, we’re already far behind where we’re supposed to be. We’re always in a rush, yet what moves quickly isn’t always the most thoughtful, safe, or logical. I’ve come to accept that in the psychedelics movement, slow and steady may not be an option anymore.

We need to have a critical look at where we’re doing things right and where maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves. In psychedelics, that means going beyond the well articulated set and setting of a journey: we need to integrate. 

Beyond the Trip: The Critical Role of Integration in Psychedelic Therapy

From my perspective as a participant in the psychedelics movement, I believe we “curious beings” aren’t nearly curious enough about what happens after the trip or ceremony ends. I believe this is not just because of the stories of people I talk to, its absence in the industry articles I read, or the scarce number of published research papers on the topic, but I personally learned the hard way. Once upon a time, I embarked on a mind-expanding journey without taking the time to prepare beforehand and without giving myself space afterwards to allow whatever was needed to unfold naturally. I jumped right back into my daily routine, which included waking up to the notifications on my phone, a full calendar of work meetings scheduled throughout the day, and social events planned with friends every evening. I didn’t even realize I needed to carve out the space for myself to reflect on what actually happened during my journey. By bypassing the aftercare, transition, and integration steps, I did a disservice to not only the journey itself but to realizing my fullest potential.

Unfortunately, my story isn’t unique. I’ve witnessed firsthand how these transformational contexts miss the beat on integration. Consciously or not, many of the current providers of psychedelic experiences aren’t preparing people for integration afterwards. Similarly, participants aren’t even aware of what integration is or what it requires of them. We’ve been so focused on the specifics of the journey itself (which is obviously needed and necessary) but the integration process isn’t receiving the same thoughtful attention. 

Integra: Pioneering Integration Pathways for Psychedelic Wellness

This brings me to Integra, a company that I started to create a systems change for the people who inevitably will need to find meaning and healing from their transformational experiences. Integra works with companies, retreat centers, and professional facilitators on integration frameworks for altered-state experiences. We fill a critical gap in the health and wellness industries by focusing on the long-term aftercare of a journey. 

Integra not only respects the journey, we extend the journey: our integration pathways ensure that the real medicine from an experience lasts long after the peak ends.

We design programs and content for both online and offline integration, customized to individual needs, and that reflects companies’ unique offerings in personal growth. I was inspired to create Integra based on what I found missing in the world of psychedelic therapy, however the philosophy of integration goes beyond substance-induced altered-states. At its core, it’s about integrating all the tools we have at our disposal to achieve personal transformation. 

Integration is our key to connection, knowing that how we heal individually is how we transform collectively. We use integration to make meaning out of our experiences and to learn how to apply them to our personal development, towards our interpersonal relationships, and towards our external environment. To learn more about how you can weave integration into your product or service, you can visit Integra.guide. 

Join the Movement: Integrating Psychedelic Experiences for Collective Transformation"

I launched Healing Beyond Medicine as a platform to share my learnings and research in integrating altered states. Subscribers will receive at least once monthly practical tools for integration; insights and trends from within psychedelics science, tech, and business; reflections that bridge sacred traditions with contemporary integration philosophy; and other musings around the topic which I’ll write as they unfold. As this might be new to some, I’ll soon publish the basic principles of integration along with the research that’s helped us mature our understanding of why it’s necessary for us to incorporate integration into our own self-development.