I offer integration support for people who have had a psychedelic experience and are seeking to harvest greater understanding or resolution from it.
Psychedelics are profound substances that generate significant shifts in a person’s life as well as their understanding of themselves and reality. Such experiences can be very difficult to make sense of afterward, especially if they were characterized by fear, confusion, and/or pain.
My integration support helps to identify and preserve the important personal and spiritual insights awakened during psychedelic experiences. And to help you weave them coherently into your daily life, even if those experiences were frightening.
Please know that this is not active psychedelic psychotherapy or encouraging psychedelic use. It is a service for those who have chosen to explore psychedelics and are looking for support in optimizing its positive impact in their lives, or help to rehabilitate from the damaging impact of a negative experience.
The integration coaching I offer is specific to psychedelics but is informed by non-psychedelic therapeutic training and is thus also useful in supporting people in times of non-psychedelic emotional or psychospiritual distress.
Educational Background
My training is first and foremost from years of a substantial personal exploration of psychedelics as well as post-traumatic stress disorder. From there, I have been studying trauma, somatic-informed psychotherapy, psychedelic therapy, and grief-work, including training in Compassionate Inquiry with Gabor Mate, The Core Language Approach (inherited family trauma) with Mark Wolynn, Clinical Applications Of The Polyvagal Theory with Deborah Dana, and The BioEmotive/Nedera approach with Douglas Tataryn.
I have also had years studying a variety of other related disciplines from bodywork and energy healing. I have also attended various medical and non-medical conferences and workshops on trauma, dying, aging, neuroplasticity, internal family systems, meditation, psychedelic therapy, and shamanism.
I am, clearly indicated by the lack of letters after my name, not a certified therapist or counselor. Although I trust that I can help you with your needs, certain conditions may be beyond my capacity. If that is the case I will do my best to direct you to someone who can help. If you are suffering from suicidal thoughts, please contact the suicide hotline in your area (USA | Canada)
What can I help you with?
- Support in deconstructing a psychedelic experience so as to understand where it fits into the narrative of your life. The core principle is to help you discover what emotional themes your psychedelic experience exposed and link those themes to your personal history. This helps to give your psychedelic encounters digestible form, as well as place and meaning in your sober life, but without losing the magic and wonder of it all.
- Support in understanding and resolving the distress left over from a traumatic psychedelic experience, aka a bad trip. The core principle here is to help you reconnect with what happened in a way that allows you to feel safe. Safety enables curiosity. With that curiosity, we can uncover not only the place your fear and pain arose from but how you can move forward in your life with that ‘bad trip’ now a ‘hard trip’ in retrospect.
- Support in generating awareness of what might have you ‘stuck’ in certain cycles of behavior, as well as understanding and resolving general distress in your life brought on by current events or past trauma (including intergenerational).
- Drug-positive advice and perspective on the personal use of psychedelics, including discovering/building intention, safe practices, microdosing, and even whether or not it is a good choice to take psychedelics at all
- (‘drug-positive’, similar to ‘sex-positive’ is a term to describe a perspective that supports people in not only harm reduction, but benefit optimization)
What do these sessions look like?
That depends on what it is you are looking for from our interaction. Is it rehabilitating from a bad trip, getting general support in understanding how to apply a profound realization, or just wanting to ask me some questions about psychedelics and psychedelic practice? (the latter not being an ‘integration coaching’ session, so much as professional consultation.)
Integration sessions, generally, look like us talking, mostly me listening and asking questions while tracking what you are saying and how your body is responding to what you are saying, and then providing feedback. Depending on the direction of the session, I am likely to invite you to close your eyes and go through a visualization or mindfulness exercise that will be specifically relevant to the issue you are facing. Some sessions can be emotionally difficult, depending on the challenges you are carrying. It is not uncommon for people to cry, and so having a safe space (and some tissues nearby) will be helpful. Sessions only go as deep as you are willing.
Sessions happen over Zoom and last for about 60min (sometimes up to 75mins). Integration coaching sessions all end with some type of ‘homework’ that will be supportive of your process, often intended to rewire your brain and nervous system, informed by the principle of positive neuroplasticity and the polyvagal theory.
My goal is to make myself obsolete, which is to say that I intend to offer you an experience and advice in one session that you can carry with you ongoingly so that you no longer need me.
Price
It is currently by donation, according to:
- What you feel you can afford in your current situation.
- The value of my offering in your life.
I am offering my services in this way as I believe poor economic context should not prevent people from getting the help they feel they need. I also understand the economic reality of the modern Western world and so I suggest a baseline of $75-$135/hour as a starting point as I believe this is an honest monetary value for my time and knowledge. That said, if you are desperate and money is an issue, please don’t hesitate to reach out anyways and we can sort something out that works for you.
You can contact me via the form below and we can arrange a time from there.
My response time is generally within a week.
Please let me know if this is an urgent request in the subject line and I will respond more quickly.
Thank you and blessings on your journey.
-James