Finding Meaning Through Psychedelic Integration (Part 3)

How to move past resistance and integrate specific experiences based on the holistic model of body, mind, spirit, community and environment.

This is part 2 of a 4-part series on integration. Part 1 (free to read) is an introduction to psychedelic integration as a meaning-making practice. Part 2 explores the concept of the inner healer and the steps of the psychedelic integration process. Finally, part 4 offers expert insights from psychedelic integration therapist and member of the Imperial College psychedelic research team, Michelle Baker Jones.

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A little over a year ago, I reached a critical point in therapy. After years of inquiry, I found myself in a strange place: I had a very clear and detailed map of my past and how it was influencing my present, and what I needed to do in order to move forward. But somehow I couldn’t. I felt stuck and frustrated with my lack of progress. This went on for a while, until, during one session, I heard myself say to my therapist: “I just don’t know who I’d be without all this ‘stuff’”.

By ‘stuff’, of course, I meant the pain and trauma that had made the subject of my therapy, and, as I was beginning to realise, my identity as a misunderstood, wounded child. Yes, my ongoing depression and anxiety were inconvenient, but they were familiar. A large part of my identity was unconsciously built around them, from the music I listened to, to the clothes I wore, the books I read, how I showed up in friendships, what kind of partners I went for and so on. And some of that was genuinely great.

So it was quite a relief when my therapist chuckled and reassured me that letting go of ‘the bad stuff’ didn’t mean I’d lose myself. Phew - I didn’t have to give up turtlenecks or my The National vinyls! Just some of the parts that didn’t serve me could finally die, to make room for new, better things. What a revelation.

However, a part of me needed to die and that didn’t feel easy. In the essay below, I’ll explore how, when done well, psychedelic integration is a profound death-rebirth process–and all the ways we might resist that.