Why Integration Matters
Psychedelic experiences can be among the most profound moments of a person's life. Insights that feel world-changing. Emotional releases that seem to unlock years of stuck material. A sense of connection and meaning that's hard to put into words.
And then you come back. The experience fades. Normal life resumes. The insights that seemed so clear begin to blur. The old patterns slowly reassert themselves. Within weeks or months, many people find themselves wondering: Was that real? Did it actually change anything?
The 10/90 Rule
The session itself is 10% of the experience. The month that follows is 90%. The door opens during the journey—but you have to walk through it in the days, weeks, and months after.
This is why integration isn't optional. It's where the actual transformation happens. A powerful experience without proper integration is like surgery without rehabilitation—you've done the hard part, but you haven't yet reaped the benefits.
The question isn't just "What did you see?" It's "What are you going to do differently now that you've seen it?"
The Developmental Window
There's a neurobiological basis for why integration matters so much. After a significant psychedelic experience, your brain enters a state of enhanced neuroplasticity—a period where patterns that were rigid become temporarily more malleable.
This is why the weeks after a psychedelic experience matter so much. It's not just about remembering insights—it's about actively working with material while your system is receptive to change. The experience opens the door; integration is walking through.
Think of it as a month-long festival of growth. It slowly winds down, but don't just think "Oh, it's the day and that's it." The developmental window is real, and what you do with it determines the long-term outcome.
What Happens Without Integration
The immediate aftermath of a psychedelic experience varies enormously. Some people feel an "afterglow"—peace, clarity, a sense that everything has changed. Others experience destabilization—anxiety, confusion, material that's been stirred up but not yet settled. And some feel surprisingly little at first, only noticing shifts weeks or months later.
What these different starting points tend to have in common is what happens next, when integration doesn't occur:
The Fade
Weeks 2-4. Normal life reasserts itself. Work demands attention. Whatever you experienced—whether profound insight or unsettling disruption—begins to feel like a memory rather than a reality. The material settles without being worked with.
The Disappointment
Months 1-3. Old patterns return. The experience feels distant. There's often a sense of "What was that for?" or "Maybe I need another session." The window has closed, and not much was built.
The Seeking
Without integration, people often pursue more experiences—chasing the next insight, the next breakthrough—without ever landing what they've already received.
For those who experienced destabilization, the lack of integration can mean that unsettled material never properly settles—leaving a vague sense of disruption without the resolution that should follow. For those who had the afterglow, it means the insights never translate into lasting change. Either way, the opportunity is missed.
The Hard Truth
A profound experience that isn't integrated is just tourism. You visited somewhere extraordinary, but you came home unchanged. Integration is what turns a visit into a move.
What Integration Actually Involves
Integration isn't one thing—it's a structured approach to working with psychedelic material in the days, weeks, and months after an experience. Here's what it typically includes:
Making Sense of the Experience
Psychedelic experiences can be inspiring, disorienting, symbolic, overwhelming—or all of these at once. We work together to understand what happened, extract the meaningful elements, and translate visions or feelings into actionable insights.
Connecting to Life Patterns
The insights from a session often point to deep patterns—schemas, beliefs, and ways of relating that have been running for years. We connect what emerged to your actual life structure, making the abstract concrete.
Building New Practices
Insights don't last without reinforcement. We develop specific daily practices—music, meditation, breathwork, journaling—that keep the material alive and accessible during the window.
Schema Work
Psychedelics often reveal core beliefs about yourself and the world. Using established psychological frameworks, we work to update these patterns at a deep level—not just intellectually, but emotionally.
Behavioural Change Planning
Ultimately, transformation shows up in behaviour. What decisions are you making differently? What are you no longer avoiding? We translate insights into concrete changes you can track.
Integration Is Individual
There's no one-size-fits-all integration protocol. What works for one person may not suit another at all.
Some people process primarily through thinking—they need to talk, journal, make sense of what happened cognitively. Others process through feeling and body—they need music, movement, somatic work, and space to simply be with what emerged. Most people need some combination, but the ratio varies enormously.
Integration might involve music, meditation, journaling, breathwork, bodywork, nature, creative expression, or simply protected time and space. It might mean more therapy sessions or fewer. The right approach emerges from understanding who you are and what your experience actually contained.
We'll develop practices that fit your life and target your specific material—not generic protocols, but something crafted for what you're actually working with.
Integration Timeline
Integration isn't a single session—it's a process that unfolds over weeks to months. The shape varies by person and experience, but here's a general arc that many people move through:
Immediate Aftermath
Some people want to capture everything—voice notes, journaling, talking it through while it's fresh. Others need quiet and space, letting the experience settle without forcing words onto it. There's no single right way. What matters is having the time and support you need.
The First Week
The window is wide open. This is often when people feel most different—and when the temptation to immediately return to normal life is strongest. Protecting some time for processing, whatever form that takes for you, tends to pay dividends later.
Active Integration
Regular therapy sessions if helpful. Continued engagement with whatever practices fit your style. Consciousness often remains "looser"—old patterns less fixed, new patterns forming. Normal life gradually resumes, ideally with new patterns coming along.
Consolidation
The window gradually narrows. A new baseline establishes. The dramatic shifts become subtler, the new state more stable. What felt like revelation becomes simply how you see things now.
Long-Term Integration
Insights often continue emerging for months afterward—connections you didn't see at first, implications that only become clear with time. Full integration can take 6-12 months. The changes become less about the experience and more about who you are now.
Who Benefits from Integration Therapy
Integration work is relevant for anyone who has had or is planning to have a significant psychedelic experience. This includes:
After Clinical/Research Contexts
Those who've participated in clinical trials or legal therapeutic settings and want to maximise the benefits of their session.
After Retreat Experiences
Those returning from ayahuasca, psilocybin, or other ceremonial retreat settings and wanting professional support to process and integrate.
After Personal Experiences
Those who've had significant psychedelic experiences in any context and are looking to understand and work with what emerged.
Preparation for Future Sessions
Those planning psychedelic experiences who want to prepare properly and have integration support in place beforehand.
Difficult Experiences
Those who've had challenging, confusing, or distressing psychedelic experiences and need help making sense of what happened.
Stalled Integration
Those whose earlier experiences felt transformative at the time but haven't translated into lasting change—wanting to work with that material again.
What I Do (and Don't Do)
Integration therapy is collaborative and focused. We work together on making sense of your experience, connecting it to life patterns, processing the emotions that came up, updating core beliefs, and translating insights into real-world changes. The specific balance depends on what you need and what your experience actually contained.
Clear Boundaries
I don't facilitate psychedelic sessions, provide substances, or offer guidance on sourcing. My role is integration—helping you work with experiences you've had or are planning to have in other contexts. I work with the psychological material, not the logistics of the experience itself. If you're looking for someone to guide the experience, that's a different role—I can help you prepare beforehand and integrate afterward.
The Psychological Framework
I bring a clinical psychology background to integration work. This means working with psychedelic material using established therapeutic frameworks—schema therapy, ACT, somatic approaches, and trauma-informed practice—rather than purely spiritual or ceremonial models.
The clinical approach means we're not just talking about your experience in abstract spiritual terms. We're connecting it to the specific patterns in your life, using evidence-based frameworks to create lasting change, and measuring whether things are actually shifting.
Important Considerations
When Extra Caution Is Needed
Some people need additional screening or may not be appropriate candidates for psychedelic work. This includes:
- Personal or family history of psychosis, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder
- Current severe depression or active suicidality
- Certain cardiac conditions or medications
- Pregnancy or breastfeeding
- Current substance use disorders (active addiction)
- Inability to provide informed consent
This isn't exhaustive. If you're considering psychedelic work and have health concerns, discuss screening with appropriate professionals.
This Isn't All Rainbows and Unicorns
Psychedelic experiences can be profoundly rewarding—but they're not uniformly pleasant, and they're not without risk. Deepening contact with core psychological structures is powerful work. It can bring up material you weren't expecting and may not feel ready for: grief, shame, trauma, existential fear, difficult truths about yourself or your life. A "bad trip" is a real possibility, not a myth.
This doesn't mean you shouldn't do the work. But it does mean going in with eyes open, with proper preparation, and with integration support in place. The challenging experiences often contain the most important material—but only if you have the support to work with it. This is deep territory, and it deserves to be treated with appropriate respect.
A Note on Legality
As of 2023, MDMA and psilocybin can be prescribed by authorised psychiatrists in Australia for specific conditions. Most psychedelic use, however, occurs outside these frameworks—in retreat settings abroad, clinical trials, or private contexts. I provide integration support regardless of the context of your experience. I don't facilitate sessions, provide substances, or offer guidance on accessing psychedelics. My role is helping you work with experiences you've had or are planning.
What Actually Changes
When integration works, people describe changes across multiple dimensions:
- Emotional Range—Ability to feel more, including difficult emotions, without being overwhelmed or shutting down
- Reduced Reactivity—Old triggers no longer produce the same automatic responses; there's space between stimulus and reaction
- Updated Beliefs—Core assumptions about self, others, and the world shift at a deep level—not just intellectually but in felt experience
- Behavioural Shifts—Decisions change; avoidance decreases; values-aligned action increases
- Relationship Changes—Patterns with partners, family, and friends shift; communication improves; less defensiveness
- Background State—Baseline anxiety or depression often reduces; there's more ease and presence in daily life
This doesn't happen overnight. Full integration may take 6-12 months of continued work. But the changes, when they land, tend to be stable. You're not maintaining a practice to hold back symptoms—you're genuinely different.
You'll know integration has worked when you look back and realise: "I would never have been able to make that decision a year ago." And it won't feel like effort—it'll feel obvious.
Common Questions
No. I also work with people who are preparing for future experiences—helping with screening, preparation, and having integration support in place beforehand. Starting before the experience often leads to better outcomes.
Ideally within the first week. The developmental window is most open immediately after the experience and gradually closes over 3-4 weeks. Earlier is better, but integration can still be valuable months or years later.
It varies significantly. Some people benefit from a few focused sessions to process a specific experience. Others engage in weekly sessions for months, especially when working with deep trauma or planning ongoing psychedelic work. We'll determine what makes sense for you.
Yes. Challenging experiences often contain valuable material—they just need skilled support to process. What feels frightening or confusing in the moment often becomes meaningful when properly integrated. This is actually some of the most important integration work.
I have experience with integration across a range of psychedelics including psilocybin, MDMA, ayahuasca, 5-MeO-DMT, LSD, and ketamine. Different substances produce different types of experiences and may require different integration approaches.
I can help you think through the decision—discussing potential benefits, risks, screening considerations, and what preparation would look like. But the decision is yours. I don't advocate for or against psychedelic use; I support people who are making their own informed choices.
With a Mental Health Care Plan from your GP, you can access Medicare rebates for psychology sessions. The integration work falls under psychological treatment and can be billed accordingly.
Ready to Integrate?
Whether you're processing a recent experience, preparing for a future one, or wanting to finally land insights from years ago—integration is where transformation becomes real.
Book Integration SessionIn crisis? If you're experiencing a psychiatric emergency, please call 000. For urgent mental health support, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14. If you're having a difficult experience during or after psychedelic use and need immediate support, you can also contact TripSit (tripsit.me) for harm reduction support.