How Psychedelic Integration and Depth Therapy Work Together
Psychedelic experiences can open us to vast, mysterious realms of the psyche—but it’s what we do afterward that truly matters.
As a depth psychotherapist and psychedelic integration therapist in Oakland, I often sit with people who’ve had powerful, sometimes bewildering, psychedelic journeys. Many come in saying something like, “It felt like the same work we’ve been doing in therapy—just louder, more vivid, and more intense.” That moment always gives me chills. Because what we often find is that the images and themes that arise during psychedelic states aren’t random. They mirror what’s already alive in the unconscious—the very same wounds, patterns, and soul parts we’ve been tending to together in therapy.
You might meet your inner child not as an idea, but as a small, trembling figure asking for protection. You might encounter ancestral grief as a storm or a burning landscape. You might feel overwhelming love, or unbearable fear. Whatever shows up, it deserves to be met with care—not rushed past or dismissed.
That’s where psychedelic integration comes in.
Integration is the process of making meaning from your experience and weaving it into your life. It’s not about figuring it all out—it’s about letting it work you, gently and over time. In the context of depth psychotherapy, integration becomes soul work. We might explore the symbolic meaning of what you saw or felt. We might track how old wounds were reactivated—or how new possibilities opened. We honor the experience not just as a chemical event, but as a spiritual one.
But it’s not just that therapy supports psychedelic work—therapy can actually expand it.
Depth psychotherapy helps prepare the inner terrain. It strengthens the ego just enough so that it doesn’t collapse under the weight of the unconscious, but can stay present and curious. When you’ve already begun to explore your grief, trauma, inner child, or spiritual longings in therapy, a psychedelic journey doesn’t emerge in a vacuum. It becomes a continuation of the same soulful inquiry.
Likewise, what emerges in a journey can open new doors in therapy: themes that had been too painful or hidden may now feel more accessible. Clients often return from these experiences with an increased sense of possibility, tenderness, or urgency. And our work deepens because of it.
Sometimes, psychedelic journeys confirm what you already knew deep down. Other times, they bring up buried material that needs time to unfold. Either way, they can be a profound companion to your therapeutic process—when held within a safe, grounded container.
Psychedelics are not magic bullets. And they’re not for everyone. But for those who choose to explore altered states—whether through plant medicine, MDMA, psilocybin, or ketamine—the real healing often happens afterward. That’s where integration becomes essential.
If you’ve had a psychedelic experience that left you shaken, inspired, confused, or cracked open—and you’re looking for someone to help you make meaning of it—I’d be honored to support you. I offer psychedelic integration therapy in Oakland and online throughout California.
Let’s sit together in that liminal space between what was and what could be—and see what the psyche is asking of you now. Contact me today.