Nowadays, there's this tendency of understanding psychedelic therapy or psychedelic healing more as events.

I went to the jungle, I drank ayahuasca, and this happened.

I went to this clinical trial, I took psilocybin or 5-MeO-DMT and this happened.

I took MDMA and my trauma was healed.

Yeah, so we Because that that is good uh headlines for for media, you know, like um uh psilocybin heal suppression MDMA is a cure for PTSD.

That is good for a headline, but this does not illustrate what happens in reality.

Hello and welcome back to Adventures Through the Mind.

This is a podcast that explores topics relevant and related to psychedelic culture, medicine, spirituality, and research.

and always with the underlying question of how can we work with and through our psychedelic experiences to become better people, not just for ourselves, but for all those with whom we are nested in relationship.

presently and across time, human and non human alike.

I'm your host, as always, James W.

Jesso.

As you've probably already guessed, based on the title of this episode, today's interview is going to be exploring psychedelic integration.

Our guest is someone who is well positioned to have this conversation, and you'll know why based on the bio I'm about to read in a second, but his name is Mark Aixalà.

And now I'll reuse bio.

Mark Aixalà is a practicing psychologist, psychotherapist, and certified holotropic breastwork facilitator who specializes in supporting people facing challenging experiences with expanded states of consciousness.

He has worked at the Cosmicare Psychedelic Crisis Intervention Service since 2010, which is kind of like Boom Festival's version of Zendo that's present at Burning Man.

But um That's an aside, anyways.

It is a uh on-site uh festival um basically Psychrisis service.

He founded the ICEERS Support Center in 2013, which provides integration support for individuals through ISEERS, and he has assisted hundreds of cases through that service.

He has also collaborated with facilitators from different countries to promote safer psychoactive plant practices through ISEERS.

and beyond.

He's trained in the MAPS MDMA assisted psychotherapy method and is currently a practicing psychotherapist in clinical trials involving psilocybin.

He's the author of the book Psychedelic Integration, Psychotherapy for Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness, and he is the lead instructor on ICER's upcoming psychedelic integration course.

aptly titled iSeer's integration course.

Now Mark is on the show in part to promote the course and we're going to talk about that in a second.

But he's on the show promoting the course in a way that I believe will offer anyone listening an incredible sort of package of information about psychedelic integration generally, as we're gonna go quite in-depth into what psychedelic integration is, what it's offered, what it's for, how we do it, timelines for when to apply certain practices.

We're going to talk about common mistakes in both the practice of psychedelic integration and in our understanding of it.

And we're going to address some specific questions, particularly about derealization or depersonalization.

working with so called bad trips or traumatic experiences, and integrating experiences that are transcendental or transpersonal in nature, ones that don't have such a clear sense of how it applies in our daily lives.

So when it comes to psychedelic integration, there are obviously two sides of that.

There's the person doing the integrating, and then there's the person or person supporting the person doing the integrating, professional and otherwise.

And Although the the interview today and its content is, I think, could be very beneficial to anyone providing any type of psychedelic therapy or integration coaching.

I made sure to funnel the questions and sort of invite Mark to answer the questions in a way that is directly applicable to the journey side of the equation in the hopes that This episode will help any individual who is presently effectively try journeying psychedelics or planning to and wants to kind of make the best out of that experience to get the most out of how it can, you know, be applied into our lives, both in the sense of optimizing its benefits and also in the sense of how to handle how to handle the experiences that end up harming us, at least in the short term, such that the harm doesn't continue into the long term.

Now those are the general topics.

The framing of this though is that as much as the information we're gonna talk about here today or that you're gonna hear Mark sharing is, you know, relevant and you know useful to people who apply or um sorry, practice or facilitate psychedelic therapy or psychedelic integration, I was very conscientious to ask questions and invite answers that are more targeted towards A general understanding and B applicability to individuals undergoing these psychedelic experiences.

The under individual Doing the integration itself.

Before we get into it though, I want to talk about Mark's course because part of this episode is to promote it and because, well, I really think ICEERS creates incredible online courses.

So I'm excited to tell you about it because I think that if it feels like it's a right fit for you, you're probably going to be uh really satisfied with what you get out of it.

So as to the details, this is a 14-week long course with 60 video lessons and 12 live dialogues with instructors.

Which includes literally being on live calls where you can ask your questions with the instructors and a number of video lessons, which are modules that you access online that are released weekly.

And here's how iCears describes the course, and I'm gonna, you know, basically quote it here, reading it right off their page People will learn effectively an integration approach that supports people facing challenges after difficult psychedelic experiences.

as well as to help individuals to want to just get the best out of an otherwise positive psychedelic experience.

Throughout the course you will learn Theoretical foundations and paradigms, the most common situations an integration practitioner may encounter, how to plan and apply a scenario-based intervention protocol, and useful tools and techniques.

That's pretty general, clearly.

I'm trying to give you the most general picture of this course, letting Mark describe the details and leaving it up to you to basically investigate more of the course if you feel like it fits for you.

If you do want to check out the course, head to jameswjesso.com/iceersintergration, I-C-E-E-R-S integration.

A link to that is going to be in the description to this episode wherever you are checking it out as well.

So you can jump over there.

Applications are open now for Early Bird, which means 10% off till I think November 17th, and are only open until December 15, after which point you can no longer sign up for the course.

It's gonna start in January, it's gonna run until about March.

As to the price, what's really cool about ICEERS is that they it effectively like gear the price relative to the country that you live in.

So I can't really give you what the price will be because it's going to be dependent on what country you live in as more affluent countries it costs more and less affluent countries it costs less.

But regardless of what country you're in and what your total price will be, if you use the promo code that they generously offered me to offer you, which is J-E-S-S-O.

my last name, you'll get 15% off the price of the course.

Now, this is not cumulative on top of the 10% um early bird registration.

So, I mean if you go for the Early Bird, or you don't, it is what it is.

But if you use the promo code J-E-S-S-O, you're gonna get 15% off your course.

Again, head to jameswjesso.com/iceersintergration I C E E R S integration.

in order to learn more details and to sign up.

And one last piece before we get into the interview, I know the intro is running long and I'm doing a lot to talk about this course.

I just want to say that I have not personally taken the integration course.

However, I'm going to.

I'm so excited about the content of this course.

I've actively signed up.

So If you take the course, you'll be doing it alongside me, because I'm also going to be signing up for it.

Or well, I I have already signed up for it.

I'm also going to be participating.

And part of that and part of why I am, you know, featured Mark is that.

What ICEERS does and the courses they put together are just incredible.

I took their IA Safety course a couple of years ago and I've had Jeronimo Mazaraza on here to talk about a handful of times and It was incredible.

I, as a podcaster, as a researcher, have a pretty wide spread of understanding of what's kind of like happening and available in the psychedelic field and what seems to be missing in a lot of perspectives and what I think would be, you know time well spent to feature more strongly in the ongoing conversations about psychedelics and they really hit it right out of the park.

Um A little baseball reference for anyone who watched the World Series.

Uh, what was it last week?

Um they really hit it out of the park with the eye of safety, and I have every confidence that they're doing the same with the integration course.

So I'm excited to participate and I'm excited to see you there if you choose to also participate.

And that's all for the intro.

Here's my conversation with Mark Aixalà on episode 2002 of Adventures to the Mind.

Enjoy.

Mark Aixalà, welcome to Adventures through the Mind.

Thank you.

So uh you are here representing or I guess representing slash showcasing uh your knowledge and experience as a way of uh I guess uh showcasing and representing an upcoming course regarding psychedelic integration that's going through ICEERS Academy, which is a division of ICEERS.

Um avid or uh frequent listeners to the show might recognize the name of that organization.

We've had Jeronimo on here uh multiple times um uh promoting other courses through ICEERS.

Uh but in case, and I think with fair assumption that you know people don't actually know what ICEERS is or ICEERS Academy And and don't talk about your course yet.

We're going to get into the whole crux of what the course is.

And in the intro, they would have heard me talk about the course.

So we're going to talk more about content and end with discussions about the course specifically.

But to start us off on this question, what is ICEERS and what is ICEERS Academy?

Hmm.

Yeah, that's um uh good question and I hope that what I say about it is gonna be coherent with what Geronimo said.

although uh ICEERS is an organization that does plenty of different things, so probably the view of each member of ICEERS about what is iSires is slightly different.

Yeah.

ICEERS began almost 15 years ago through a group of friends, people that we met.

through the common interest in plant medicine, in psychedelics, in non-ordinary states, in indigenous knowledge.

And it's Started in a very organic way.

My good friend Ben Delonnen founded it and then he was the one that started discovering us and uh getting us together.

So back then what was common amongst all of us was that we had this interest in how to bridge the knowledge of these traditions that work with plant medicine with what we do in the West.

So how to apply indigenous intelligence, indigenous knowledge, plant medicine in a Western context.

And what do we Westerners need in order to integrate these tools?

in a way that is meaningful and in a way that is useful and in a way that is not uh appropriating what indigenous people do.

Yeah Then through the years, we've started creating different divisions, divisions that had to do with legal aspects of plant medicine, ayahuasca, iboga and different plants We also had a more clinical division or scientific division led by my good colleague Jos Bowson.

that his uh focus very much on science and done plenty of research through the last 15 years.

We've also had the section in which I was more involved, which was the integration uh service.

Yeah.

So this was a service for people that had had difficult ayahuasca or psychedelic experiences.

And we would support them free of charge.

And we've been doing that since the beginning.

Yeah And later on there's been other uh divisions, other projects in uh inside of ICEERS.

One of them has been the iSource Academy.

And that has been like a natural evolution of what we have been doing throughout the years.

Together with Geronimo and David, we have been for many years uh been running a a project that was not public inside of ICEERS.

We called it the Dandelion project, in which we were um meeting with people that offer ayahuasca ceremonies, uh facilitators in different countries.

We've been to plenty of uh different countries.

And we were trying to support them in how to increase the safety standards, how to increase the safety of the sessions, how to aim for good and safer practices and uh how to support them with the things that they were not uh especially proficient.

So for example uh somebody that has been trained as a ceremony leader, they probably don't know about screening or integration or leading uh sharing circles.

So we would complement on that kind of knowledge.

To increase the general safety of their sessions.

We've been doing that for many years, and at some point we felt that this was a knowledge and a way of working that was worth making it public.

So uh creating the iSearch Academy just seemed um a natural step into making these kind of activities that we were already doing for several years more open to anybody that would be interested.

So in a ICEERS academy is a project that aims to provide tips, tools, and information to increase the safety of how we use plant medicine and psychedelics in a Western context.

Hmm.

And you offer two main courses, the one we're going to talk about today, the integration course, and then the other one which you just kind of explored around the uh increasing the safety of ayahuasca and I guess other plant medicines, but with a key focus on ayahuasca, uh the safety of those uh sessions in non-traditional context, which Jeronimo was on previously to talk about a handful of times.

Now, you alluded to it just a moment ago when you talked about the integration service that ISEERS offers.

But before we start getting into exactly, you know, our the bulk of our discussion on integration.

give us a sense of where this knowledge and experience is coming from.

Like you're going to speak to psych okay, so pardon the the phrasing here, but uh you're about to speak about, you know, psychedelic integration.

Well like What do you know?

How how did how did you get to the things that you're going to share with us?

Where did that knowledge and experience come from?

That's a very good question and I think an a very important one because uh nowadays it is uh very common to hear people talk about integration, psychedelic therapy.

Uh-huh But not so often we can understand where that knowledge comes from.

Yeah.

Why why they say the things that they say, where have they learned the things.

And when I start my courses and my classes and my teachings, I always like to to share that background.

Because I do think that's very important.

Mostly because there's not one way of working, one right way of working.

Yeah, when we talk about psychedelic therapy, psychedelic integration.

shamanic practices, we have a diversity of practices.

So it is not that we believe that our way of doing things is the right way of doing things or my way of practicing integration is the right way of practicing in integration, but it's just one way that comes from a given context.

Yeah.

So the context in which my experience in integration grew has been quite diverse as well.

So on the one hand, um where it all started was at the Boom Festival 2008-2010, where I met Ben Delonen.

And we were working in that service that's called Cosmicare, which is uh, I guess that for the American audience, similar to Zendo, like the psychedelic emergency support service that works in a recreational context.

particularly at Boom Festival.

So I was volunteering there and I volunteered for many years.

I've been uh working at Cosmic Air in different roles as a volunteer, as a team leader, as a trainer, as a mentor for therapists and volunteers.

So supporting difficult situations, that is something that uh has been part of my experience of seeing how psychedelic experiences can turn really really challenging.

Yeah.

In a week working at Cosmic Ear, you see some of the most intense psychedelic trips that you can imagine.

Yeah.

So that is like a psychedelic boot camp uh training sort of of uh platform.

So that is one thing that uh that harm reduction approach for recreational users That has informed very much the way that I understand how to support people in a way that is non-judgmental, in a way that is focused on supporting what is already happening without focusing too much on why has it has why it has happened or why people took the decision that they took.

Yeah.

That is one one thing.

The other main context in which integration was something that I started to get more acquainted with was uh ICEERS.

And the integration service was not something that we created thinking that we had to offer that.

It was more a request that we got from people.

So what we found very early on was that uh people were writing to the ICEERS email sharing their difficult experiences.

I've gone to Peru, I did this dieta, I drank with the shaman, I've had this buffo experience, whatever, and I've had some problems.

Can you help me?

And me being the only psychologist, uh the clinical psychologist back then in in the foundation, uh, it was my role to answer those emails So in a way we started providing integration services without calling that integration yet.

Yeah, we had people that were in need of support.

We were supporting them because we felt that that was a service to the community that we had to do.

And then later on that became the integration and support service.

And then we formally offered that service that we were giving.

So these would be the two initial uh situations, and then something that has informed very much my work has been my training in holotropic breathwork.

Holotropic breathwork is a breathing technique that comes from early psychedelic therapy.

It was created by Stan Grove.

And in holotropic breath work, we usually um do the whole uh arch of the experience, preparation session integration.

So that gave me um quite a lot of experience of working with hundreds of people before the journey, during the experience, and after the experience.

Yeah.

Then of course I also um um Had my own experiences with breath work.

So there was a self-experiential part in that as well.

And I also am a regular psychologist and psychotherapist that's done several trainings So that clinical experience also has informed the way that I practice integration.

So I would say that mostly these are the main areas where I gathered knowledge And later on in these last few years I've been more involved in clinical trials.

I was trained by MAPS on the use of MDMA for PTSD and I've been working quite intensively uh with uh psilocybin trials for uh treatment resistant depression and that has given me another perspective as well of different situations, different challenges that can occur when we use psychedelics for therapy.

So that would be the main places and context where I'm speaking from.

Excellent.

Thank you.

And just to clarify, when you're talking about the psychedelic or sorry, the integration side of ICEERS, you are actively facilitating integration sessions with people through That and that's another that was like an area uh another area of your experience development.

Yeah, absolutely.

Uh I'm sorry if I have not been Totally clear, but I did that from 20 uh twelve to twenty nineteen.

Um that was my main role at ICEERS.

And then I started um uh taking on a more um teaching role, yeah, like writing this integration book, sharing knowledge about integration, and then I've been less active in uh supporting people at the foundation, some other people to that that uh role, David Antonio mostly.

Um so I've been not so much involved in the last few years in doing integration at ISURS.

I still do it at my um private practice, but for six, seven years that was something that That was what I did at iceurs.

Excellent.

Thank you.

So let's get into that then.

Psychedelic integration.

Now I know that the course, at least from my read of it.

Seems like it is something that could be quite applicable to people who are just people taking journeys and looking to increase their ability to integrate in general or want a better understanding.

But also, especially for people who present themselves as practitioners of integration, therapists, coaches, et cetera.

So on the f on the practitioner side of things.

And I have a lot of practitioners that do listen to listen to the show, but I think it's fair to assume most people who are listening aren't psychotherapists or integration coaches.

They're just regular, regular old folk just looking to make better, uh make better or make it make good out of out of otherwise uh difficult experiences.

So as I ask you these questions, you know, include what you need to include to feel like you answer the question fully, but kind of keep it geared towards more on the journey or side of things to the degree to which you think it's appropriate or or even accessible.

And with that, you know, what is psychedelic integration?

That's a very good question, and there's not one simple answer for that.

Um I always give a similar answer when asked this question is that I tend not to directly answer this question because uh many times defining in a very short or specific way what psychedelic integration is becomes a very biased answer and then we are missing out other things that could also be included under the label of psychedelic integration.

maybe the only thing that we we could all agree about what is integration is that that's what we do after the experience.

Yeah so after a psychedelic experience those activities, those things that we do or that we don't do, that would have an impact on how we integrate our experiences.

So When when trying to answer or to define integration, I've taken a more somehow nuanced or complex approach, trying to define different aspects that uh integration can imply or different angles on which we can look at integration.

So um and and that goes with the first part of your of your question that This is not only aimed for therapists, but the way that I tried to imagine and understand integration is something that I've tried to make it as accessible as possible.

Because in a way Many times integration doesn't need to be a clinical intervention, a therapeutic intervention.

In integration can be um uh something that we do on our own without the support of a professional.

Yeah so and that's actually most of the times.

So it is actually important to make integration more accessible.

for lay people, not just for therapists.

Yeah.

So in my approach of um defining integration, I define it through mostly three different axes.

One would be what I call the metaphors for integration.

So that is providing different metaphors that illustrate different aspects of what integration can be.

And we can go into that if you want at some point.

But just to give you a couple of examples, we could understand integration as a tree that grows deep into the soil with the roots and high into the sky.

Yeah.

Or understanding integration as planting seeds, as the experience.

Psychedelic experience being a seed and then what we do in integration somehow taking care of that seed for it to allow uh to grow and bear fruit.

Yeah.

So Because in in different situations integration will take different forms.

So having just one fixed definition Can be too narrowing.

And metaphors can be very useful to provide a very expansive, a very uh wide container for things to evolve in uh their own uh path and their own taste.

Yeah, so Different times we might be using different metaphors to understand our own process of integration.

Sometimes it will be more a cognitive thing.

sometimes we will feel more like uh something unfolding and growing yeah so metaphors are a really useful way to depict different angles of what can be integration so that would be one of the axes The second one is what I call the dimensions of integration.

Integration, most of the times we think about integration in cognitive terms.

like understanding, giving meaning to the experience, interpreting the symbols, creating a narrative, but that is just one of the dimensions of integration I talk about seven dimensions of integration and how we can look for tools that would address these different dimensions.

And then the third axis would be the what I call scenarios and needs.

And that is mostly uh two different and very different situations.

Integration can be mostly aimed to maximize the benefits after a positive experience.

That's usually what it looks like.

But integration could also be what we need to do in order to stabilize somebody or help somebody deal.

with challenging experiences that have occurred after a psychedelic journey.

And these two different scenarios are quite different in terms of the interventions that are needed Yeah, so what is useful in one case might not be useful in the other one.

So I try to make this distinction.

For me, all of that is integration, but sometimes the activities and even the person that can do that process is different in both of these cases.

So the metaphors, the dimensions and the needs and scenarios, that will be the ways in which I try to define integration in a complex and in a uh way that could be comprehensive.

Well with that shared, that what are these seven dimensions of integration?

Yeah, with no particular order.

We have the spiritual dimension, cognitive dimension, emotional dimension.

physical dimension like our body, the behavioral dimension, and then the social and time dimensions.

Those are the seven dimensions that I talk about.

I feel like, okay, so we have uh can you help us help me list it again?

We have the the psychological dimensions, emotional dimension.

Um Wow, my short-term memory, very poor apparently.

I guess there's some.

Can you imagine like a like a body of a person?

We have a mind, we have uh emotions, we have a physical body, yeah.

So that would be like the intra-psychic sort of dimensions.

three dimensions, then we have we do things, yeah.

So we have behavior.

That would be the fourth dimension.

Then we have our connection with transcendent experiences.

that would be spiritual dimension and we are also social beings so we integrate experiences in our social container that would be the social dimension the sixth one and then we do the integration in time The integration is something that is dynamic, it moves through the time.

So that will be the last dimension, so to speak.

Ah, that's good.

You know, in helping me clarify my own question.

Yeah or well in in responding to my uh struggle in asking the question, you answered the very question I was struggling to answer or uh or ask.

So thank you for that.

Um You're a psychotherapist.

How is psychedelic integration related to psychotherapy?

Are they the same?

Like is psychedelic integration just like a form of psychotherapy?

Or are they different?

Are they complementary?

Do they kind of belong in separate camps?

Like, how would you describe this sort of like comparisons and contrasts between psychedelic integration as a thing and then psychotherapy as a thing.

That's a very good question and I've actually tried to go a little bit deep into this question because I believe it is not helpful if we don't try to make a distinction.

Uh in the last few years we have seen how integration and psychotherapy have become somehow the same thing, you know But I don't think they are.

So in my definition of integration, I spent a significant amount of time trying to differentiate between psychotherapy and integration.

Of course, that these differences are not, I mean, these are not totally independent concepts.

Yeah, there are some intersections between uh integration and psychotherapy.

But I think that integration it is not a psychotherapeutic process.

Integration is a process that is focused on a specific event that psychedelic experience.

So in many psychotherapy schools and modalities, they have a more open or broad I don't know, interest, no?

They would could be talking about childhood, they could be talking about psychological patterns, they could be talking about trauma.

And sometimes it's an open-ended sort of process in which the objectives are not clear and the length of the process is not clear and where are we going is not entirely clear.

Integration, I think, that is different.

Integration can be a therapeutic intervention.

You know, so some of the things that we might do in that intervention can be similar to what we do in therapy.

But the focus and the aim is somehow focused on what's on the psychedelic experience.

Once we have solved whatever needs the person has regarding that experience.

It's my belief that integration should finish or we should reformulate what we're doing to have clarity about what's going on.

I think that the question of is this integration or is this psychotherapy is more important for the practitioner than for the client.

You know, so because many times some people start a process as integration and then it shifts into a psychotherapy process.

And for me it is extremely important to be aligned with what the client, the person that wants to work with me with their objectives.

You know, maybe they didn't sign up for psychotherapy.

They just had a difficult experience and they want support in solving that that experience, but without me getting in other aspects of their life And for me it's extremely important to be respectful of that.

That's why I understand integration as an intervention that is limited in time, that it's limited in the objectives that it has, and that it should finish, we should be able to say when we finished our intervention in integration.

Because integration can continue without being in therapy.

Actually most of us we integrate our experiences without going to therapy.

and we're still doing our integration.

So we should be pretty clear that uh integration can happen even if there's not uh a single therapist involved.

Actually, that would be the ideal scenario.

In my approach to integration, what I aim for is that we do what is needed so the person doesn't feel that they need me anymore, that they can continue their integration process on their own.

That would be my objective.

Yes, like, all right, I think that I got it.

I can continue working with this experience on my own.

I don't need to continue doing therapy sessions.

Yeah.

So that's the the way that I approach integration.

How to help people recover balance how to help people recover the sense of control or agency on their own process so they can continue on their own.

And that for me is important because At least in my values, that's the way to stay aligned with the psychedelic values.

We always talk about how psychedelics they show us that the healing is inside of us and it's a self-directed process, and we don't need an expert on the outside.

If then in the integration slash therapy or whatever you're doing there, you're shifting those principles and you as a practitioner, you're becoming the doer, the expert, and the one directing the process.

I think that we are misaligning ourselves with these psychedelic values.

Hmm.

Yeah, I like that.

You discuss integration as being this sort of complex and very nuanced thing.

And that, you know, out of all this complexity, you know, there's one thing that we can all generally agree is you know, a fundamental aspect of integration is it's something that happens after the psychedelic experience.

And yet, from what I understand, how we prepare for that psychedelic experience has a significant impact.

on integration.

Can you talk about the dynamic between preparation and integration?

What role preparation plays in our integration?

And maybe even.

You know, vice versa, if we're doing multiple journeys over time, what role our integration plays in our preparation.

Just talk about that dynamic a little bit.

Yeah.

I think this is extremely important and and in fact that's where my attention is going more in these last uh years.

Yeah.

So I focused uh focused a lot on integration.

uh because my work took me there.

You know, I was working at ICEERS and that's what people were asking of me.

And that's when I went deep into integration.

But I think that preparation is more important and still very little defined of what is a good preparation and what should we do in preparation.

What is clear to me is that one of the main factors that has an impact on having a challenging time in integration is the lack of preparation.

Insufficient preparation, bad preparation, or not taking preparation into account.

That is usually a common factor amongst most of the difficulties that I have encountered through the years that people have reported to me So in in my definition or description of the challenges that are more common after difficult experiences.

The first category that I talk about is lack of preparation.

So why did this person experience difficulties in integration?

Because there was a lack of preparation.

What preparation?

Then we can uh talk about more detailed aspects, but lack of preparation is at the base of many difficulties in integration.

And I think that we we should not uh lose sight of this.

Nowadays there's this tendency of understanding psychedelic therapy or psychedelic healing more as events.

Yeah I went to the jungle, I drank ayahuasca and this happened.

I went to this clinical trial, I took psilocybin or 5MODMT and this happened I took MDMA and my trauma was healed.

Because that that is good uh headlines for for media, you know, like Psilocybin heal suppression.

MDMA is a cure for PTSD.

That is good for a headline.

But this does not illustrate what happens in reality.

Reality is that psychiatric therapy is a process.

is an unfolding process that usually expands beyond what happens in preparation and what happens in integration.

There's somebody that is journey.

through all this uh process.

And if we lose sight that we're working in a process, then we're not understanding what's going on.

And we're focusing on things that might not be that relevant.

We're focusing maybe too much on what's happening during the experience and attributing all the importance on what happens during the experience.

But we're not taking into account where does this person come from And where is this person going?

Yeah.

So um for me the my my next um um um uh projects have to do with defining more preparation.

What is good preparation?

What does somebody need to be prepared?

What does it mean to be prepared for an experience.

But definitely these are something that is related.

And many times, and this is something very beautiful that we see in clinical trials the as you said the the boundaries between what is integration and what is preparation sometimes are kind of blurry when we are In a process in which multiple experiences will happen.

In this last clinical trial that I've been working in, we had uh from two psilocybin experiences up to four psilocybin experiences So of course we had preparation sessions labeled as such, and then we had integration sessions, but then we would have another dozing day and then some more integration and then And then those integration sessions in between, they became some sort of integration slash preparation for the next.

You know, and then we somehow renegotiate and re-evaluate what we are doing, what is working, what is not.

what it's needed to go to the next experience in a more kind of um prepared way or more open way and then maybe Uh after the third experience we look back and we do an integration of the th the sequence of the three experiences that they have had and somehow that makes sense when when looking back and that maybe just right after the first experience it did not make sense.

You know, so um I think that this is something extremely important to focus on.

What is good preparation and how to do preparation.

for basically two things.

I think that the the role of preparation is to uh maximize the possibility of a safe experience and a meaningful experience.

So if you ask me what is preparation for, is for safety and for meaning.

And most of the times it is more important to do a good preparation and then there will be not a lot of need for integration.

I've done preparation processes with people of around five, six sessions.

Then they went and had their ayahuasca retreat or whatever experience they were going to have.

And then they came back for the integration And with a couple of integration sessions, they felt that that was enough.

They didn't need many more integration sessions.

You know, so I think that if We do a good preparation, people feel ready, people go to the experience and they are well supported, they have a good experience, then integration will be much more flowing and easy and we will not encounter uh challenges there.

Hmm.

Yeah, that's that's very interesting.

And and also comes back to what you're saying about the time dimension, you know, depending on the sort of uh, you know, whatever sort of lens or view or or scale of time, you could see that, like you said, multiple journeys, their integration is also preparation that o on a whole becomes its own kind of like arc in the process of our journey with a particular medicine over time.

and over multiple sessions that is its own sort of block or piece of something to integrate.

Um and and something else is you know, relative to when this is coming out, because this is going to come up pretty quickly after recording to help promote your psychedelic integration course, is that um I recently got wind of a of an organization here in Canada that has been doing these group sessions and is now running uh some clinical research um that will be full unfolding through multiple organizations where individuals who are healthy, well.

It's like they're not individuals with some sort of condition that the research is trying to see can psychedelics, psilocybin in particular, treat this.

It's um, oh, what happens when healthy people undergo this sort of community targeted process where it's the most of the time it's a lot, it's like eight weeks of preparation sessions before the actual journey and then some less amount of integration.

Their premise is that if the preparation is very well done and in the preparation, a key aspect of it is not only preparing the individual, but creating a sense of interpersonal safety because those eight weeks of sessions are with the same individuals you're going to be journeying with, that the need for integration will be substantially less because of the kind of like I mean my terminology, but like the the how fertile the soil was before you dropped into the psychedelic space together.

I mean, my Assumption is that kind of like you said, yes, it will require less integration because the preparation was so sufficient.

Um And even Jeronimo who was on previously, as I said, he mentioned how in traditional communities there isn't really a lot of need for integration sessions because these ceremonies happen as a part of the culture in the community that you live with, and everyone in some way or another is participating directly or indirectly.

And so there's less need for what we hear in the you know, I don't know, the West is kind of a big weird term, but like how us West people of the Western global north, you know, define as it's like specific thing that happens after the after the ceremony.

So yeah, I like that.

Yeah.

Yeah, I totally agree with this and and uh that's uh similar terms.

uh than I speak about when talking about this social dimension of integration.

I mean why do we make so much focus on we need to integrate our experiences because these sort of experiences are alien to our culture and our daily life.

So then we need to make something to bring them into our paradigm.

While in uh a lot of m uh shamanic uh cultures Everybody knows what that's about.

You know, you go to Peru, for example, and and in restaurants you see in the menu uh ayahuasca dieta de ayahuasca.

No?

Like uh and so you go to a restaurant, a regular restaurant, and you can order food that is gonna be suitable if you've been drinking ayahuasca or if you just come out of the jungle.

Does this mean that the cook or the waiters drink ayahuasca or are interested in that?

Not really.

We don't know, no, but but they are in a culture in which these things are already part of what they're doing.

So There's not so much need of uh for specific uh integration.

Yeah.

Uh but we do we do have a need for bringing home uh these extraordinary experiences.

Yeah.

So yeah, that's that's one of the challenges that we are encountering.

And probably this is less and less through the years.

Yeah.

Now we have more language, we have more structure on how to bring these experiences into a Western paradigm.

But for decades we haven't had much of this, you know, so this is slowly evolving and now we start having our own ways of understanding these experiences and with these new challenges gone.

I'm sure that with Geronimo you've talked about this of How do we develop practices that are native to where we are?

You know, like uh how do we do our own rituals, how do we do our community uh experiences?

and uh without having to steal from uh people from other cultures, no like this extractivist approach that somehow uh has happened over the last years of A lot of Western apprentices going there, learning the art in the Amazon, and then coming to Europe, to Barcelona, and practicing in an Amazonian way.

This is still like early stages.

of our relationship with these plants and these tools, I believe.

So okay, so let's take a little pause from the interview here as I as I do.

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Thank you so much.

Let's get back into the interview with uh Mark Aixalà right now.

What are some of the common mistakes people make with integration, you know, in in understanding what integration may be or not be?

I know you already talked about this sort of uh kind of contextualized by us living from birth to death as a kind of ongoing process of being.

I'll add the other level of like And each of us are smaller pieces inside of a larger moving whole of life under a larger process that exists well beyond our individual uh uh birth and death.

I'm putting that on you.

You don't have to take it.

But what are some of the common mistakes people make?

These can be mistakes made by facilitators, or they could be mistakes made by the individuals themselves.

Yeah, that's um that's something that I have not uh formalized in in in language that often.

But uh I think that we could describe different mistakes in yeah according to different dimensions.

What would be of uh how how much we do?

Yeah, uh I think one mistake is not paying attention to integration.

Like not having time, not having space to be in contact with experience Allowing ourselves to really calm down from the experience, be relaxed for at least one day afterwards, be able to reflect, journal, paint, walk, meditate, whatever.

You know, like not creating the space, I think, is a common mistake.

And this is a mistake that journeys can do and facilitators sometimes they they do as well.

Yeah, so it is common to have profound experiences.

Uh and psychonautes and people that do self-experimentation, they have a lot of deep experiences.

But it is less common that we take some time the day after to sit with that, to write about it, to spend some time, I don't know, creating something that will be a a witness of the experience that we've had.

Yeah.

And if we don't do that.

Yeah, it could be a writing, a painting, I don't know, anything that will remind you, that will be a place to come back to and to reconnect with your experience.

If we don't do that, chances are that the experience will fade away in shorter time than we might think.

No, this is sometimes like like dreams that when you wake up they seem very clear, but then after a couple of hours You lost them and you don't remember the dream anymore.

So I think psychedelics.

But if you write them down when you first wake up, then there's a better likelihood they can remember them.

Yeah.

Exactly.

So spending that time to to fix that experience, it will make it much easier to go back to the experience in time and then we can take, I don't know, two years to integrate our own pace if we want.

And then insights can be coming slowly from that experience.

But if there's not been this initial effort, so to speak, or this time devoted to to uh to some integration practice, it's very difficult that we can recover something from that experience.

So that would be the first mistake.

And then what facilitators do sometimes is that they don't provide this space for their um the people that attend their workshops.

Or they provide that space in a very kind of superficial way.

Alright, so let's uh sit here in a circle and let's share experience.

Okay, let's go.

And then you do it in a way that it's not very meaningful and that doesn't add much to it.

Yeah, same thing as painting uh mandalas or writing or whatever.

I mean if you don't put an intention, if you don't create some sort of even a ceremony around it, you know, like really devoting time and intention to do that.

And then it doesn't matter if you tell people to paint or to write to to share.

It's not gonna be done with the intention that is needed.

Yeah.

So that would be one of the main mistakes, like not doing what could be done and that would make things much better.

On the other hand, the other mistake would be doing too much and focusing too much on the integration.

I need to do my integration.

Have you integrated your experience yet?

Have you gone to integration sessions?

Like try to rush.

integration as if integration was something that you could do something and then check.

Done.

Yeah?

I heard sometimes people say, I've done my integration.

I've integrated that already.

Well, I'm not too sure, you know.

I I think that experiences can evolve in time and we can continue integrating an experience that happened ten years ago.

but we can still distill information and knowledge from that experience.

So um that would be another mistake in my opinion to consider.

integration as a closed sort of drawer.

Okay, experience integrated, let's go to the next.

No, because experiences are in a continuum.

So Leaving them somehow open to continue resonating with them, I think it's part of what's important.

Then What what some of the mistakes and we are going now into something that can turn into being problematic is that some facilitators, therapists, shamans, you know, the leader of the of the ceremony takes a too active stance in the integration phase.

in the immediate integration phase.

So right after the experience or in the sharing circle or the day after the experience, making interpretations, making um I don't know, suggestions.

or telling people what they have to do, or you know, like taking too much of an active stance in the process of the other person, that can be very disruptive.

I have worked with people that came to me asking for for integration of a difficult experience and when exploring the difficult experience.

What was surprising is that the actual experience was not difficult.

They had a normal journey, insights, emotions, maybe some tears, whatever, you know, but they did not consider that journey problematic Problems came in the sharing circle, for example, that the facilitator said something, well, what happens to you, what this journey means to you is this, this and that, or what you should focus on this next month would be this, this, and that.

And those words said at that moment when the person is open, vulnerable, receptive, we can talk about neuroplasticity or how however you want to imagine that, that can have a profound impact to the point of erasing the experience and that the person is left just with the words or just with this last sort of interaction.

And I've worked with uh handful of people in this situation.

So as a practitioner, as a facilitator, we do have responsibility in what we say and do.

after our participants have have been in these deep journeys.

Yeah.

So that is a relatively common mistake.

Yeah, your your discussion there around the I think I had heard, maybe it was in the um IS Safety course, a reference to a phrase something like, um, interpretation is treason or something like this that that uh or like the the imposition of interpretation is actually a violation that uh a facilitator can do upon their client and uh One thing that I have used when I've been working with people who are, you know, have asked for my support and integration is talking about how We have to be careful not to let somebody else like give birth to the pregnant wonder too soon by interpreting our experiences for me or for us.

And so that's why it's We have to be cautious about who we talk to about our experiences and when we talk to them relative to the time frame or or amount of time in or meaningful time in that we've given our own experiences before we start talking to them.

That uh these the the sort of the gem, the precious gem of of of the journey can be tarnished even by well-meaning hands just because of the interpretive lens intended or otherwise.

Um and so I I I like that you I like that you brought that up.

Yeah, and and these experiences are something that's precious.

We don't do this that often.

Uh this is something that's special and it should be treated as something special.

That's why preparation is important to kind of make something special.

I mean, think about anything that's special in our lives.

We do something before to really make sure that we get that in the best.

conditions and then when it's happening we treat it as something uh important we m take pictures and afterwards we talk about that we share the picture.

I mean that's paying attention to important events and one way of not honoring these experiences is by sharing them in contexts that are not supportive.

Even if they are well intentioned, you know, you're sharing with uh your brother, your family, whatever, your deep experience, but you're doing that in a moment in which they cannot hear you, they cannot support you, and they just make a dismissive comment, uh, not because they mean any harm, but they just well, you know, you shouldn't worry that much about these internal things that you should go out more and uh have more relationships with people or whatever.

Like they they are saying it from a good place, but probably that's not what you need to hear to sort of honor that experience.

Yeah Hmm.

Yeah, I once had a conversation with a a colleague who helps in in these kinds of situations as well.

And Uh, we talked about the difference between interpretation and reflection, that there is quite a lot of value as as someone as you know, even if you are accidentally put in a place of being someone's integration support person because they're talking to you about their experiences.

to reflect what you see, like, oh, um yeah, it looks like it sounds like that was really that sounds like you're talking about this as if it were really meaningful to you.

Or like I could see that experience looks like it was quite important or I could see you're experienced a lot of distress or sadness about this to reflect back, like reflecting as opposed to, oh, you're you're making a big deal out of that.

Or you know, to think that the subtle difference between these things.

I mean I mind you I I'm imposing my own ideas here.

I don't know if you feel the same way or Well, I I I would be a little bit more nuanced uh about this because some reflections could also come from our own interpretation of what's going on and we could be reflecting what we're seeing because of my personal bias, you know.

But uh uh I I I I get the idea of what you're saying and I do agree with the core of it.

My language for this is that interventions in integration should help people amplify the meaning rather than reduce the meaning.

So if my interpretation or my reflection or my comment or my suggestion is going to be something that narrows down the possibilities of the experience, that is not doing any service to the person.

You know, so what you have experienced it means this, you know, I'm kind of narrowing the possibilities there.

So in my opinion, that is not useful.

But if we can find a way that amplify and wow, so this sounds awesome.

What else could this mean?

You know, what other ways could we look at it and what other meanings could this have?

No, we're giving it more room, more space, so it can grow and it can evolve in in uh whatever direction needs to go.

Yeah.

So for me the trick is expansion versus uh reduction.

Yeah.

Yeah, what one of the ways that I have observed this sort of unintended reduction versus expansion is when um the lens that people uh like facilitators, coaches, give an experience is to overtly psychologize it or in reverse overtly spiritualize it.

Where we're kind of like being like, oh, this is a particular way of seeing it, I'm gonna impose it upon it, and then you lose maybe the spiritual aspects of an experience because you're thinking about how too much how it might relate to this traumatic experience that I went through with my mother and that's why the angel was female.

or something like this or to overtly spiritualize it and be something to the effect of like, oh wow, you had contact with the angels and it's probably because they're giving you a spiritual message to Or something like this, yeah.

Absolutely.

And and the example that you make is uh very similar to the examples that I uh place when I talk about this different dimensions of integration and how we can be biased in different directions.

We can be uh very reductionist with the spiritual dimension as it sometimes happens with scientific approaches.

They don't like so much spiritual language and they try to explain spiritual experiences through psychological language.

And that's uh a reduction, but sometimes in some um shamanic or new age uh contexts we find an overemphasis.

on spiritual explanations and then everything is spiritual and then your traumas are not your traumas, they are due to a I don't know, an entity or an energy or who knows what.

You know like to give a spiritual explanation to everything, I think that that is a a bias as well and that's a reduction uh that goes only in this direction.

So that's why keeping in mind these different dimensions and see how could I look at these things from these different dimensions can help us have this more uh expansive approach to integration rather than focusing just on one of the dimensions.

So I mean with with with an understanding of just the the wide range of sort of I mean possible styles of intervention or practices or metaphors that I mean that might go into integration.

What exactly is involved with this?

Like what are some of the things that we might be doing and Are there like certain time points post-journey where certain practices are more advantageous?

than others.

I know you already spoke to like creating the space shortly after the day after to rest, to write, reflect, make art.

Um, I think you I don't know if you said do yoga, but like just it seems like you're what you're speaking to is there are certain practices that really thrive immediately after the journey.

What about further after, longer after?

Talk to me about the different practices and where they where they're best suited relative to when the journey takes place.

And uh you you're uh right on point again when I talk about the uh time dimension of integration I like to distinguish between what I call immediate Integration, which is what happens hours and a day or two days after the experience, and then long-term integration.

For immediate integration, we're talking about you know landing softly.

uh recovering the body, sleeping, eating, hydrating, having a relaxing time, maybe drawing, painting, yoga.

nature, sharing circles, you know, these classic sort of things that can be offered after an experience.

It is extremely important to have time to Finish well the process.

Yeah.

So one of the things that happens in the language of the holotropic breath of tradition if we don't pay attention to this immediate integration is that we may end up in what we call not reaching closure.

You know, we have not completed the experience and then somehow something is open and it's lingering there and it's gonna be probably bothering us uh further along uh the week or the month or whatever, you know.

So taking time to finish to reach closure, that is extremely important.

For that there Plenty of activities, all these things that we've said from yoga, nature, meditation, painting, singing.

I don't know, whatever.

We can be really creative with that.

What it's important is to propose this as options, not as obligations.

So now everybody needs to sing because the voice is really important to reach closure or to integrate your experience.

I don't think that it works like that.

When we create integration practices, they should be open, they should be something that people can engage with whatever works best for them at that moment.

For somebody it might be going into writing in a more kind of cognitive way, creating this strip report.

For somebody it might be painting, for somebody it might be going for a walk or swimming in the swimming pool or the ocean or listening to music or meditating or who knows.

Yeah, but what's important is that there's this time and space and the possibility and the materials, the options to go into these practices.

Yeah, so at least that's my approach to integration.

We propose certain activities, but we don't impose anything in particular.

Yeah.

For that, one needs a certain preparation.

You need to bring the materials, you need to have an idea of how you're gonna create that integration time.

Usually after I facilitate holotropic groundwork experiences, I um when I do longer workshops, I devote a full morning to integration.

And then I come with plenty of materials to have options so people can choose what they want to do.

Of course it helps to do the workshop in a place that's beautiful, that you have nature options as well.

I don't know, you can swim in the river or the ocean or a swimming pool, you can go for a walk in the woods.

All these things will enhance the possibility of uh having a more meaningful time and space for integration So these are the activities that I would suggest for this immediate part of the integration Most of the time these activities will continue to work well if we have not had challenges in our experience.

So if writing, meditating, reflecting about the experience, doing yoga, listening to music has worked.

In the immediate phase, most likely it will be something that will continue help you to reconnect with experience.

And then maybe uh will come the time to introduce certain uh behavioral changes to, I don't know, have that conversation that you have not had in a long time.

uh or I don't know start modifying your habits regarding food or who knows, yeah.

But maybe there will come a time.

to start acting on those insights, those things that we have learned during the experience.

And that usually comes in the longer uh term integration.

Yeah.

Maybe then you want to talk with a therapist because you want to do a couple of sessions.

Maybe you want to join these integration circles that happen sort of peer-to-peer.

uh integration or you want to enroll in a martial arts class because that's a way to you know like then these things can become tools for uh long-term integration.

as well, you know.

So um and of course if if there have been challenging challenges and problems, then we uh should go to a professional, to a specialist that can help us to resolve that as soon as possible because then we will transition into a more smoother phase of integration and we will continue on our own.

Yeah.

So I do think that there are uh key points in integration but mostly is reaching a good closure so we end up in a stable place and then we will find our path for sure So with this discussion of like there being key points, that kind of sort of already answers my next question of like are there sort of critical windows um where we might lose an opportunity to properly integrate certain things.

It seems like at least in the media integration, there is a there is a critical window of like we're still like we're in that transition phase between being like deeply in the experience and kind of back to normal life.

And that does it has a pretty defined time window, hopefully for most people, but extends for a very long time.

We're looking at a problematic situation.

Um, I mean like a mania or something to this effect.

But like for most people that ends.

So there is that critical window that you want to give yourself the sort of the best possible opportunities there.

But then you talk about, well, once that's closed, okay, then there's this time dimension, and there's all these other things you could be following up on, or maybe trying to deepen your understanding with, and so on and so forth.

But Is is there such a thing as being too late to integrate a psychedelic experience?

Like y I mean, this could be positive or could be negative.

Like uh you mentioned, I mean, positive, negative, like a a an easeful experience that you have a like good relationship with or an experience that was not easeful and you're still struggling with.

Is there at a certain point at which like Yeah, you're probably not going to be able to go back and do much with that now.

Um, you should have worked on it earlier.

Or is it kind of like, hey, two years, three years, four years, if you're still struggling or you're still hadn't done anything, you can go back to these experiences and still make something out of it in a good way.

Yeah, that's a complex question.

And I'm trying to find a way on how to provide some some clarity uh about it.

I think that I refer to to the last thing we're talking about, the immediate integration.

If that has happened Then I think it's gonna be easy to come back to it at any point if needed.

Yeah.

If the experience has been positive, if we have done what we could in the immediate integration phase, most likely there will not be the urge of I have not done what I should, I should go back, I need to, you know, like recover the wasted time.

I don't think that we will experience it that way.

It will feel much more natural in which things are evolving at its own rhythm.

And then maybe some months or years later we get another insight from that experience and ah wow I can look at it from this perspective as well and this also is telling me something in this moment that I'm living now and then it becomes something more natural that it unfolds at its own pace.

A metaphor for this would be this idea of planting seeds.

You planted a seed, you took care of the seed, the seed started growing and it becomes, I don't know, a tree.

And the tree eventually gives you an apple, and then you eat that apple.

So you're not Focusing that much on the seed that you planted back then and how it looked like and how it was and the process of planting the seed, you're eating the apple and seeing how things have uh evolved from there, you know.

Um Uh so in that sense I think that it is n not uh too late to integrate anything because things continue moving.

We continue living If we have had a difficult experience and we've been uh dealing with symptoms, I don't know, like rumination, fears, anxiety, whatever, that have appeared because of the experience, um Again, I don't think it's never too late to work on that, but sometimes there will have happened things in between that will make it more difficult to go out of that.

So, for example, it's relatively common To experience certain anxieties or ruminations or fears after a particularly different experience, the difficult experience.

If that is addressed relatively early on, usually it brings no uh complications.

You know, like you just pressed.

Months?

Yeah, weeks, months.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

But if that's something that's happened many months uh before or years and you've done like pharmacological treatment with anti-anxiety medication.

And that has started affecting your daily life and the things that you do.

You have gone into some avoidance behaviors, not to get that anxiety.

you've started using alcohol, I don't know, to uh re repress that anxiety, then we have other problems, uh other layers to to the problem, you know, and then it might be more difficult to do um classic integration approach with just the content of the experience.

Yeah.

So uh generally speaking I would say that it's never too late to do the integration.

But if things have gone well, people will not most likely uh feel the need to do something because that will be probably in the right place already.

And if people have challenges, they have been experiencing those challenges since that day.

So it's very present still.

So it's not gonna be uh difficult to recover the fear, the anxiety, the rumination.

That's gonna still be there, you know.

So Yeah.

But there'll be extra layers kind of that you have to sort through, you know, based on how long it's been, extra layers you have to sort through before you can get all the way back to the sort of the triggering event.

Yeah, because then sometimes what we need to do to dismantle is these layers.

You know, so for example, um people that have very difficult experiences.

and then they experience that with some degree after some weeks or months of uh depersonalization or derealization, maybe they go and they take some and take the presents or medications that the psychiatrist provides.

Then we enter uh uh a a psychiatric treatment and maybe they start living their lives in a different way because they're feeling this depersonalization and this derealization they don't go out so much their social life starts to diminish their uh job starts to suffer because of that or the family relationships they become more complicated.

So then when this person comes to work with you, it's not just the initial feelings of depersonalization and derealization.

We have all these things that they have done.

to try to cope with that, that many times they add layers of complexity.

Now we have to deal with how difficult is with being lonely because I have not gone out with my friends for a couple of years.

And they don't call me anymore, so I feel isolated.

And that's really happening.

You know, they are really isolated.

So you have more complexities that have happened because of the chronification of that problem.

Yeah.

In what ways do does integration, I guess, I mean we've kind of you've spoken a bit directly to it and around it.

Between sessions going well, I guess this is let me I'm gonna clarify this and not dance around it too much.

What specific things Are necessary, or we'll say like strongly, uh strongly useful in a scenario where the person the experience the person is trying to integrate is deeply tr was was deeply troubling, is deeply troubling, or outright traumatic.

Like I assume it's not, you know, yoga and meditation, right?

So Um what specific interventions are like, oh yeah, these are the ones that we we want to bring on board for someone who had a really difficult time and is kind of left in the wake of that?

Hmm.

That's a very good question and that's a question that I had to answer myself as well because when I started supporting people through the uh integration service at ICEERS, I didn't have a specific training for that.

I was a psychologist, I was a breath work practitioner.

but I did not have any specific therapeutic protocol to use with with uh people in these situations.

I was coming more from a perspective of when things have gone well, like the in the holotropic breathwork setting most of the times or all the times people are better after the experience than before the experience.

So then it's more this scenario of maximizing the benefits, uh, you know, yeah, meditation, time in nature, painting, mandala drawing.

um yoga, whatever, yeah, and that works beautifully.

But one of the things that I discovered early on is that these interventions were not helping people in high distress.

You know, like my active listening, my interpretations from a transpersonal perspective, my compassionate listening was not supportive enough.

for these people.

So I had to look for modalities, therapeutic modalities that would provide tools that could be helpful in these situations.

And this is, in my opinion, a radically different scenario than maximizing the benefits.

Most likely a lot of practitioners, uh I mean people that facilitate sessions, they can provide an integration space that is well done with materials for painting, meditation, whatever.

But maybe not all of them can provide these more therapeutic interventions.

So usually it's another person that needs to do this integration of difficult experiences.

And in my experience, these interventions need to Need to be effective.

You know, people need to see that they this is working in a relatively short time.

Yeah, they are in high distress after the experience they had a couple of weeks ago, and they need something that will alleviate the suffering.

now, not in a year.

You know, not like okay, trust the process, it will unfold naturally, uh, everything is for a good reason and it's gonna get better.

Well most likely yes, but they need alleviation now.

Yeah.

So uh that was the something that I was faced early on in the integration practice and I had to look for modalities that would allow me to do something.

to work with more psychological symptoms like rumination, obsessive thinking, anxiety attacks, insomnia, depersonalization, derealization.

Yeah, this this kind of uh mostly anxiety-based uh reactions or perception-based uh reactions.

Um I I cannot go into detail about what tools or techniques specifically.

That would be something that uh needs to be explained in in the context of how to create a protocol for for intervention in each specific case.

But in a way what we're trying to do is find a way to reach that closure that we're talking about.

So closure has not happened, experience remains open and people are very much in touch with that experience or with the remnants of that experience.

Most of the times they are too anxious or scared to go back and have another experience, which would be a natural way of okay, let's have another one and see if it resolves the previous one.

Many times that is not acceptable for the person's like this would be too much.

So how do we find in an ordinary state of consciousness a way to resolve the thing that opened in a non-ordinary state of consciousness?

And that has been the the my passion for the last uh few years.

I've tried to look for techniques of regular psychotherapy.

that could be applied meaningfully with a psychedelic lens with this idea of a non-directive or inner directive and that people will reach their own resolution.

So Uh and because of the context that I was working in in the integration and support service, which we were not charging for our work, and we had a limited number of sessions to to provide to each of the persons that would come.

It had to be something that would be um short, would be focused on the intervention, would provide tools for people to feel that they could alleviate, that they could uh get some more control on on that situation of uh unstability that they were perceiving.

Uh what I found very useful and then I did my own adaptation of of that was the uh brief strategic therapy from uh the Palo Alto school.

That is something that was created back in the 70s, and that in my opinion has some links with the psychedelic uh treatment.

Yeah, it's not 100% linked, but some of the people that developed this form of therapy, they were also uh knowledgeable in the use of of psychedelics.

And for me that was a good um a good tradition to to research on and to learn and then to apply some of its principles in the work in integration.

And that was called sorry brief strategic therapy?

Brief strategic therapy.

That's the name that's called nowadays, but um back then it was the therapy that they did at the MRI.

uh yeah the Palo Alto MRI Institute, mental research in institute in Palo Alto.

Okay.

So I this podcast is funded by patrons on Patreon and uh certain sort of I guess uh degrees, certain tiers of involvement, people get sometimes an opportunity to submit their questions and being that psychedelic integration is something that is can be talked about generally, but when it comes down to sort of like Brass tacks, you know, it it really is you specific to each individual in each scenario.

I've said, hey, do you have any questions?

generally or specifically.

And I've got a handful of them here.

Now the first one is one that I literally just heard you say It doesn't make sense for you to give specifics on because it's unique to each individual person.

Um, but I'll ask it anyways and see if there's any anything that you've got to add on top of that, which is any tips for a persistent or ongoing sense of derealization.

Hm.

Yeah.

Well, let's see with how much uh detail uh I can answer this All these things that that we're talking about, so we're doing somehow a an a conversation around most of the topics that appear in the course that I offer.

And I talk specifically of how to work with the realization and the personalization.

But in a nutshell and for the lay person, um Depersonalization and the realization are very difficult situations to work with and very uncomfortable for the person that is experiencing them.

Most of all because other people don't understand what they're talking about.

You know, you go to a therapist or to a psychiatrist that has never had the experience of derealization or depersonalization.

And they cannot understand why this is bothering you so much.

You know, and then they start thinking maybe it's a psychotic sort of thinking, or this is a perceptual problem that people are having, or this is um I don't know, you know, they try to find um medications, they try to find explanations for what's going on But truth is that uh the realization can be a really, really uncomfortable situation because all of a sudden the world is completely different while being still the same.

And you can see both things at the same time.

It's I know that things are the same, but my way of perceiving that is that it's completely different.

I've even worked with people that they told me that the world was upside down.

It's like left was right and right was left.

I mean and it's not that they got lost in the street.

They could drive their car and they but it's almost like they were living in a reflection.

How do you explain that?

It's really, really difficult to to to explain that and to understand that if you have never experienced it.

So and because the realization and the personalization in a certain way are uh perceptual problems, you're perceiving reality in a certain way, therapy cannot try to solve that perceptual problem.

You know, because now it's like if you would har hear uh distinctus, people that have this ringing in the ear.

That's sometimes a common request for therapy.

I have this ringing in my ear.

Therapy cannot heal the wringing of the in the ear.

You know, you have that, you're perceiving that.

What therapy can help you with is how you relate with that uncomfortable symptom.

Same thing with the realization or the personalization.

We cannot change that perception, but we can help the person relate better with what is going on.

And many times what will happen is that through improving the relationship with that, then people will not focus so much on this.

This is the same with like a bad neighbor.

You have a neighbor in which you with whom you're having conflict.

You see him or her all the day.

You notice all the noises that they make when he's passing by.

But when you have somebody that you have a good relationship with, you don't notice, even if they are there.

They come and go, but it doesn't bother you so much.

So what happens sometimes with the realization is that through time it manifests in two main things.

One is to use clinical terminology, obsessive thinking about that.

So ma'am, I am obsessively paying attention to that perception Am I derealized or not?

Am I seeing the world in a normal way or not?

And that becomes an obsessive way of processing that problem, which doesn't help.

You know, then the attempt to monitor that becomes the problem itself.

Because I'm thinking about that all the time.

That is one way in which a problem manifests.

And the end the other way is by limiting our interactions with the world.

Because being derealized in public feels overwhelming or whatever, each person has their own version of this, then I tend to isolate more or to drink more or to do less of this or you know like we start We start living less.

So then on the one hand we have an internal problem, which is this obsessive thinking, and then we have an external problem, which is how I engage with the world.

So interventions should aim to these two situations, not so much to the perceptual problem but to the obsessive processing of the problem and this avoidant behavior, so to speak.

Many times as we work with that, the global situation will improve.

And what people report is that It's not that the the realization or the depersonalization disappears.

It's that they focus less on that.

Even I've heard uh some patients say that they realized that the realization is something that they had experienced many times before.

But it was not a problem.

They were perceiving it as, you know, a different state of consciousness or a different way of perceiving the world.

but they did not become obsessed or attached to it.

Yeah.

But then at some point, after a psychedelic experience or whatever, they became really fixated with that and then this took a greater dimension.

Yeah so many times working with uh mostly the uh in the initial phases with the obsessive thinking about it and then on uh later stages of the integration process on the external manifestation of that usually uh diminishes the problem to the to the level that it's not that people say I don't have this anymore.

People say it doesn't bother me anymore.

You know?

Hmm.

Thank you.

Uh all right.

So this next one um is does integration and I'm reading these write off as they were asked.

Does integration have to take place on the external physical level?

I've had some trips though that prompt me to create, and others that feel as though I should adapt the way I'm living rather than say write or paint.

Is that technically still integration?

Yeah, absolutely.

And here's what uh again I would refer to what we were talking about before.

To have options is what it's important.

There is no one way of doing integration.

Sometimes it will be by reading a poetry book, another time will be by talking with a psychologist or a friend or whatever.

And another time it's gonna be journaling or joining a yoga class.

You know, and I think that that It is integration.

At some point integration becomes life itself.

So we we implement some changes, we start doing something, and that becomes what we do, and that's our life.

Am I integrating my experience?

Well, yeah, maybe the the experience has become integrated already in who you are and uh the effects or the ripples of the experience.

are happening in your life without having to be thinking about the experience itself.

You know, so integration can still be happening, even if we're not thinking about the events and the symbols and the things that happened back then.

But because we're just living something that uh developed after that experience.

So yeah, definitely that's still integration even if you're not creating or doing anything.

I guess also, you know, like to talk about the creative side, integration is a response to the journey that we had, right?

Or it's it's like what defines what our integration looks like has a lot to do with you know what exactly we experience in the journey.

And there's a what is required for good integration is different if our journey was all about new ways of using color uh in our artistic practice.

versus how we feel guilty with the way we aren't answering our the call, the phone when our mom calls, right?

Like they would ask totally different and and Both would require integration and they would look very different and both would qualify as integration relative to the experience.

Absolutely.

I couldn't say better So um this next question looks like it's a two-part question.

I think I'm gonna read it one part at a time, which is how do you integrate or hold or orient yourself to other realms which seem so i alien and yet familiar.

Yeah I don't know if I have an answer for that, but what comes to mind is that maybe there are things that cannot um be integrated fully You know, how do you integrate a mystical experience when you have to go back to work on Monday?

You will still have to go back to work on Monday.

you will still get angry and pissed because of the I don't know taxes or traffic or whatever.

You will still have arguments with your family.

I think that there are experiences that they cannot be fully integrated because of the nature of the experience.

So if we're talking about an infinite experience and we're trying to integrate in a finite being as we are and limited beings as we are individually we cannot contain and hold everything all the time.

You know maybe those experiences can only be fully manifested when we are there, but then when we come back here, we can have the inspiration, we can have the memory, the distant memory of those realms.

And that's the That's the most that we can aspire to and maybe that will remain as an inspiration to to move our lives into that direction, knowing that maybe we will never reach that again or that uh we will not live in that reality forever.

So yeah, I think something that comes comes up for me there is uh that, you know, like you said, it's like how does one one cannot sort of contain the infinite within the finite.

And I'm thinking back to what you said about derealization.

It's like, well, you're not trying to address the problem of the derealization.

You're in ways like addressing the the person who's experienced it, their relationship with that experience and how it's playing out in their life.

In a way, it's like, how do we then focus on our relationship to this thing that will forever be uncertain and like beyond uh our our our capacity to fully understand or to apply in our lives.

And there's maybe a a leveraging point there to focus on the relationship to the unintegratable uh in in a way.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

And and I like uh very much that you make this connection because there is a connection with the uh topic of the realization and the personalization at some level the the experience of not being yourself or that the world is not what it is, it's what spiritual traditions talk about.

That you're you, but you're not really you, you're something else.

And the world is the world, but there's it's a veil and there's something else beyond that.

So, you know, there's some spiritual truth if you want in the perception of a depersonalized or derealized world.

You know, and maybe that is part of what's happening.

I don't know.

You know, but there there's layers in which we can relate to a anything, to problems that maybe we relate to that in a different way, then then it's not not a problem, it's something else, you know?

So yeah.

So the second I think these are actually two totally different questions, but they came together as a as one, which which I think is interesting is they say, and I'm gonna read this you know word for word, downloads.

What about these?

Again, how do you think we, I'm going to change this a bit, how do we integrate these into our understanding of the world?

I once had an hours-long overview of interspecies in interdependence.

I had never once thought about this or anything similar to it or read about it before that journey.

I learned a great deal certainly and it And it without a doubt changed how I looked at other animals, insects, and plants since there's the off-factor, of course, but how to fathom where this comes from is challenging at best to understand.

I suppose what these both have in common is the both is in the question from before, um, is the otherworldly nature of these, the extraordinary wide-angle views or perspectives.

are much easier to understand and integrate into this reality.

Um so I guess I'll bring it back to the beginning of that question, like downloads.

And I I I anyone who's had like a big psychedelic experience, and I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

You get these like downloads of things.

What do like how are we how do we work with these?

Hmm.

Yeah.

Uh uh different things come come to mind.

Um one of them is similar to what we've been talking about.

Sometimes we cannot integrate everything that we download.

Yeah, and if you allow me to make a silly uh joke or uh some of us are from this generation that some decades ago we had uh Napster and this sort of things that you could download music.

Yeah and uh a friend of mine made the joke one day that I don't listen to music anymore, I download music.

Yeah.

So our hard drives, they were filled with albums, the full discography of um everybody, but then you don't go on to and listen and enjoy the music anymore.

So uh sometimes the the the integration, the healing, the transformation is not in the amount of the download, it's more on the quality or To focus on something that will be really uh fruitful.

You know, again, how you integrate the infinite into the finite.

Well, maybe we need to focus on something.

Yeah.

And uh I I think this And and something uh that Stangrov said um uh regarding the outcomes of of psychedelic therapy, he he said in one of his works that the result of a psychedelic experience, the outcome, doesn't have to do so much with the quantity of information that we access or the quantity of psychological material that we process.

But it has to do more with the quality of how we end the experience.

So the tone in which you end your experience, that's what's going to somehow determine how the overall memory of the journey looks like and how integration will be.

So then the focus is not so much on having to integrate and remember everything.

It's of landing gently, safely, and finishing the journey on as much as possible a good tone.

It doesn't mean that you need to be happy.

You could end up on a sad note, you know, but it if it's a an embodied, a stable a kind of um yeah grounded sadness, most likely it's gonna be much easier to integrate than if we end up with you know a very intense emotion that doesn't allow us to be with what's going on.

So Um yeah, uh I don't think that we should focus so much on on quantity, but more on quality of of uh our uh psychedelic journeys, you know, and Also be humble.

We are just human beings and these are just experiences.

So we should not pretend that one single experience is going to radically change me and I'm gonna become somebody radically different and be free of all my suffering and become the best version of myself right after an ayahuasca experience.

No, these are tools that we can use along the path that can help us to be more conscious, more aware, be more compassionate, to treat ourselves and others with more kindness.

And you know, try to live our lives with as much meaning as possible, you know, and there's no much more than that, you know, and psychedelics are tools to help us in the path.

But I don't think that we should focus so much on having to grasp everything.

You know, because in the end we're limited beings.

This last Indiana Jones movie, or I don't know if the last or or the previous one uh something like this happened, no like the the bad guy wanted to download all the knowledge from these aliens or whatever and what happened to him?

He went crazy and exploded because we cannot hold infinity inside of us.

Yeah so yeah just try to live our lives in the most meaningful way.

I think that that's more than enough.

Great.

Thank you for that.

So I've got one more of these specific questions, then I've got one more general question, and then I'm going to ask you about the course.

So with the time frame we've got available, I'll get you to hold that in mind as you answer it.

So this is the last this is the last sort of specific question.

When do I own integration work?

I do lots of recollection and journaling, trying to save the precious memories and experiences.

And then I revisit those seeings and feelings repeatedly over the years and I try to find more meanings in them.

I also try to pay attention to where things land in my body.

So kind of beyond words and images, that's a bit harder, I find.

But what about all those myriad things and experiences that happen on any given trip which we don't remember?

They're inside of us somewhere, but I'm not sure how to unlock them, or if the basic rule should be you only remember bits you're supposed to remember.

Hmm.

Yeah, I would say that the person that wrote this uh is doing an amazing work.

Like uh it seems that there's a uh a lifetime of of journeys that have been recorded and paid attention to and uh he or she is definitely doing their work.

So Yeah, congratulations for that and also uh the the fact that there's much more that we cannot grasp, you know, and that many things have happened and and uh the the vastness of the inner landscapes is uh awesome, you know, and maybe that is also part of what psychedelics uh teach us.

I think it was uh Rabbi Abraham Ho Joshua Heschel that said that uh oh is the beginning of spirituality or the doorway towards spirituality.

I think it's a really powerful feeling to be in the presence of all.

And see that we cannot grasp everything and that we will never be able to do that.

No matter what you do.

We always gonna be uh dust specks in an infinite universe.

And and that's who we are.

And you know, and to be able to be comfortable with that and to uh also experience that all as a as a gift, you know, I've seen so much that I cannot remember, that I I cannot understand.

And to be okay with that, I think that is part of the psychedelic experience as well.

Yeah.

Great.

So this is the n last general question before I ask you about their course.

And I'm I'm gonna sort of compress what would have been multiple questions because I think the inf like there's In some ways you've you've kind of answered it indirectly, which has to do with like, you know, the value of having professional support in in uh integr in your integration process.

Like it's it's clear that if that any time that we are trying to do a thing, we could might be able to do it better if we have some sort of professional support.

It's not necessary, but it can be beneficial for positive experiences or, you know, like experiences that went well and closed well.

And might be more necessary and significantly necessary if the ne if the experiences were negative and are could have detrimental effect on you.

And so the necessity of professional support there.

So kind of like basically interrupt what could be long a long phase of sort of like these many layers of harm that could come from the experience.

So that I feel like that's clear.

We've talked about that.

Now, having a sense of you know what the value of having professional integration support is in either of these two camps, how does one get a sense of who is a good Good's maybe not the right way.

Like let's say I'm looking for some integration support, right?

It could be different if it's positive or or a challenging one.

But like how do I assess that that person is going to be like a good fit for me?

And are there any red flags that would make me be like I don't think I don't think that person is a right fit for me, or I don't think they're actually doing safe or positive work for people.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a good question.

Not easy to to answer.

Um I would say that the the first and most important thing is what whatever you're feeling with that person.

You know, I think that there are as many therapists as clients, you know.

So if your gut feeling tells you that that person is not to be trusted, Then don't go there or stop immediately.

You know, so then if if uh credentials or qualifications are important for you, I think it's worth to check where has this person learned, what sort of experience they have, who do they say that their mentors and teachers are.

For me, that's always a a sign of um integrity and uh being honest like who have you learned from who are your teachers who could uh vouch for you if needed you know and and also the relationship that this these practitioners have towards the lineage, if they do belong to a lineage or or not, and how do they talk about the their teachers or their elders?

I think that that's uh always a a good sign.

Again, it's easy also to fake that and to pretend that one is very connected with the lineage or whatever.

No, but I think that that's important.

And then what is this practitioner offering you?

What are they promising you?

I think that big promises in integration or therapy or any form of support are not uh a good sign, you know, if somebody's promising uh anything that sounds like really too far out or too magical or too impressive, I would maybe check with more depth uh what is what they really do.

And then At least for me it's important to know what's your way of working.

What are we going to be doing if we do that?

What should I expect from our interactions?

How long is this integration going to be?

How long are the sessions?

What will we do in the sessions?

Maybe maybe you don't need to be obsessive about that, you know, but to have a general idea that they can explain what is their model of working.

For me, that is important.

And then and then maybe this is a more subtle thing that links with uh some of the first questions that we were talking about is How could I say that?

I think it's important to work with practitioners that are aligned to what you expect and that will not add more problems than you have.

Sometimes you go to a therapist trying to solve a situation and then you go home with three more problems.

All of a sudden you have a trauma that you have not processed.

You have an attachment style that needs to be worked on, and you have some I don't know what that also needs to be worked on.

So all of a sudden, instead of having one challenging experience that I need to integrate all of a sudden I have three problems.

So if your therapist or practitioner is adding problems that it's going to extend the therapy or you know, all of a sudden things are much more complicated than they look like.

I don't feel so comfortable with that.

Sometimes therapists we can have the the tendency to create a need.

or what they propose is creating a need that if you don't do that you're not doing things right for me that is not a a good sign so yeah Hmm.

Okay, thank you for that.

Now here's the final, ultimately the final question.

The whole crux of this, the whole reason for you being here on the show.

is to talk about the upcoming course you're doing through ICEERS Academy on Psychedelic Integration, which listeners can participate in.

They can sign up right now if they wanted.

Maybe we'll give them an opportunity to hear more about what the course, but like they could jump in and sign up right away.

What is that course?

Okay, so what is it?

What does it offer?

Who is it for?

And then the specifics.

When does it start?

How can people get more information All right.

Yeah, thank you for that.

And um honestly, it was not not just my intention to promote the course through this conversation.

I have enjoyed very much.

Our conversation.

So uh, yes.

So so uh please our listeners don't feel that this has been only a a promotional sort of uh um uh interview.

Um because I was.

Well before you answer that, let me jump in on that because I would like to clarify because I guess a little background for listeners is that you know, ICR has reached out to me, hey, we're doing this integration course.

You know, would you like to have Mark on the show to talk about it and help promote the course?

And I am very conscientious that I never have anyone on the show for a really long commercial for their product or service.

All right.

And the only reason I consented b to having you on the show is because I knew that you would be coming to offer really positive, good information that people are were going to be able to take away with having just listened to the podcast and get something really positive out of that.

And also there's this course that is likely going to be very positive for them as well.

And in case in case it came off, like you said, like kind of came off as a weird salesy thing.

Mostly because I'm excited to promote the course, because I know how great a job you guys do.

I've participated in the IS Safety and I want to really celebrate how Like I haven't taken the psychedelic integration course, but I feel pretty confident that it's at the tier that I've come to expect from your team.

So that's why I got a little excited about promoting the course, not to give the wrong idea to listeners or or put you in a weird uh weird position there.

No, I appreciate that and and uh definitely it was it was clear for me.

So sorry.

So the the the course It's it follows on many of the things that we've talked on about today and it also follows the structure of the book that I wrote, Psychedelic Integration.

So the idea is that following the book.

we wanted to create something that could be more hands-on, more specific, more, more practic.

Yeah, so people could understand how to actually implement, how to actually do those integration.

Processes or practices that are described in the book.

So, what can you expect if you take this course?

And there's, I would say, a first part that is more to the general public.

So anybody that has interest in non-ordinate state of consciousness, or uh people that do their own journeys and want to learn more about integration.

they will find uh what we've talked, the metaphors, the different dimensions, um the definitions of uh theoretical paradigms to understand integration.

So there's this general definition of what integration is, like a very solid uh background on how to understand and conceptualize uh integration and to make it uh yours to to own it yeah not just a description that somebody tells you but that you find your your own way of understanding that and then there's a second part that it's more focused to learn to support people going through difficult experiences So then we analyze the different profiles of challenges that people report, and I provide very specific tools, techniques of how to support people in different situations.

We also talk about how to structure, how to plan an integration process, the different phases of an integration process, how to uh I divide the the intervention in three phases what we do in first phase one, phase two and phase three, different things that are important to do in different phases.

and then also techniques and protocols and ideas on how to you know build that integration process from session to session.

So the idea is not so much to teach people how to do integration But as a teacher of mine said, how to think about how you do integration.

So my hopes is that when the course ends, people will feel that they have tools to apply to their own way of working.

They don't have to convert.

to my way of working, but that what we share will enrich and will uh enhance your capacity to support uh wider uh range of people that are having challenges or not challenges.

Yeah, but that you will have a more uh complex and sophisticated look on how to approach integration and hopefully that manifests in a very practical uh way on how you practice integration We talk about how to use language, we we talk about specific techniques and how to use them.

I provide examples of how to present these techniques.

I give like the exact wording that I use in the sessions so people can really visualize what my way of working looks like.

Yeah.

So it's not just a general description, but they can get a real sense of what happens.

in in the sessions.

So we try to make it very practical, very detailed.

So that's what uh what you can expect if you if you uh take this course.

The course is around 30 uh hours of video recording and we have uh weekly calls from January until March.

The course is 12 weeks, so there's 12 live meetings of one hour and a half each week.

in which we can discuss, debate, ask questions and go more in depth about certain aspects of uh the videos that we saw each week.

Yeah.

Awesome.

And so when can when when does the course start?

When does it end?

You know, you said 12th January to March.

When can people sign up?

Um when when can they no longer sign up for that for that matter?

Like w there's a window of registration, correct?

Yeah Yeah, registrations have started this week.

So uh last week of October we started with registrations and they will go on until mid uh December, if I'm not mistaken.

So before the winter break, Christmas break.

uh the registrations will be open and the course starts if I'm not mistaken the second or third week of January and then it goes for 12 weeks until March.

So roughly speaking uh January to March.

12 consecutive meetings.

Awesome.

And we will be able to access that course through the ICEERS.

Academy, is that correct?

I'll make sure there's a link in in the description to uh to this, like people can jump over there.

Um but it's iSeers Academy, I C E E R S and on that uh Academy and then on that page will be a very clear like this is the integration course.

Yeah, yeah.

The registrations are open and it's very uh intuitive you can clearly see where you have to click to get more information and to you have a sample of videos to have an idea of how the the videos are gonna be looking like.

So yeah.

Awesome.

And the name of your book that you mentioned is Psychedelic Integration, Psychotherapy for Non-Ordinary States.

And I understand you can get that through all major book retailers.

Is that correct?

Yeah, absolutely.

Right.

I'll also leave a link to your book uh in the description for people if the course is not the right fit for them, but they want to dive a little bit deeper into what you're doing.

And with that, Mark you, uh Mark you, Mark, thank you so much.

Uh this has been a great interview.

I feel like I've learned a lot and I really appreciate what you brought here for uh for the listeners.

Yeah, thank you so much.

I really enjoyed the conversation and the pace.

I feel that we've gone uh in relative depth with certain aspects and we've also covered uh uh a nice overview of of everything and I really enjoyed uh your your connections and your uh ideas.

So thank you very much for the so much for the invitation.

It's been really a pleasure.

Wonderful.

Pleasure for me too.

And with that, cut.

Okay, thank you so much for listening to this episode of Adventures of the Mine.

I Hope and anticipate you got a lot of value listening to Mark here in this in this interview.

I thought what he offered was fantastic, and I'm excited that I got to have him on the show.

I'm also excited that I will be participating in the ICEERS integration course.

So if it's something that you're curious about signing up for, use the link in the description.

jameswjesso.com/iceersintergration I C E R S Integration, to go check it out.

And when you sign up, use my last name, J E S S O, as the promo code, and you'll get fifteen percent off the price of the course.

Beyond that, if the course is not what makes sense for you financially or in your lifestyle, definitely check out Mark's book, Psychedelic Integration, Psychotherapy for Non-Ordinary or Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness.

Well, let's see, psychedelics.

Psychedelics for non-ordinary states of consciousness.

I'll leave a link to his book in the description to this episode as well.

And that's all.

Thank you so much for watching this episode all the way to the end.

I am on a variety of social medias, links to which are in the description to this, mostly for clips.

I release them through YouTube, shorts through YouTube, and shorts also through Instagram, if that is your thing.

If you're not only interested in the really long form content, but love that like 30 seconds to two-minute like grab them content, you can check me out there too.

And um that's all.

I have been your host, James Jesso.

It's been a pleasure being your host, and I look forward to having you on the next episode of Adventures of the Mind.

And until then, take care and stay curious.