Psychedelic integration, three decades in

A long lineage, held to a clinical standard

That early harm-reduction work shaped my graduate training — a doctorate grounded in neuroscience and psychoneuroendocrinology — and, later, direct experience in psilocybin research. The threads have been continuous: early membership in MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, since 1996; harm-reduction service at music festivals from Amsterdam to Montréal and New York; and the field's gatherings in Basel, where I had the honor of meeting Albert Hofmann. What I bring to integration work is the combination the field usually lacks: decades of cultural fluency with these compounds, and the assessment discipline of a licensed clinical psychologist.

Nothing here is rushed. Every engagement begins with careful assessment of individual characteristics and vulnerabilities — personal and family psychiatric history, contraindicated diagnoses, medication interactions, and life context. Sometimes the clinically right answer is not now, or not this, and I will tell you so.

How the work unfolds

• 01 · Assessment & preparation

  Structured evaluation of readiness, risk, and intention. Psychoeducation on the relevant compounds, their pharmacology, and their contraindications.

• 02 · Safer-use education

  For clients who independently choose to pursue psychedelic experiences, I provide evidence-informed education on safer use — set, setting, dosing literacy, interaction risks, and when not to proceed.

• 03 · Integration

  The before and the after: structured psychotherapeutic work to prepare for, then process and integrate, significant experiences — translating them into durable change rather than a story that fades.

• 04 · Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) — integration

  For legally available treatment, I provide preparation and integration psychotherapy alongside ketamine care, with referrals to licensed medical practitioners who prescribe and administer it.

What the evidence suggests

Two converging lines of research help explain why these experiences can catalyze profound change. Preclinical work shows that classic psychedelics promote structural and functional neural plasticity — the growth of new dendritic connections that may underlie a window of heightened malleability (Ly et al., 2018). Neuroimaging studies show that psilocybin reduces activity and connectivity in the default mode network, the brain system associated with self-referential thought and rumination (Carhart-Harris et al., 2012) — a "relaxation" of the mind's most entrenched priors and narratives (Carhart-Harris & Friston, 2019). Clinically, this maps onto what patients describe: rigid patterns of self-story loosening enough for genuine insight, with trials reporting substantial and sustained relief in depression and anxiety (Griffiths et al., 2016).

None of this is exclusive to psychedelics. Experienced meditators show comparable shifts in default mode network activity (Brewer et al., 2011), and contemplative training measurably reshapes attention and emotion regulation (Lutz, Dunne & Davidson). Breathwork traditions — including the Holotropic Breathwork developed by Stanislav and Christina Grof precisely as a non-pharmacological doorway to non-ordinary states (Grof & Grof, 2010) — reach related territory. In my practice, consciousness work therefore proceeds through multiple doors: mindfulness, breathwork, and contemplative technique among them. Psychedelics are one door — never one I supply, and never the only one.