What is “Integration” at Zylem Ketamine Wellness?
What is Integration?
Integration helps you process and make sense of the emotions, thoughts, visuals, and insights that arose during your ketamine infusion session. The purpose is to apply those insights positively to your everyday life. This is often done with the support of another professional who is knowledgeable and experienced in psychedelics.
What are the benefits?
A lot arises during a psychedelic trip and it can be hard to capture everything. It’s helpful to have another experienced person to help you comb through the details of your experience so you can process what was resonate, puzzling, or challenging.
Oftentimes people report making significant changes in their lives after a trip. Although we believe everyone has an inner healing wisdom, an integration coach is a helpful companion when you’re discerning complex feelings and decisions.
Integration helps you clarify and articulate your intentions for growth before, during, and after ketamine infusion sessions. This structure provides you with accountability to your own growth goals.
Your integration coach will help you prepare mentally, emotionally, spiritually for a psychedelic trip. You will create your own personalized plan for a safe, comfortable, and positive journey.
Help you work through difficult experiences (“bad trips”) that can lead to positive insight and/or transformation.
When people go through psychedelic experiences alone, they commonly overlook major improvements in their wellbeing, behavior, and demeanor. An integration coach can provide a second perspective about what has shifted.
What does an integration process look like at Zylem?
We will schedule (3) 60-minute preparation coaching session before your first ketamine infusion session. This is done either over the phone or Zoom.
After each ketamine infusion session, you will follow up with your integration coach for a 15-30-minute call/Zoom.
Once you complete your last infusion, we connect for a final closing integration session to review and celebrate your progress. You will leave our last session with a clear and concrete action plan for continual improvement.
Is integration coaching the same as therapy?
No. Integration is not a substitute for mental health counseling or therapy. We strongly recommend all our clients undergoing ketamine treatment to continue to work with their licensed mental health professional if they are finding their therapeutic relationship valuable.
Likewise, the majority of mental health counselors and therapists are not yet experienced or trained in psychedelic experiences or psychedelic integration. It’s important to work with a professional who is knowledgeable about and appreciates the potential of psychedelic experiences.
What does an integration coaching session look like?
Sessions are highly personalized but a general guideline for integration coaching includes at least one or more of these elements:
Data Collection: What happened? What did you See? Feel? Taste? Hear? Think?
Sense-making: How should I interpret these elements? What might it say that is
relevant to me?
Planning: What are some opportunities in the next few days to practice new ways of
being?
Action: Test out new ways of feeling, thinking, and behaving.
Evaluation: What changed positively or negatively by my new actions/feelings/thinking?
Iteration: Is this something I can take forward in my life? How can I continue practicing
and sustaining positive mental/emotional/social habits?
How can I best prepare for effective integration?
Each integration coaching session will have a brief reflection exercise. It’s critical that you allocate enough time (at least 15-minutes) in your day to complete them before your next infusion session. The more intentionality you put into your own integration, the more positive effects you’ll be able to yield.
Is it a requirement?
Yes. Integration coaching is an essential part of safe and effective ketamine treatment for improved mental health and wellness.
