Integrative Therapy is the term we use for psychedelic therapy.
Psychedelic therapy is therapy based around your experience with using, what we call now, alternate or traditional medicines. Traditional medicines are those such as psilocybin (magic mushrooms), ayahuasca, peyote, or even marijuana, where as alternate medicine could be likened to ketamine, LSD, or MDMA.
While these substances are all called psychedelics, each produces a unique quality of experience. These experiences are what some have called "extra-normal", "out of body", "spiritual", or maybe "transcendent", which are words for experiences that are very different than we understand in our regular lives. Some of the experiences can be spacious and wondrous, and some just very strange. These experiences have been found to be able to help to bring relief for a person struggling with some mental issues, such as PTSD, depression and anxiety.
The exceptional experiences that these substances allow for can have a profound effect upon a person's awareness of themselves and the world, and be challenging to understand once the effect wears off, so sometimes people need help to 'integrate' the experience into a sense that is meaningful and helpful to them for their regular lives. Hence we call it Integrative Therapy. More than just 'getting high' or intoxicated, or being able to take a break, the therapy approaches the experience itself through being intentional and engaged with in one's life in perhaps a very different way than we usually know.
Some practitioners understand that the therapeutic effect of these substances can be reduced to one kind of event that has been term "ego loss" in some instances, or "stepping outside of one's body" in another. The therapeutic idea is the same as most mental health therapies, namely, that the person is trying to be able to get some 'separation' from their problems so they can deal with the more effectively to make choices about their lives. While this is one therapeutic effect of some of the psychedelic medicines, there is often much more to the experience that is just as therapeutic if not more than just 'ego loss'.
In a more precise sense, Integrative Therapy is what we call it when the experience of using these medicines is specifically and intentionally brought into the therapy, then the therapy itself can use any number of recognized modalities that have been found helpful, such as Internal Family Systems, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or Existential Therapy.
Regardless of what modality one uses, the key component in Integrative Therapy is that the clinician understands what the psychedelic experience is, appreciates the subtleties and differences in the different substance used, and values the individual client's experience as the main component of the therapy.
One thing to note; there is a difference between Integrative Therapy and, what we could call, Psychedelic Experiential Therapy. This is the difference between using the medicine in the presence of the clinician, if it be in an individual setting, or other client's as in a group setting, and working directly within the effect itself, which depending on the substance, can last put 8 hours, and integrating the experience with a clinician before and after the use of the medicine.
There are some people in the psychedelic medicine community who refer to themselves and their services as sitters or maybe even guides. These are people who may or may not have any mental health education and knowledge, but will nonetheless 'sit' with people while they take the medicine, to the offer them a sake and reliable space to take the substance and have the experience. One need be careful about people offering these services and proceed with caution if you choose to. investigate this manner of using alternate medicines.
Also, please note that as of November 2023 there is no legal, professional situation where a clinician may sit with a client in a therapeutic capacity during their use and experience; only Ketamine treatment, which is legal in the state of Colorado, and possibly in a research setting is such assistance legally permitted. As well presently, only Ketamine and marijuana are legal psychedelic medicine. The legal status of psilocybin and peyote is somewhat ambiguous at this moment.
I am knowledgable and have been trained in therapeutic modalities that I use for Integrative Therapy. If you are interested in finding out more about Integrative Therapy and your options involved with psychedelic use, we can talk.
For information about the state of the science and research around psychedelics, a useful resource is MAPS: The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies.