Psychedelic preparation
The most important part of a ceremony happens before you arrive. Preparation is how you give a strong experience the best chance of helping rather than hurting.
Work with me
Psychedelic-assisted therapy: preparation and integration
Two halves of one piece of work. What you do in the weeks before an experience decides how safe it is, and what you do in the months after decides whether it changes anything.
The work has two halves
People usually arrive at this page from one of two directions. Either an experience is ahead of them and they want to walk in prepared, or an experience is behind them and they are trying to make sense of it. Both are the same body of work seen from different ends, and I do both.
Before, the work is preparation: intention, safety, your trauma history, the questions to ask the people who would hold the ceremony, and a nervous system trained to steady itself before it is tested. After, the work is integration: sorting what matters from what dazzles, and turning it into changes small enough to survive a normal week.
If you are doing one, it is worth knowing about the other. People who do both halves tend to get far more from the middle.
Why a psychotherapist, and not only a guide
Strong experiences often bring old material to the surface, and that is precisely where a facilitator's role ends and a clinician's begins. I am a warranted Gestalt psychotherapist trained in Malta, certified in psychedelic harm reduction and integration in Canada, and my clinical focus is trauma-informed psychotherapy.
The other half of my background is lived. Four master plant diets in the Amazon, five Vision Quests in the Nahuatl tradition of Mexico, and more than ten years teaching and holding retreats in Peru, Mexico, Spain and Malta. When you describe what happened to you, you will not be starting from zero.
Where my role ends
I do not source, provide or administer any substance. I do not recommend specific medicines, doses, retreats or facilitators, and I have no financial relationship with any of them. I do not promise healing. What I offer is preparation, integration, education and harm reduction: clinical support before and after experiences you choose to have, wherever you have them.
How sessions run
We meet online on Google Meet, 50 minutes per session. Most people come weekly; in the weeks right before or after an experience we can go to twice a week, and later on twice a month is often enough. Preparation usually needs four to six sessions; integration is more open-ended and we review it together.
If you are not sure whether psychedelics or plant medicine are a good option for you at all, that is a legitimate reason to book too. A proper assessment sometimes ends in "not now" or "not this", and then we look at what else could help, including trauma therapy or nervous system regulation.
Who this is for
- A retreat or ceremony is coming up and the fear is already here; you want preparation that still works when you are there
- You have come home from an experience with real insights and no idea how to turn them into a different life
- You want a therapist who understands the spiritual and mystical side of these experiences and can hold the strange parts in a grounded way
- You are wondering whether psychedelics or plant medicine are right for you at all, and you want a proper assessment, with other options if the answer is no
Questions people ask
Should I start with preparation or integration?
It depends on where the experience sits. If it is ahead of you, start with preparation, ideally four to six weeks out. If it is behind you, start with integration, whether the ceremony was last month or five years ago. If you are not sure, an intro call sorts it in a few minutes.
Is this psychedelic-assisted therapy in the clinical, legal sense?
No, and the distinction matters. Legal psychedelic-assisted therapy means a licensed clinician present during a dosing session, which exists only in specific countries and trials. I work before and after, never during, and I am never present at a ceremony. My work is preparation, integration and harm reduction.
Do you work with people who have not decided yet?
Often. Deciding well is part of the work. Sometimes the outcome of good preparation is choosing to wait, or to do trauma therapy first. That is a real result, not a failed one, and nothing in our sessions assumes you will go ahead.
Does this work online?
Yes. I have worked online for years with clients across the US, Canada and Europe. Preparation and integration rely on attention and conversation rather than a shared room, and being in your own space is often an advantage for this material.
Related pages
Psychedelic integration
The ceremony ends, and then you are back home with a mind full of questions. Integration is the work of turning what you experienced into steady, lasting change.
