Entheogen Facilitation & Integration Specialist
“Spiritual intelligence is the capacity to conduct our life in such a way that it reflects deep philosophical and metaphysical understanding of reality and of ourselves discovered through personal experience during systematic spiritual pursuit.”
Facilitators Primary Responsibility
A facilitators primary responsibility is to ensure the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual safety of clients/ journeyers. This responsibility starts long before a medicine ceremony treatment session begins. It is paramount to conduct a thorough assessment screening and several pre-sessions to determine if individuals are good candidates for specific medicines. During such an assessment screening it is important to discuss expectations, intentions, previous experiences with psycho-active medicines, and the outcome or results.
Facilitators should open medicine ceremonies by clearing the space of any lingering negative energy. This can be accomplished through ceremony, prayer, drumming, rattle, and smudging. An introduction presentation is strongly suggested to discuss and cover all relevant topic areas; trust and safety, medical protocols, holding space and witnessing, what to expect, altered states of consciousness, how fear or anxiety will be addressed, appropriate boundaries and touch, somatic processing and integration, termination of a session, and Q & A to address any questions or concerns. Guiding clients through some form of breath work meditation is another important component.
From a symbolic perspective ceremony and ritual are powerful constructs when performed from a place of love, honor and respect. Equally powerful is intention setting, and clarity surrounding one’s intentions. Clear, concise intentions hold powerful transformative energy. For example, one of my gifts as a shamanic practitioner is in working with and through tobacco. I perform tobacco ceremonies to call in the ancestors, spirit guides, animals, elemental’s, elders, angels, and other spirit-based helpers. Facilitation requires the ability to hold loving space for the duration of every medicine ceremony and assistance from spirit-based helpers can prove to be invaluable.
Additionally, facilitation requires the ability to hold the ‘tension of opposites’, to be able to let go of the reins, and allow the medicine to direct one’s journey. The adage “less is more”, holds true in facilitation of medicine ceremonies. An effective and proficient facilitator understands this principle, and is aware that soma “the body” has an inner healing intelligence. Body, mind, psyche, and soul, have the capacity to heal internal conflict, past trauma wounding, limiting belief programs, and adverse core belief patterns given the right container, circumstances, and environment. Everyone possess an inner healing intelligence, which blossoms in safe, sacred, loving, nourishing and contained environments.
In conclusion extensive personal, lived experience with a wide variety of entheogens and medicines, both plant-based and synthetic, is imperative. Lived experiential knowledge is vital for attunement with the journeyer, and understanding of the various stages, peaks and valleys individuals may travel during their journey. Lastly, the ability to feel into the mystical and numinous realms, connect with the various dimensions, all while bearing witness to an individuals medicine journey are all key components of a facilitators role.
Integration Process
Integration Counseling Specialization
Psychedelic experiences can be profound and deeply impactful, often revealing insights, emotions, and perspectives that may be somewhat challenging to process initially. Integration counseling provides a supportive framework for individuals to make sense of their experiences, find meaning, and integrate these insights into their lives.
An important component of integration counseling resides in the power of being witnessed by another, to be truly seen, and in having one’s experiences and feelings validated. Integration is just as important as the psychedelic experience itself, if not more so. Without proper integration counseling newly revealed insights and revelations can remain dormant in soma “the body”. Integration counseling allows for the release of unwanted psychic Materia, which alleviates feelings of overwhelm or disconnection.
Integration of psychedelic experiences evokes an inner healing process that allows individuals to heal and move through trauma wounding, adverse memories and accompanied behavioral patterns, and to break free from destructive patterns. It is a process of intentional and deliberate assimilation of transformative experiences that arise into the conscious realm during a psychedelic-assisted therapy session. These powerful medicines have shown great potential in unlocking deep-seated traumas and facilitating profound healing.
Integration counseling encompasses a variety of specialized practices, including therapy, journaling, meditation, and forms of creative expression such as art, dance, and movement. The primary intention of integration counseling is to assist journeyers in making sense of what was experienced in altered states of consciousness so new insights and revelations can be integrated and incorporated into their daily lives.
Integration counseling requires the cultivation of a safe and supportive environment so individuals can process their emotions, integrate new perspectives, gain clarity and understanding regarding the truth. Living in one’s truth assists individuals in moving back into alignment with their true self and to remember who they are. Self-awareness and actualization empower individuals and guide them into purpose and meaning in life, which in turn allows one to feel whole and complete again.
Jung believed our most important personal responsibility was to our own inner growth for ascension into a higher level of consciousness. Processing and integration of hidden, unconscious shadow constructs allows our inner healing potential to be unleashed.
Depth psychological practices focus on the structured framework of the unconscious psyche, or the underworld of psyche, human development, personality formation, and individuation. Jung propagated psychological distress to be a result of psychic imbalance and alienation from the deeper personality, or what Jung referred to as the Self. A Jungian approach seeks to restore individual’s connection to Self.
Depth practitioners work through the archetype of the “wounded healer”, which means they have “skin in the game”. Both the client and depth practitioner have wounded souls. Working together they can merge their souls to evoke healing has ‘skin in the game”. Mutual vulnerability creates a dynamic of equality between the practitioner and client, which serves to facilitate safety and trust.
Depth practices adaptability and pliability represent unique strengths, which allow the repressed hidden parts of Self to rise into conscious awareness for clarity, understanding, integration and dissipation. Uncovering the root cause of adverse and repressed unconscious memories, images, stories, and behavioral patterns are often the missing pieces of the puzzle in healing.
Individuation is the process of bringing our unconscious potential into a concrete living reality, which secures a bridge between the individual and their unconscious. This self-actualization process is how we evolve psychologically and spiritually. Psychedelic medicines can fast-track this process.
Integration assists journeyer’s with deeper understanding of archetypal imprints, letting go of undesirable programming, assists movement into self- acceptance, self forgiveness and self-love. In essence, the integration process assists journeyer’s in psychic stabilization. Proper integration can guide individuals toward creating an on-going self-care practice, which further assists in the self-actualization and individuation process.
A primary goal of integration counseling is for the journeyer to feel complete with their psychedelic experience.
The integration process is about creating space and wholeness in various realms of life.
Mental and Intellectual
Are there new intellectual pursuits that you may be interested in such as going back to school, learning a new language, or just mentally challenging oneself?
Relationships
Mind-Body
Environmental
Spiritual
Lifestyle
How is your work/ life balance like? Do you allow yourself time to play, have fun and socialize with others?
Entheogenic medicines allow psychic materia to rise into conscious awareness, which may, or may not, have been repressed in the unconscious domain. The medicine often reveals profound insights and truths regarding past trauma wounding, memories and events. The clarity and understanding received assists journeyer’s in processing and integrating adverse past experiences, which may have held them back from actualizing love, connection, touch and happiness at the deepest levels. Movement into self-acceptance, self-forgiveness and self-love can provide individuals with a newfound sense of peace and freedom.
Integration Goals
Consists of history gathering, core belief assessment, treatment planning, target planning, and actual resourcing through creation of a safe space and a safe container.
Consists of the actuial EMDR process to discover and disempower traumatic memories and dysfunctional core belief patterns through desensitization and reprocessing so someone can remember the event(s) from an emotional and/or reactive perspective.
Consists of installation of these positive core belief patterns and memories, so they are embodied. This process allows for a rediscovery of one’s strengths and skills. Lastly, therapist inquiry and observational scan of the body to complete the closure process.
Consists of installation of these positive core belief patterns and memories, so they are embodied. This process allows for a rediscovery of one’s strengths and skills. Lastly, therapist inquiry and observational scan of the body to complete the closure process.
Consists of installation of these positive core belief patterns and memories, so they are embodied. This process allows for a rediscovery of one’s strengths and skills. Lastly, therapist inquiry and observational scan of the body to complete the closure process.
ENTHEOGEN DISCLAIMER: Dr. Michael Hofrath does not provide psychoactive or controlled substances. Many controlled substances are illegal. The illegal use of a controlled substance may result in criminal consequences. Using controlled substances outside of the lawful supervision of a medical professional may also result in serious health complications including death. Please use your best discretion and consult with a medical professional to ensure entheogen medicines are right for you and conduct due diligence when seeking an entheogen facilitator or practitioner to work with.
Nothing contained on this website is intended to encourage the use of illegal substances. Given that psychedelics continue to be used illegally by people around the world, the educational information on this website encourages safe, sacred, and effective journeys with entheogens, if these powerful tools are to be used at all. Using entheogen is not without risk and can potentially produce extremely uncomfortable, frightening, confusing, painful, and psychologically destabilizing experiences.
While entheogens can be a valuable adjunct to the sincere analysis of one’s inner world and perceptual relationship to the outer world, they can also be a source of disorienting delusion, confusion, and psychological destabilization for those unfit, unequipped, or unprepared for such powerful experiences. Entheogen medicines/ substances can cause long-lasting changes to personality and cognition. Individuals can also possess undiagnosed genetic, developmental, neurological, endocrinological, or traumagenic conditions that negatively interact with the psychedelic chemical and experience.
