What integration is and isn't

Integration is the word this field uses for what happens after: revisiting a psychedelic experience, making what sense of it you can, and incorporating anything that matters into your life. That is a synthesis of 24 published definitions (Bathje and colleagues, 2022) — and even the researchers note the term has no single agreed meaning.

Two things are true at once. Some people genuinely want change or understanding from a psychedelic experience, and integration practices are how many pursue that. And nobody owes an experience anything — no insight, no narrative, no better self. An experience you simply had is complete.

What integration is not: a task with a deadline, a sign that something went wrong, or a requirement for having been there at all. The integration shelf holds the practices people commonly use, with the evidence for each stated plainly. Take what helps; leave the rest.