The integration of a non-ordinary state of consciousness (NOSC) is where the “rubber hit the road” and yet, it is often neglected. Whether the NOSC is via a psychedelic medicine, breathwork, dreaming, kundalini experience, etc. – if it isn’t integrated into daily life in a meaningful way, it is just this “weird” experience.

This is especially important in our culture where people tend to look for the next “thing” or avoid thinking about something that was unpleasant. Blissful experiences can feel foreign to one’s daily reality, and cause a seeking of the same experience without learning how to create new neuropathways for this state. Even a nightmare or a “bad trip” has an opportunity of healing and growth within them. Most people just need some support in how to navigate this process.
For many years, I specialized in working with trauma which is really a form of integration in that it reweaves parts of self that may have split off. I find that the integration of NOSC uses similar modalities, such as somatic art therapy, focusing, intuitive movement, Depth Hypnosis, self-designed ceremony and resource tapping.

I call the “semi-non-ordinary state” practices of integration “bridge practices” because they are non-threatening to the waking mind and yet provide a slight trance state to access the NOSC more readily. Depth Hypnosis, EMDR, creative process and drum journeys are examples of bridge integration practices.

The language used in integration sounds different than in psychotherapy. One is often “informed by” a “state” over time vs getting an answer about something in their lives. “States of being” reflects the holotropic nature of NOSC vs referring to thoughts and emotions. Integration tends to be a right-brain activity as it is weaving something much bigger than linear logic into the mix of our consensus reality.

As my teacher, Jose Luis likes to say: “Can you grow corn with it?” And I would say, “Yes – with good integration!”
I offer Individual integration sessions, trainings and groups

KAP is ketamine assisted psychotherapy. I offer this 1:1 and in groups. In a 1:1 setting – at my office in town or home office: Kayru, I pair with a medical provider to provide a professional, safe, and well-supported 3-hour experience, which includes: checking-in, reviewing intentions and resources, opening sacred space, orienting in a psycho-spiritual way to the medicine and experience, going over dosing to match intention and needs; the medical provider administering IM (intra-muscular) ketamine in 1-2 doses, a 45-90 minute journey and integration within the “golden window” when the client begins returning but is still holding an altered perceptual lens that may help them see their life situation differently. We complete the session with integration practices for the person to use at home in the days following, while they have increased neuroplasticity.

Ketamine is a safe medicine and is known for its higher dose use as an anesthetic use in animals, children and sometimes adults. Because of its dissociative and psychedelic qualities, it may be disturbing to someone not prepared for this ahead of time or if taken in a setting that is chaotic or unsafe. Its off-label use is for chronic pain, treatment resistant depression suicidal ideation, PTSD and at lower doses, anxiety.

Set Setting and Integration are the 3 key ingredients to be used with this medicine. Some clinics offer IV ketamine but without attention to the preparation (mindset), setting (a calm, safe environment with a playlist of music that supports the arc of the medicine) and the integration of the experience so it makes a difference in the person’s life. Because the experience of ketamine can be so different than the reality we live in, integration is especially helpful and requires a different skillset than traditional psychotherapy. *(See my training retreats for more info.) It is also possible to receive ketamine therapy (KT) with a medical provider and get the preparation and integration from a therapist trained in ketamine as a variation in treatment.

KAP requires at least one intake/preparation session with me and, separately, with the medical provider. I also require a follow-up integration session. Rates for KAP therapy vary depending on each person’s response and need, as well as the medical provider’s rates which are separate from mine.

My fees (2025) are $450 for the 3 hour session and $200 for 60 min or $275 for 90 min intakes/prep/integration sessions.

We tend to shoot for the least amount needed to meet the need (ie. alleviating depression). For some it is one KAP session a few times a year, for others it might be every month until symptoms alleviate, with home-use lozenges in the interim. We can also do psycholytic sessions in the office, which are low dose sessions where we engage EMDR or other modalities while there is a relaxing of defense mechanisms. What treatment looks like for you, will be more apparent after your first session. The medical provider, you and I can develop a treatment plan that fits for you once we know how you respond to the medicine and the integration. I recommend clients have an ongoing therapist and allow me to share detailed notes of the process with them, so they can be part of the team approach.
Find my playlist for KAP on Spotify under Boneknowing Kayru KAP. Here is a sample.
To schedule a KAP intake, please contact me.

I like to say there are 4 ways in which KAP works:

1. Chemistry. This molecule has a complex cascade of activity in the brain we don’t fully understand. Different than most anti-depressants and other psychedelics, it is active on the glutamate receptor vs. serotonin receptors. This may be why it can help those for whom SSRIs aren’t effective (TRD). It also means one doesn’t have to go off their antidepressant to try this treatment. This chemical response “upsets the apple cart” in a way that may unstick someone from a well-worn neuropathway of depression or anxiety.
2. The journey. Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic that is used off-label for mental health issues such as treatment resistant depression, suicidal ideation, PTSD and anxiety. The experience, when taken intramuscularly (IM) at a psychedelic dose (vs psycholytic – low dose), is often so different from “normal reality” that one has difficulty conceptualizing it or even having words to describe it. Some people are sure they have died and have an ease with that, which may serve them when the actual time comes. Ironically, it is useful in alleviating suicidal ideation; perhaps because people know there is another state available. Without ego (thinking mind) or (sense of having a) body, something continues – a consciousness — and this can be like a dream of a different nature that we work with in the integration. It may be challenging, disturbing, blissful, or neutral – but it is all potential healing/whole-ing. The inner-healing intelligence is at work.
3. The “Golden Window” of Integration. This is the hour or so directly after the deep part of the journey as one is returning, finds language and ego comes back online—yet there is still some altered perception on board. One can meet their intention and life situations from a new place. This is where the skills of integration stray from traditional psychotherapy, for good reason. The experience is from a different state of consciousness and tends to use right-brained practice to weave it into daily life in a way that makes change. Intuitive movement, meditation, art therapy, EMDR resource tapping and focusing are all especially useful in this part of the process. Even if one doesn’t remember their journey (which sometimes happens if the dose is higher), where they are in the “tail” of the experience is used as the integration.
4. Increased neuroplasticity. The beauty of psychedelics is that they are disruptors in a way that bumps old patterns out of ruts and has parts of the brain talking to parts it doesn’t usually speak to. Ketamine, in particular, offers more malleability in the neuropathways in the days following. This is why integration practices are especially important to identify and carry out. It is easier to create new and healthier patterns with that increased plasticity. Hence, the follow-up integration session is important to the KAP process.

For trainings on Integration using ketamine click here.
To schedule a KAP intake, please contact me.

“Isa Gucciardi, Ph.D. developed this highly effective therapeutic model to help people work through issues quickly and gain long-lasting results. By synthesizing key principles of shamanism, Buddhism, hypnotherapy, and transpersonal psychology, Depth Hypnosis brings the ancient healing wisdom of many cultures to the unique imbalances of contemporary Western society.” Sacred Stream website.

I use this often in both preparation and integration, much like I would EMDR, in that it offers a trance state where a symptom or issue can be tracked and transformed in a way it can’t be in our logic mind. The stuck-ness people feel is often what leads them to pursue psychedelic medicine. I have found that Depth Hypnosis can sometimes provide the healing, transformation of energy and/or insight that the person was seeking psychedelic medicine for and they choose not pursue medicine.

Depth Hypnosis can also help integrate new information/energies that emerge with medicine and it acts as a “bridge” to the Non-Ordinary-State of Consciousness (NOSC). Suggestion hypnosis can be used to resource going into a medicine experience and to maintain the gains coming out of it. I use it often in KAP (ketamine assisted psychotherapy) work.
I hold a certificate in Depth Hypnosis from my training at Sacred Stream.

EMDR International Association defines EMDR as “an evidence-based psychotherapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In addition, successful outcomes are well-documented in the literature for EMDR treatment of other psychiatric disorders, mental health problems, and somatic symptoms.

The model on which EMDR is based, Adaptive Information Processing (AIP), posits that much of psychopathology is due to the maladaptive encoding of and/or incomplete processing of traumatic or disturbing adverse life experiences. This impairs the client’s ability to integrate these experiences in an adaptive manner. The eight-phase, three-pronged process of EMDR facilitates the resumption of normal information processing and integration.
This treatment approach, which targets past experience, current triggers, and future potential challenges, results in the alleviation of presenting symptoms, a decrease or elimination of distress from the disturbing memory, improved view of the self, relief from bodily disturbance, and resolution of present and future anticipated triggers.” (for more information please visit EMDRIA http://www.emdria.org/)

EMDR uses bilateral stimulation (BLS) to stimulate right and left brain hemispheres to integrate memory and internal resources. This can be done by the therapist or client tapping on right/left shoulders or knees in a steady rhythm, the therapist moving her fingers back and forth while the client tracks with eye movement in a right/left rhythm, using a device that has a light for the client to track with the same right/left rhythm, or using a device that has headphones that deliver a tone alternating in the right and left ears, while simultaneously holding small vibrating paddles that are synchronized with the tones.

This is done with particular pacing to the client’s internal experience of a memory or emotionally charged situation. Prior to BLS, the client has identified the specific trigger and the negative assumption that often goes with it. EMDR uses “sensing into the body” similar to focusing, as part of its protocol.

The term, Focusing, was originated by Eugene Gendlin, Ph.D in the 60s. The concept is based on bodily knowing; meaning that your body picks up and holds more about situations and feelings than you consciously are aware of.

Learning how to sense into your body and hold open attention there, to allow what arises to inform you toward resolution is the practice of focusing. Focusing is inherent to how I work with integration, somatic art therapy, Depth Hypnosis and EMDR. For more about focusing click here.

There is a reason for the saying: “A picture paints a thousand words.” Especially with trauma and loss, words often fall short. Images are the language of our body, spirit, and emotions. In our development as a species and as infants to adults, we have communicated in images before language. Images and sensory experiences come to us before we form words for experiences, only most of us aren’t aware of these and look to words to make sense of things.

The ineffable quality that often occurs with expanded states of consciousness, make art the perfect “bridge between those experiences we don’t have language for and our consensus reality. The process that I developed for integration, Art for Access, uses drum journey, image making and writing to build this bridge.

Art therapy is the practice of using image making to access, express, and transform one’s experience on a deeper level. It isn’t about being an “artist”, but rather, learning to use image-making and other creative, symbolic expressions for inner-exploration, understanding, and guidance. Once images are accessed, reflection, sharing, and words help integrate and apply the new knowledge.

In groups, Art Therapy can encourage both individual expression and a connection among members. When complex emotions are safely felt and expressed, the congruence between thoughts and feelings increases.

The incongruence between these is often the culprit of stress. Medical Art Therapy helps patients with pain management, stress, understanding what is happening in their body, and the expression of emotional and spiritual issues that arise from illness or disability.

The American Art Therapy Association defines Art Therapy as “a mental health profession that uses the creative process of art making to improve and enhance physical, mental and emotional well-being. The creative process involved in artistic self- expression helps people resolve conflicts and problems, develop interpersonal skills, reduce stress, and increase self-esteem and self-awareness.

Art therapists are master’s-level professionals who hold degrees in art therapy and/or a related field. The educational requirements art therapists must fulfill include coursework in theories of art therapy, counseling, and psychotherapy; individual, group, and family therapy; human and creative development; assessment and evaluation; multicultural issues; research methods; ethics and standards of practice; and practicum experience in clinical and community settings.
Art therapists are also trained in applying a variety of art modalities as part of assessment and treatment, including drawing, painting, sculpture, and other visual media.”

With integration in 1:1 work, groups and workshops I utilize focusing with art therapy, as the body’s felt sense often carries an image or metaphor. Drawing from the felt sense and then dialoging with the image or an element of it, usually brings forth surprising results.
Both the body and the creative process elicit implicit knowing via felt sense and imagery. This knowing is a deeper wisdom than our conscious mind’s best efforts to figure things out. I refer to this practice as Somatic Art Therapy.