Unofficial Vital Student ‘Zine
Notes from Vital Psychedelic Training class of ‘23
Attention Ideology
Someone to listen to our trippy BS is often all we want when we first get back to Earth.
Therapy
Someone to listen to our trippy BS is often all we want when we first get back to Earth
From Transcendent Country of the Mind by Sari Soninen published by The Eriskay Collection
Like all things consciousness-expansion related any integration practice will be highly subjective, and complex.
And somehow, simultaneously, dazzlingly, beautifully simple.
Vital students, including storied specialists, were in agreement as to what many voyagers seek from their post-trip debriefs.
“Just being witnessed, or seen, or heard, is so paramount,” says one wise Vital student in the question and answer session after Kyle Buller’s lecture to open Vital’s training module on psychedelic integration.
“Just be open, without really much of any judgment, or even too much feedback”
Indeed Dr Timothy Leary, for it is he, wrote in The Politics of Ecstasy, ‘Close your eyes and listen... and learn that it's the oldest message of love and peace and laughter.’
Another Vital learner, recently returned from retreat, says of his own touchdown: “It's very important for the listener to just be open, without really much of any judgment, or even too much feedback.”
So, do say: ‘Wow’.
Don’t say: ‘Rr… right.’
Conversation stopper: ‘I think you should stop hanging out with those people.’
Calling Interdimensional Rescue
Crisis management is the reality of integration therapy. And this is what it looks like.
Space
Crisis management is the reality of integration therapy, professionals say
From Transcendent Country of the Mind by Sari Soninen published by The Eriskay Collection
Lisbon-based psychotherapist Marc Aixala says the reality of psychedelic integration is most clients come seeking help, having a bad time of some description.
“So my expertise is more focused on people in difficulties,” Aixala told Vital lecturer Kyle Buller on the Psychedelics Today podcast: “When I talk about integration, that’s what I’m referring to the most.”
Aixala crunched the data on years of psychedelic damage limitation. The most common issues are presented in his book Psychedelic Integration out now.
“Psychedelics teach us that the greatest healer is in ourselves”
Among the top comedown crises: anxiety and insomnia obviously; struggling to process what emerged from the experience; inner conflict with an instruction supposedly delivered from on high; actual flashbacks and HPPD; reality breakdown; plus good old edgy, lingering discomfort.
“Don’t create a need for integration in people that don’t have it”
Apportioning blame, Aixala’s figures cite lack of suitable preparation, exacerbation of existing mental health issues, dodgy healers, and what Aixala calls “Repeated intakes without integration, a new trend in which people go from experience to experience. They for instance care more about transpersonal entities, losing reality in quite a severe way.”
Of depth work, journaling, downloading-but-never-using meditation apps, and the other trappings of vanilla, middle class ‘integration’ Aixala says: “Most of the time we can do that on our own.”
The former telephone engineer adds, “I’m careful as a therapist not to create an additional need for integration in people that don’t have it. One of the things that psychedelics teaches us, is that greatest healer is in ourselves.”
Wavy Garms
What the modern-day professional psychopomp is wearing this season.
Medical
What the modern-day professional psychopomp is wearing this season
Not this, unfortunately. It’s from ‘Ikon’ by Nick Knight available now
In his definitive book Psychedelic Renaissance, Dr Ben Sessa of Bristol’s Awakn Clinics writes: “An unfortunate but necessary truth is that professionals working in this field must remain as boring and staid as possible.”
No ceremonial robes allowed?
What’s the sartorially minded integration coach to do?
Faced by this matter of cosmic import, I turned to Vital’s students for answers after Kyle Buller’s lecture on ‘psychedelic integration’. Which is, for the uninitiated, ‘the process by which a psychedelic experience translates into positive changes in daily life.’
“I'm a professional therapist and I've got tattoos on knuckles and neck,” says my Vital colleague Mackenzie Amara.
Also from ‘Ikon’ by Nick Knight available now
“My image filters out the people that would be distracted by that,” says the head-turning Jungian depth psychologist, based in Zurich. Though, “the flipside is more likelihood of extreme projections” she says, referring to a client’s tendency to act out behaviour patterns on their therapist… that’s often intensified in psychedelic sessions.
“Image considerations are more about what projections you might be managing”
Sporting a strong look might muddy the astral airwaves once the archetypes start flying: “Image considerations are less about fitting in with the crowd, and more about what projection you might be managing,” Mackenzie advises.
The general concensus from the students is that the culture behind whatever medicine’s going down can be respected in the ceremony. Personally I take that as a green light for cloaks and headdresses.
Also from ‘Ikon’ by Nick Knight available now
You’re not at an after party, though. Even the most progressive psychedelic ceremonies demand some decorum.
“It goes back to: how much are we influencing people?” says integration lecturer and Vital founder Kyle Buller, “I wanted to wear a shirt in our last Jamaica retreat of this reindeer eating a mushroom. And I was, like… maybe I'll save that and just wear something bland…”
Heoric Doses of Reality
Peak existence is the new peak experience, says 5-MEO DMT expert Dr Malin Vedøy Uthaug.
Peak existence is the new peak experience, says 5-MEO DMT expert Dr Malin Vedøy Uthaug
By Trulee Hall from ‘Plays on Foreplays’, at Rusha & Co, Los Angeles, February 4 till March 11, 2023
The strictest lesson psychedelics taught me, is that they themselves are not important. It’s lived experience that is.
I don’t mean a Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers existence. (Although I am all for that too, especially as part of some ‘path of excess leading to the palace of wisdom’ thing). I mean stuff like Dr Malin Vedøy Uthaug does.
The 5-MEO DMT research maven took up free diving while stuck in, y’know, Egypt during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I believe our society has emotional constipation. We need to get that shit out”
This helped over come her fear of deep open water – ‘thalassophobia’ – and since she’s set two free diving records in her native Norway.
“I believe our society has emotional constipation. We need to get that shit out,” says the firebrand, who’s swift to remind us that “different diets lead to a different psychedelic experience,” certainly according to plant medicine purists.
This is felt on the material plane: “Putting the body back into the equation, is the way forward,” Dr Uthaug claims.
This could mean bioenergetic therapy to encourage consciousness ‘integration’ on a physical level. Or… actually doing things as opposed to just talking about them.
“Changes need to be actively translated into your life,” says Dr Uthaug… which admittedly is likely to mean unexpected challenges, hard truths, and personal growth generally earned the hard way as per usual.
“In the light of day, insights are about lifestyle”
The trip is only part of the healing. You do the rest with the actions you undertake. That the mushroom or whatever told you to do.
“A more holistic framework is what I’d love to see going forward, here in the space,” says Dr Uthaug, “Take an exaggerated example: when an addict take a psychedelic, they realise, oh, I shouldn't be taking this substance anymore because it fucks me up, right? And so in the light of day, insights are about lifestyle.”
Kool-Aid Corner #18
Your regular round-up of trippy clippings, merry pranks, and psychedelic student life.
To finish: trippy clippings, merry pranks, and psychedelic student life
Walter Van Beirendonck autumn/winter 23/24 collection shown at Paris Men’s Fashion Week
Graph of the Week
This is how it works apparently:
FIGURE 1: ‘Molecular, cellular, and systems support for psychedelic-induced long-term changes..’ From: Catalysts for change: the cellular neurobiology of psychedelics (Matthew I. Banks, Zarmeen Zahid, Nathan T. Jones, Ziyad W. Sultan, and Cody J. Wenthur, William Bement, Monitoring Editor) Molecular Biology of the Cell Vol. 32, No. 12
My bookshelf weighs a ton
Notable new purchases for the occult library. This week: Games People Play by Eric Berne 1968 Penguin edition!
£3 from the second hand bookstore round the back of the sea front in historic Clevedon, North Somerset UK
The first ever pop psychology book (although written for pros) debuted in 1964. In Berne’s ‘transactional analysis’ some human behaviours are learned strategies to elicit a response. (They’re mostly along the parent-child-adult drama triangle lines). Others find it exhausting, but the comfortable thing is to play along. ‘White moves first, and white usualy wins,’ writes Berne.
Both the author, and our rational grown-up instincts, offer methods to dodge white’s curved balls. But he solemnly warns that all manner of pitfalls face those who refuse to play games. For example, white will not give up. They will simply find somebody else to play with.
The Feeling Theory
Dr Lafrance mixes up emotion focussed therapy with a ‘theoretically informed’ treatment room style.
This requires interacting with the patient – in stark contrast to the ‘non directive’ approach considered sacrosanct…
Approach
Dr Lafrance mixes up emotion focussed therapy with a ‘theoretically informed’ treatment room style – that involves interacting with the patient
By Nokukhanya Langa showing at Saatchi Yates gallery, London till November 22
“There’s been an evolution in psychedelic therapy, says Dr Lafrance, "I’m presenting all this next year, so you’re getting a sneak preview.”
Contemporary psychedelic medicine began with ‘experience’ sessions were ‘non-directed’, that is, given as little intervention as possible. (Psycholitic is the name given to experiences where talk therapy takes place). Soon they became ‘inner directed’ encouraging the voyager to get in touch with their ol’ inner healer.
But now, “We’re moving towards a theoretically informed way of being in the treatment room,” Dr Lafrance reports, “especially when the inner healing intelligence is most active.”
If like me you’re wondering what ‘theoretically informed’ means, well, from my Googling I figure it’s an academic term for ‘rooted in reality’ and usually involves some form of research and sense-checking from folks actually doing the thing in question.
For instance: one paper I found, which researched ways to encourage intravenous drug users to be tested for hepatitis C, insisted it employed ‘evidence based and theoretically informed techniques’ gleaned from social workers.
Dr Lafrance later describes herself as “a theory-based person” and I for one will happily accept her theories when it comes to ‘ways of being in the treatment room’, because she’s been a top-flight clinical psychologist for decades.
“They indulge in maladaptive coping behaviours and problematic relationships to cope… or risk more serious mind fractures”
The bubbly brainbox is also a renowned expert on Emotion Focussed Therapy (EFT); she’s the author of Emotion Focused Family Therapy: A Transdiagnostic Caregiver Focused Guide, published by the redoubtable American Psychological Association.
According to The International Centre for Excellence in Emotionally Focused Therapy (ICEEFT) website, EFT is closely related to John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory of Human Relationships. ‘Attachment views human beings as innately relational, social and wired for intimate bonding with others,’ it reads, ‘The EFT model prioritises emotion and emotional regulation as the key organising agents in individual experience and key relationship interactions.’
Dr Lafrance says EFT focusses on emotion regulation and processing: “If they have low skills regulating emotions and stressors, and their resources are insufficient, they have to indulge in maladaptive coping behaviours and problematic relationships in order to cope – or they risk more serious mind fractures.”
In the EFT model, seemingly destructive patterns like addiction fend off worse outcomes like suicide.
“You get this activated self rising like a phoenix. And it’s freaking awesome”
Addicition’s an example of a coping mechanism that’s arisen to swamp the torturous emotional quagmire within.
“Cross-diagnostically patients have problems with identifying and processing emotions,” says Dr Lafrance, “the symptoms are thought to be emotion regulation strategies. But if we can offer them support, including in strengthening their emotion regulation and processing skills, they receive co-regulation that in turn leads to self-regulation. Then they don’t need the coping patterns. It’s tackling the problem from the inside out.”
“The key term,” says Dr Lafrance, “is self-efficacy,” meaning the power to deal with things yourself. “If you feel it with emotion processing,” she claims, “it’s incredible armour for the challenges of life: both the skills, and the support it provides.”
Our emotional landscapes, though, can be foggy territory. Dr Lafrance has even felt the compulsion to hold free public workshops helping the great unwashed map out their own internal geography. Many of us are simply not literate enough to know that behind the emotion of ‘sadness’ there’s a need for ‘comfort’ from another – the common reaction is to withdraw for time alone instead.
“Which emotional states do they find most challenging to identify, label, meet and need?” advises Dr Lafrance, “Stick with the sense of helplessness and that turns into ‘it’s not fair!’ And then there’s a healthy rising up of assertiveness. Latch on to something, work with it in specifics ways that help it along, and you get this activated self rising like a phoenix. And it’s freaking awesome,” she says.
As a people we’re so emotionally retarded that Dr Lafrance has found it’s sometimes best to simplify troubled emotions down into two categories.
“In the past when I would’ve said ‘Feel into that space with me’ now I’d just say, let’s not go there if you’re not sure”
‘Anger, resentment and disappointment’ indicate a client who shies away from vulnerability. ‘Anxiety, sadness and despair’ point to low assertiveness.
But “hate and resentment can feel like a comfy blankety” advises Dr Lafrance: “Some people subconsciously live their lives by the mantra ‘I’d rather die than feel’,” she says.
This is where “accessing and understanding the genus of their difficulties” comes in. “One patient told me that their medicine sessions were the first time they’d sat in fear and sadness with memories they were trying to hide from,” she explains, adding that psychedelics can quieten a harsh inner critic that usually directs repressed feelings towards their holder, away from the recognition of painful events.
But, “EFT is less about the memories than it is about processing,” says Dr Lafrance, “they’re regulating, avoiding or suppressing affective material. Understanding the pattern can diffuse shame and assist in moving through the emotion.”
To quote humanist psychologist Carl Rogers: ‘Once an experience is fully in awareness, fully accepted, then it can be coped with effectively, like any other clear reality.’
Four Times You Probably Should Intervene with the Voyager’s Experience
Frontline clinical psychologist Dr Lafrance answers the big question: if the patient’s tripping balls, when does the therapist definitely need to get involved?
Therapy
Frontline clinical psychologist answers the big question: when the patient’s tripping balls, when does the therapist definitely need to get involved?
From The Order of the Fool Street Tarot exhibition in Manchester
‘This level of reality should be the new standard being applied to therapy in general’ says a Vital cohort colleague in praise of Dr Lafrance’s theoretically informed approach.
“It’s different to how we were trained!” replied the respected frontline clinical psychologist. Like you can read about in the Approach section this issue, she combines emotion-focussed therapy with a ‘theoretically informed’ style taking cues from lived experiences received in the treatment rooms.
This not only contrasts with bureaucratic doctrine, that favours centralised top-down wisdom… which can take decades to catch up with what’s happening on the ground.
It’s also at odds the non-directive or ‘inner directed’ approach pioneered by Dr Stanislav Grof (for it is he) which insists on more delicate interaction with the therapist during the psychedelic experience itself, to encourage a more detailed internal dialogue.
“I do warn them in advance that they’ll be more aware than I am”
That’s the the way psychedelic therapy is going though, Dr Lafrance claims.
Those of us who were only just getting the hang of being non-directive may be left a-flutter by this sudden change in er, direction. So Dr Lafrance has kindly detailed the when’s and why’s of sticking your oar in during the voyager’s experience.
“We still intervene in a relational, emotion-focused, and inner-directed way,” she comments in her Vital lecture profiling the emotion-focused, theoretically informed style.
Dr Lafrance’s reasons for chipping in? Conflict with parts of the self. Maladaptive emotions like anxiety and self-criticism. Anticipated shame and regret, along the lines of ‘I can’t believe I told you that, it’s supposed to be a secret.’ And, reluctance.
Each must be handled gingerly, and always in the context of the medicine experience – hence ‘inner directed’ still, prompting the patient to look inside themselves, still.
To confirm if your planned intervention is indeed worthwhile, confer with the handy acronym WAIT – ‘why am I talking?’
“We make a deal in the container that I’m always fine”
For instance: when confronted by the thought of a sober therapist and spangled patient, an old tripping pal of mine asked, “What happens when they realise they’re taking care of you?”
He was offering up a psychedelic riddle-cum-truism. But it does happen according to Dr Lafrance albeit more prosaically.
“I do warn them in advance that they’ll be more aware than I am,” says Dr Lafrance, “We make a deal in the container [agreed-upon boundaries of behaviour while tripping] that I’m always fine.” Because when patients suddenly start insisting that you go outside for a smoke, grab a coffee, or take some time to yourself “it can be reassuring to just say that you are” says Dr Lafrance.
“But it can be more rewarding to go into that place,” she advises, “is there a process of caretaking that needs looking into?’ Tell them that you’re always comfortable, they don’t need to worry if you’re hungry because it’s been four hours.”
Otherwise, go get that brew now “Or it may feel like a violation.”
Uncharacteristic behaviour can be examined by gently pointing out that “It’s so wonderful to get to know this part of you… feels like it’s a part that really need to show itself?”
That attentive, experience-led vibe seems to be sweet spot of ‘theoretically-informed, inner-led, emotion-focussed therapy.’
Each ‘Zine features the most mind-blowing bits I scrawled down during each of Vital’s exclusive live lectures by the finest minds in the space. Browse them by issue or go straight to the introductions with lecturer details.
And search by the topics: Traditional and Modern Approaches, Therapy, Space Holding, Medical and Clinical, and Integration. Funnies at the end too.