The Real Danger of Psychedelic Integration

In my last post, I talked about how psychedelic integration is more than just integrating the psychedelic experience.  It is also about integrating the “fractured” or “unintegrated” self that the psychedelic journey reveals.  I said that when we use this as our map, integrating the “fractured” self takes us to some wild places– one of those places is that when we the integrate out fractured self it will bring us into conflict with our society and culture.

The trauma centered folks do a great job of recognizing how unhealed trauma sits in our body, affecting our relationship to our self and relationships with others.  The next question I have is– why does trauma sit in our body?  Why is it such a common thing for people to dissociate from their trauma and wall it off?  Is this dissociation a natural part of the human experience or is it a byproduct of our civilized culture?  I believe that its both-- it is the only way for humans to "deal" with trauma in a culture that teaches the core values of dissociation and suppression of our "bad" side.  I say "core values" because dissociation and suppression are so ingrained in how we were “cultured” as children and continue to function as adults that it feels intrinsic to how humans function.  It is not just about trauma, though trauma is a big part of it.  This process feels so natural and automatic that it can take some time for people to see it as a part of their "learned" behaviors that they are able to shift.

Psychedelics have a wonderful (or terrible!) way of bringing these parts up to our conscious awareness, where we are then able to shift how we hold them-- this is the foundation of integration.  Buit getting back to the wild place I mentioned earlier– if we want to truly receive the gifts that psychedelics teach us, don't we have to integrate the knowledge that the dissociation and suppression themselves are sicknesses?  By integrating this knowledge, isn't the cure to this sickness the embodiment and expression of our true self internally and in our relations with others?  What does this mean practically– to be our true authentic self (as ugly as it may be sometimes)?

Before answering that question– let’s break down the normal way of doing things in our culture.  Being in a state of suppression means we go out in the world and act in the “right way” and push down the parts of us that don't conform to that. I see this as a type of (mostly unconscious) performance art, where people demonstrate to the world they are a good person.  This “good” person is dependent on the local culture.  In Portland, it means demonstrating that you are a good liberal, a good ally to the disenfranchised, care about the environment, etc.  We also get the bonus of the social contract--  by demonstrating what a “good” person we are, we receive benefits in terms of being liked and approved of socially.

I’m sure in more conservative places, there is a similar game occurring– where showing how much you care about "traditional" values, how much disdain you have for liberals, how much you support the local church, etc. you’d get the same cultural approval.  

I'm not saying that all of our behaviors are masks or games.  I'm just saying that sometimes the mask that we wear for social and cultural approval gets so wrapped up in our identity that we sometimes don't know what we think or believe.  Even connecting to what we may think or believe under the surface will feel like a threat to our survival. 

The state of “suppression” we act from also necessitates an “expression” of the bad side in some way.  At Spirit House, we say it will "come out sideways".  This “bad” side is usually built from a slow burn of resentmentcoming from many moments of silencing and suppressing ourselves.  It’s like a pressure valve that needs some kind of release.  This can be expressed in all sorts of ways– alcohol or drug use, affairs, or maybe having a private conversation with a trusted friend or therapist where you can tell them “what you really feel”. 

The key here is that we have created a side we want to show the world, that we then attach our identity onto that is only a part of our whole self.  We end up acting out this part and get so invested in our role that we can't connect to our deeper desires and feelings.  Even having those desires and feelings becomes dangerous because they usually run counter to what is acceptable in the culture.  We usually attach ourselves to people that confirm or help us act out this good side, while secretly seeking out people to play out our bad side.  

When I grew up in a fundamentalist church I knew how to show everyone I was a good Christian. Playing that part was easy. There were a set of proscribed rules and roles for me to follow. When I was finally able to get in touch with, and finally express my doubts about what I was being taught, I became an outcast from my community. If you’re a good liberal, I’m sure you’ll support this story because it confirms your idea about how messed up fundamentalist Christians are.

But I also see a similar fundamentalism at work here in Portland and in the wider left-leaning community. Although the specific rules and roles are very different from my fundamentalist church, the dangers in going against them are similar. We all know when we interact with others what parts of us are acceptable to show and what are not— what questions we are allowed to ask and what we are not. If you’re a liberal and firmly believe in liberal ideas you may not understand what I’m talking about because you don’t have to worry about the consequences of breaking the social contract. There were a lot of true believers in my old church who didn’t know what I was talking about either.

From this place, we get to see the threat psychedelics pose to culture and society when we use them to help our “self” integrate rather than the “experience”. My own integration work (and the integration work at spirit house) is based onengaging with and embodying our unintegrated parts. We do that by actively exploring what we really think, feel and want and we can only do thatby actively questioning everything– including what our culture says is “good:”. This is the real threat psychedelics pose to society.

My concern with psychedelics then, is that the people in chargewill just shove them into a pre-made box of integrating “the experience” and “resolving trauma” as a way of avoiding these deeper questions of “self”. And when this happens, psychedelics will just be another tool the powers-that-be use to uphold the status quo and keep us in a state of suppression.