What happened during integration circle (group support) for ketamine therapy

Read Sober Psychonaut disclaimer for people in sobriety exploring psychedelic medicine

As part of the comprehensive Mindbloom package, which includes not only your consult with a clinician, your prescribed ketamine pills, a trained guide or coach available to help you work through anything that comes up for you during ketamine treatment sessions, along with myriad online articles, soundtracks and supporting resources—you have access to Integration Circles.

These are small private groups of Mindbloom customers just like you who are on the ketamine treatment journey and are looking to “integrate” their experiences with the medicine by sharing with and listening to others via facilitated discussion. Here’s how my Integration Circle went.

Image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay 

 

The ground rules: Heart-centered communication

One of the Integration Circle leaders reached out to me several times to work me into one of her groups but they always seemed to fill up quickly and my schedule never matched up.

One day she announced an open slot that worked and I was able to join the Zoom call with five or six other participants.

To ensure privacy, discretion, respect and presence, the leader of the Integration Circle had us agree in advance on “heart-centered communication,” defined as:

  • Not being all up in your head when someone else is talking, thinking about how their experience relates to you (great advice for communication in general)
  • Responding respectfully and thoughtfully so people know where you’re coming from by using “When you said X I felt or thought”-type language
  • Or “When I heard X I was curious about…” and making sure to ask people if they were open to questions or feedback vs. unsolicited commentary

Several participants were dealing more with anxiety than with depression, but seemingly for many years and having tried many different types of medications and therapy.

One guy shared about ketamine therapy and how the experience of blank thoughts and blank mind have been so peaceful. He found that journaling was also helping and he was also sleeping better. Talking with his guide, he said, had been one of the most impactful parts of his experience.

“I can feel the pressure building up again,” he said. “There are definitely easy and hard weeks, and how to deal with each is greatly helped by my guide.”

Everyone in the group seemed to nod when the topic of thinking ketamine would be a magic pill, came up. Managing expectations was an engaging topic, from how intense a “trip” would be from one session to another, to what to expect between sessions, or at completion.

“The work,” as one participant pointed out, “is always in between sessions, and it’s up to me.”

Another girl explored the idea of boredom during ketamine therapy as there are moments of vacuousness where the ethereal music seems to just go on and on and you no longer feel like much of anything but a deep meditative state.

“I ask boredom, What I can learn from this?” she said. “Why is it showing up now and what does it have to teach me?”

I was the most emotional or had the most emotional experience to share as I reflected on my first ketamine treatment in which an emotional burst and message of loss and fear came up.

Ketamine integration circle wrap-up

Several of the participants were already at their sixth and final course of treatment and were looking to go deeper, an option to continue with other Mindbloom packages or to simply continue to integrate the experiences and insights they’d had so far to see what opened up in the coming weeks and months.

Among the rest of us, you could feel the anticipation of what the next ketamine therapy session would bring, and all the questions still remaining:

  • Would it heal me?
  • Would it work long term?
  • Would I have to do it again?
  • Am I getting what I’m supposed to get?
  • Will I always be this way?

The chatter that’s always there. The human condition, just louder for some of us, perhaps.

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