Home / Questions
The things people ask before we start working together, answered plainly. If yours is not here, write to me.
Getting started Preparing for a journey Psychedelic integration Microdosing Addiction, eating disorders and burnout Safety, medications and the law Working together
New here
A psychedelic integration coach works on everything around the experience rather than the experience itself. That means education before, a protocol shaped to you, and integration sessions afterward so the insight turns into something that lasts.
I do not provide, source, supply or supervise any substance, and I am not present during a journey. What I provide is the preparation, the framework, and a person on the other end of the phone.
In practice the titles are often used interchangeably. What matters is what the person actually does, what training they have, and whether they are honest about the limits of it.
I use mentor and integration guide. My training is through Onaya Science, Shiri Godasi, EDIT, and Spirit Pharmacist, and I have worked with these medicines personally since 2017.
Therapy treats. Integration coaching guides. A therapist works with diagnosis and clinical treatment inside a licensed scope. I work with education, preparation, practice and meaning-making, and I am not a licensed clinician.
Plenty of my clients are in therapy at the same time and that usually works well. If what you need is clinical care, I will say so on the first call and help you find it.
Yes. All mentorship and integration work is one to one over video, and I work with clients across the United States. I am based in Asheville, North Carolina, so if you are looking for a psychedelic integration coach in Asheville or anywhere in North Carolina, we can also talk about meeting in person.
No. People come at every stage. Some have an ayahuasca retreat booked and six weeks to prepare. Some had a psilocybin experience a year ago and are still carrying something they cannot put down. Some are simply curious and have decided nothing. All three are reasonable places to start.
Thirty minutes over video, free, with nothing to prepare. You tell me where you are and what you are hoping for. I tell you honestly whether I think I can help. Nothing is decided and there is no obligation.
Engagements are built per person and the length varies a great deal. We discuss cost on the free connection call, once I understand what you are actually asking for.
Before you go
Preparation is education, intention, and getting your nervous system into a state where it can receive rather than brace. Practically that means understanding what ayahuasca does, working through your medical history and any medications, the dieta and any preparation the retreat asks of you, and building daily practice in the weeks beforehand.
It also means vetting the retreat properly, which is easy to skim over when you are excited. We go through it together.
Much the same ground as any medicine: intention, set and setting, medical and medication screening, and nervous system preparation so you arrive settled. With psilocybin specifically we look at dose, at who is holding the space, and at what you will do with the days immediately afterward, which is when most of the value is either captured or lost.
Set is your internal state going in: your intention, your expectations, what you are carrying that day, how regulated your nervous system is. Setting is everything external: the place, the people, the sound, whether you feel safe enough to let go.
Set and setting predict how an experience goes more reliably than dose does. Most of preparation is work on these two things.
It depends on what you are walking into, but a few weeks of real psychedelic preparation changes the experience more than almost anything else you can do. Starting the week before is common, and it leaves very little room to settle. A few weeks gives you room.
Preparation work is done online by video, so we can start from wherever you are and keep going right up to the week you travel.
This is one of the most useful things we do together, because the questions worth asking are not obvious. What training does the facilitator have and who trained them. Is there a real medical screening process. What happens if something goes wrong. How many facilitators per participant. What integration is offered afterward, and is it substantial or is it one group call.
I will not book anything for you or point you at a specific provider, but I will make sure you know what you are looking at.
Nervousness is appropriate and it is not a reason to stop. Dread is different and worth listening to. Part of preparation is learning to tell those apart, and building enough regulation that fear is not the thing running the experience.
After the experience
Psychedelic integration is the work of turning an experience into lasting change in how you live. It is where meaning gets made, where insight is tested against ordinary life, and where new patterns either take root or fade.
Whether you worked with psilocybin, ayahuasca, ketamine or MDMA, integration is the phase that decides whether anything holds. It is also the least glamorous phase, and the easiest one to let slide once ordinary life resumes. It is the one that decides whether a remarkable weekend becomes a different year.
In the first days, protect the opening. Sleep, eat properly, get outside, keep the noise down, and write things while they are still vivid. Resist the urge to explain it to everyone immediately.
Then the real work: deciding what specifically changes, and building the daily structure that makes that change survive contact with an ordinary week.
The window where the brain is most receptive is usually described as a few weeks, and that period matters. Integration proper is slower. Expect months rather than days for something significant to settle into how you actually live.
Often yes. Difficult psychedelic experiences are frequently the most useful ones once they are worked through. What makes one linger is being left alone with it, and you do not have to sit with it by yourself.
If you are in acute distress, or having symptoms that worry you, that needs clinical care first and I will help you find it rather than work around it.
No. Late integration is slower but it works. People arrive a year on, still carrying something unresolved, and there is usually a great deal still available in it.
Talking, but structured. What happened, what it meant, what it is asking of you, and what specifically changes on Monday. Alongside that, somatic and nervous system practice, because much of what surfaces is held in the body and does not respond to being discussed.
Yes. Ketamine is often the first legal door people walk through, and clinics vary enormously in how much integration support they offer. Many offer none. If you are doing ketamine treatment and want structured integration alongside it, that is straightforward work to do together.
The steady protocol
Microdosing means taking a dose low enough that you carry on with your ordinary day, on a repeating schedule with deliberate breaks. It is not about feeling altered. Most people describe a subtle shift in mood, reactivity or flexibility rather than an experience.
The honest answer is that the research is early and mixed, and placebo-controlled studies have been less impressive than the anecdotal reports. That does not mean nothing is happening, but anyone promising a specific outcome is overselling it.
What I can say is that the people who get the most from microdosing treat it as a practice with structure and tracking, not as a supplement.
Start with why, not with dose. What are you hoping shifts, and how will you know if it does. Then the protocol: how much, how often, how long, and what breaks. Then the tracking, and the daily practice the dose is meant to support.
Most people who start microdosing alone stop within a few weeks, simply because no one had shown them what to look for or what to build around it.
A protocol is the pattern of dosing days and off days, run in cycles with breaks rather than continuously. There are several well-known schedules and they suit different people. We choose one deliberately, based on what you are working on, and change it when the evidence says to.
Cycles usually run several weeks with planned breaks, and a meaningful trial is a few months rather than a few weeks. Continuous daily microdosing is not an approach I work with.
This is a medical question and it needs a medical answer, not mine. There are real interactions to consider with SSRIs, SNRIs, MAOIs and lithium, and they differ by substance. Speak with a qualified prescriber. I will not advise you around your medication.
Because the dose is the smallest part of it. Microdosing mentorship is protocol design, honest tracking, adjustment when something is not landing, and the daily practice that turns a schedule into a real change in how you feel. Without that scaffolding it is just a substance on a calendar.
What this helps with
There is genuine and growing research interest here, particularly around psilocybin for alcohol use and smoking, and the early results have been encouraging. It is still research, not settled treatment, and nothing is guaranteed.
What I offer is coaching, not treatment. I work on the pattern underneath the behaviour, the nervous system that drives the urge, and the structure that holds a change in place. For some people that includes psychedelics and for many it does not. If you need medical detox or clinical addiction treatment, that comes first.
The research on psychedelics for eating disorders is early and small, so I would be careful with anyone who tells you otherwise. What I can speak to is my own recovery and the process I built out of it.
Novara Recovery works on the pattern underneath bingeing and purging: nervous system regulation, somatic work, identity and values, and practical structure around food, movement and rest. Microdosing and psychedelics are optional within it, not the centre of it. Novara is coaching, not clinical treatment for an eating disorder.
Often, yes, and it is one of the most common reasons people arrive. Burnout usually has the same shape underneath: a life built on an image of what success is supposed to look like, and a nervous system that has been running on the accelerator for years.
I came out of fifteen years in executive roles, so this is familiar territory. The work is regulation, values, and rebuilding a life you actually want to be in rather than one you are enduring.
Most of the people I work with come to me after conventional approaches have not held. This is not a quick fix and it is not conventional. It works on the root of what is making you numb out rather than on the behaviour at the surface.
I work with the somatic and nervous system side of it, and psychedelic experiences frequently surface material connected to it. What I do not do is trauma treatment, which is clinical work requiring a licensed practitioner. Where that is what you need, I will say so and help you find it, and I am glad to work alongside a therapist rather than instead of one.
The practical questions
Anyone with a personal or family history of psychosis or bipolar disorder should be extremely careful, and in many cases should not proceed at all. Significant cardiac conditions, certain medications and pregnancy are also serious considerations.
This is a conversation for a qualified medical professional. If your situation sits outside what I can responsibly support, I will tell you on the first call.
Most remain illegal federally, with limited exceptions, and the picture varies by state and city. Ketamine is legal by prescription. Psilocybin has legal frameworks in Oregon and Colorado. Some religious use is protected.
What I offer is education, mentorship and coaching, which is legal. I do not provide, source, supply or supervise anything, and I do not facilitate or encourage illegal activity. Compliance with the law where you live is your responsibility.
No. I am not a licensed medical or mental health practitioner, and nothing I offer is medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. My training is in mentorship, integration, coaching and somatic practice. Where you need clinical input, you need a clinician.
Tell me on the first call, and speak with your prescriber. Medication is one of the most common reasons the answer is not yet, or not this substance, and it is much better to find that out early than late.
I have worked intentionally with psychedelics and altered states since 2017, including ayahuasca, psilocybin, ketamine, 5-MeO-DMT, kambo, iboga, MDMA and kanna. That is a description of my training and lived experience, not an offer to supply or supervise any of them.
How we work
It varies. Preparation and integration around a single experience is often a few months. Microdosing mentorship and Novara run longer. Some people continue at a lighter cadence afterward.
Then I will say so, usually on the first call, and point you toward someone better suited. That happens, and it is a far better outcome than starting something that was never going to work.
The mentorship programs are one to one. If you are interested in group work, or in having me speak at an event or retreat, write to me and we can talk about it.
Yes, and it is common. Integration coaching and therapy do different jobs and they sit well together. I am happy to work in a way that supports what you are already doing rather than cutting across it.
Still wondering
If your question is not answered here, write to me or put a time on my calendar. There is no cost and no obligation.