An Integrative Approach to Psychotherapy and Psychedelic Counselling.

By Christopher Change-Duffet, M.B.A., R.P. (Qualifying)

Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. Mental health affects how we think, feel, and act and helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. Mental health is essential during every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood. Yet, too often, people do not consider the importance of their mental health and let this lapse. At the CHI, we have an amazing array of techniques and approaches to help support and nourish mental health.

Christopher Chang-Duffet is an accomplished developmental coach and qualifying Registered Psychotherapist with a Master’s in Business Administration. With a background in Adult development and nearly 3000 hours of practice as an Integral Master Coach, he has worked with active soldiers, veterans and first responders experiencing complex post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD), traumatic brain and blast injury, sexual assault, anxiety, depression, grief, and burnout. His practice has expanded to include adolescent development and others with symptoms of complex and acute emotional trauma, such as disordered eating, breaks in relationships, chronic pain, and end-of-life concerns.

Christopher takes an integrative approach to mental health care, which involves working as a part of an extended care team to ensure the whole person is being cared for, enabling physical and social health, mental wellness, and human flourishing to unfold.

Working with Chris includes a physically active approach to developing mental wellness where he works with modalities such as Compassionate Inquiry, Art Therapy, and Somatic Experiencing. He partners with body-based practitioners such as physical trainers, Cranio Sacral, Rolfing, and other Structural Integration methods in the development of body centered awareness and mental strength training. In addition, he is in the early development stage of building Equine practices for his clients (working with horses) and counselling individuals who have self-administered psychedelics and require integration support.

Psychedelic Assisted Therapy for Cancer Care, Chronic Pain and other conditions.

Canadians in medical need do not have safe, legal, equitable or timely access to psychedelic therapies, such as Ibogaine, MDMA, or Psilocybin. This urgently needs to change.

In an early study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, psilocybin produced immediate, substantial, and sustained improvements in anxiety and depression and led to decreases in cancer-related demoralization and hopelessness, improved spiritual well-being and increased quality of life. MDMA has demonstrated benefits in the treatment of veterans with complex PTSD. With more than 80 active clinical trials underway in Canada, there is growing acceptance of the benefits of psychedelic-assisted therapy.

Due to the lack of legal access, many individuals are turning to underground treatment sources or seeking out-of-country care and finding themselves psychologically disoriented or worse. With the support of our CEO, Dugald Seely, Christopher will address this challenge with patient education on obtaining legal access to psychedelic therapies and specialized individual and group programs for post-psychedelic use integration.

What is Post Psychedelic Integration?

Integration synthesizes the mind and the body following the experience of non-ordinary states of consciousness produced by ingesting psychedelics. It explores and shares challenges and insights that arise during and after psychedelic experiences.

Any feelings, sensations, and ideas during your psychedelic experience can be meaningful for the healing process. However, a single psychedelic experience can also be the beginning of an unpredictable developmental process. Integration is about creating the space to “make meaning” of those feelings, sensations, and ideas so that they can inform daily functioning. In this way, integration therapy increases the potential for personal transformation that psychedelics offer.

What does Integration look like at The Centre for Health Innovation?

Post psychedelic Integration Therapy includes counselling and psychotherapy for understanding and integrating psychedelic experiences to support your healing and development journey.

Integration can take many forms, including:

• Education on the physical impact of psychedelics and the nutritional support available
• Setting intentions and goals for integrating the psychedelic experience
• Working in modalities like physical conditioning and bodywork, art therapy, somatic experiencing, compassionate inquiry, Jungian dream work, mindfulness, and harm reduction practices.

Because we do not supervise or condone the use of illegal substances at our centre, our integration sessions can offer guidance for self-guided preparation and integration ahead of a psychedelic experience or professional integration support for a past psychedelic experience.

Book an appointment with Chris.