Integrity as in “Really Sitting With It”
There’s a quiet honesty in the image of two mushrooms sitting at a small table, tea steaming between them. One asks, “Why don’t the humans use telepathy?” The other answers, “They have a lot to hide from each other. ” It’s whimsical on the surface, but uncomfortably precise underneath.
Integrity begins exactly where that discomfort lives.
For many who have opened their psyche through psychedelic experiences, there is a moment of irreversible seeing. Not a dramatic revelation, but a subtle rupture: the realization that the stories we’ve lived inside of—about ourselves, about others, about the world—were curated, defended, and selectively edited. Once seen, they cannot be unseen. There is no clean return to the blindness that once made life feel simpler, safer.
Integrity, then, is not about moral purity or perfection. It’s about really sitting with what has been revealed—even when it contradicts how we want to be perceived. Psychedelics have a way of dissolving the partitions between what we know, what we feel, and what we hide. They don’t invent the truth; they remove the insulation around it.
After that opening, life quietly asks more of us, as humans, as helpers, as therapists.
We begin to notice how often language is used not to communicate, but to obscure. How politeness can become a shield. How “I’m fine” is rarely true. If humans were truly telepathic, hiding would be difficult. Power dynamics, intentions, and incongruence would be immediately felt and it can be through each other's nervous systems. When sitting in therapy, it invites us to practice as though this were already true — to show up with coherence, humility, and care by connecting our Self’s nervous systems to the other– is like being telepathic. And when nothing essential is being concealed, trust has room to grow.
Research into psychedelic-assisted therapies has contributed language that helps describe this process symbolically. Psychedelics are often reported to temporarily quiet rigid cognitive defences and habitual self-deception, allowing people to encounter themselves with greater honesty. This vulnerability is when the work of healing needs space, to be held without judgement and that is the role of the therapist. A therapist practicing with integrity will be in self-energy and have the willingness to see all parts clearly, which allows the client to mirror this in session; thereby, the healing of past wounds can be accomplished.
A therapist with integrity continually engages in self-reflection, supervision, and personal work. They are willing to notice bias, name uncertainty, and repair relational ruptures. They do not rely on a polished professional persona to protect them from discomfort. Instead, they cultivate an internal environment where difficult truths can be acknowledged without collapse or denial.
Ultimately, integrity in a therapist is not about disclosure, boundarylessness, or transparency for its own sake. It is about coherence. When a therapist can tolerate being internally visible to themselves, clients experience safety, consistency, and trust. In that way, the metaphor of telepathy reminds us of a simple truth: effective therapy depends less on what is said, and more on what no longer needs to be concealed.
Having completed over a thousand hours in learning and training about psychedelic-assisted therapy, my own internal system’s healing process from sitting in medicine, and how to be an ethical therapist by being aware of Self, allows me to live with integrity in all my parts and no longer hide.
Living fiercely with Self energy leading.
