Psychedelic Integration Therapy in Alberta: Understanding the Legal Landscape and How Integration Can Support You

Written By jourdan tymkow
Psychedelic Integration Therapy in Alberta: Understanding the Legal Landscape and How Integration Can Support You

Psychedelic therapy is an emerging frontier in mental health, offering new possibilities for healing trauma, addressing depression, and deepening personal growth. Here in Alberta, we’re at the forefront of this conversation, as the first province to regulate psychedelic-assisted therapy. As a Registered Provisional Psychologist in Edmonton, I offer integration therapy: a relational, grounded space to help you process and weave the insights from these profound experiences into your everyday life.

This comprehensive guide explores Alberta’s legal framework for psychedelic therapy, how integration therapy fits within this landscape, and the ways I can support you.

The Legal Landscape: Alberta’s Approach to Psychedelic Therapy

In January 2023, Alberta became the first province in Canada to regulate psychedelic-assisted therapy through the Mental Health Services Protection Act and the Psychedelic Drug Treatment Service Provider Licensing regulations. These rules clarify who can offer psychedelic-assisted therapy and under what conditions:

  • Licensed Facilities: Psychedelic-assisted therapy must take place in approved hospitals, accredited medical facilities, or clinics licensed under Alberta’s guidelines.

  • Medical Oversight: A psychiatrist or physician (or a physician consulting with a psychiatrist) must supervise any administration of psychedelic medicine.

  • Scope of Practice: Only certain medical professionals can prescribe and administer psychedelic medicines. Psychologists, including myself, do not have the authority to provide, prescribe, or supervise the use of these substances.

This regulatory framework acknowledges both the potential and the risks of psychedelic medicine. It seeks to ensure these treatments are offered within safe, collaborative, and medically supervised environments.

Legal Access to Psychedelics in Alberta

Ketamine

Unlike other psychedelic medicines, ketamine is legally available in Alberta for mental health treatment. Ketamine has long been used as an anesthetic, but in recent years, it has gained recognition for its effectiveness in treating treatment-resistant depression, PTSD, and chronic pain—particularly when paired with psychotherapy.

Here’s what you should know:

  • Ketamine can be prescribed by a psychiatrist or a physician in consultation with a psychiatrist in Alberta.

  • It must be administered in a licensed medical facility, following specific safety protocols outlined in Alberta’s Mental Health Services Protection Regulation.

  • Ketamine therapy is currently the only legal psychedelic-assisted therapy broadly available in Canada, without the need for a Special Access Program application.

If you’re considering ketamine therapy, it’s essential to speak directly with a licensed medical provider who can assess your medical history and determine if this treatment is appropriate.

As a psychologist, my role is not to recommend, supervise, or provide ketamine. Instead, I offer integration therapy for individuals who have already undergone ketamine therapy under medical supervision and are seeking support in making sense of what arose and integrating those experiences into their lives.

The Role of the Special Access Program (SAP)

In Canada, psychedelics remain controlled substances. However, Health Canada’s Special Access Program (SAP) provides a legal pathway for patients to access certain psychedelic medicines under specific circumstances:

  • When other treatments have failed: A physician or psychiatrist can apply for SAP access on your behalf if conventional therapies have not been effective.

  • Case-by-case approval: Health Canada reviews each application individually to determine whether the treatment is warranted.

  • Medical supervision: Any psychedelic medicine accessed through SAP is administered under a physician’s care, within a clinical setting that meets Alberta’s licensing requirements.

The SAP reflects a careful balance: acknowledging the therapeutic potential of psychedelics while ensuring these treatments are provided with rigorous oversight.  In addition to my therapeutic services, I have training and experience in collaborating with physicians on writing the SAP application that then receives final approval by your physician if this is a pathway that interests you and you are approved for by your medical provider. 

Ceremonial and International Contexts

Beyond Alberta’s clinical landscape, some people choose to engage in psychedelic experiences in ceremonial contexts — such as ayahuasca ceremonies or other plant medicine rituals — either internationally or in spiritual communities. These experiences often take place outside of the Canadian medical system and legal framework.

While these settings can be deeply meaningful, it’s important to note that in Canada, the use of psychedelics outside of SAP-approved or licensed medical settings remains illegal.

What Is Psychedelic Integration Therapy?

Integration therapy is a collaborative and meaning-making process that happens after a psychedelic experience. It is not about the journey itself—it’s about what comes after. Integration is the bridge between insight and embodiment. Between what happened in the altered state and how it affects your real life.

In integration therapy, we explore how to make sense of the emotional, spiritual, and psychological content that arose. These experiences often crack something open—memories, grief, clarity, awe, fear. The work of integration is not to “fix” or “interpret,” but to sit beside these threads and gently help them find their place in the story of your life.

The Benefits of Integration Therapy

The psychedelic journey might last hours—but the impact can echo for months or years. Integration therapy helps you:

Create Meaning

Rather than leaving an experience as a fleeting moment, therapy helps you explore what it meant for you—on your own terms. This includes reflecting on themes, symbols, emotions, and personal insights.

Ground Insights into Daily Life

It’s one thing to feel clarity or vision during a journey—it’s another to act on it. Integration helps you bridge the gap between insight and everyday change. Together, we’ll explore what’s calling for attention, what wants to shift, and how to sustain your growth over time.

Navigate Emotional Intensity

Sometimes, psychedelics open old wounds or unearth deep grief. In integration, we make space for those feelings to be held with compassion and context. This may involve parts work, somatic practices, or exploring where past and present meet.

Reinforce Safety and Nervous System Regulation

Integration is also about stabilizing. Through somatic therapy and trauma-informed tools, we support your nervous system so that you can digest and metabolize what happened—without being overwhelmed.

Prevent Re-traumatization or Bypass

When psychedelic experiences are not adequately integrated, people may experience confusion, dissociation, or even psychological distress. Integration provides a structured, grounded container so the experience can support healing rather than destabilization.

What Integration Therapy Looks Like

Each integration journey is unique, but here are some ways we might work together:

  • Reflecting on the Experience: We unpack the journey, mapping what was felt, seen, or realized and exploring what holds meaning.

  • Working with Imagery and Parts: Psychedelic states often surface internal voices, archetypes, or imagery. Through inner dialogue and parts work, we bring these into awareness and relationship.

  • Emotional Processing: If big feelings came up—grief, rage, joy, fear—we give them space and voice.

  • Somatic Anchoring: We use body-based practices to reconnect with the present, integrating the wisdom of the body as part of the healing process.

  • Ongoing Tools and Integration Planning: We co-create practices for maintaining connection to your insights—whether that’s journaling, nervous system care, or adjusting your environment and relationships.

My Role as a Psychedelic Integration Therapist

I come to this work with a deep respect for the mystery and power of these experiences. I see integration as a sacred unfolding—where insight meets embodiment, and healing becomes a lived reality. My approach is rooted in somatic therapy, parts work, trauma-informed care, and depth psychology. I see integration as a sacred process — a place where you can honor what emerged and begin to embody it in your life. You can read more about my experience and training in psychedelic integration therapy here. 

In my practice, you can expect:

  • A warm, non-judgmental space where every part of your experience is welcome.

  •  A personalized approach that honors your cultural, spiritual, and psychological context.

  •  Somatic therapy, to support body-based integration.

  •  Trauma-informed care, to create safety and attunement.

  • Depth psychology, to honor symbolic, archetypal, and unconscious material.
    Lived experience and professional training

  • Someone who has walked this terrain too — professionally and personally — and who trusts your innate capacity for healing.

As a Registered Provisional Psychologist in Alberta, I do not provide or supervise psychedelic therapy. My role is distinct: I support clients after their journeys—helping them explore what happened, understand what it means, and carry it forward. In line with the College of Alberta Psychologists’ Practice Guideline on Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy, what I do not do:

  • I do not provide, prescribe, recommend, or supervise the use of any psychedelic substances. 

  • I do not offer preparation therapy or active support during psychedelic experiences. 

  • My services focus solely on the psychological and emotional aspects of integrating experiences that have already occurred. 

  • All medical decisions — including whether psychedelics are appropriate — must be handled by licensed physicians or psychiatrists.

These boundaries ensure that our work together is safe, ethical, and rooted in clear professional scope.

Is Integration Therapy Right for You?

Integration therapy is a place to hold and process what emerged with a sense of safety, compassion, curiosity, and to weave it into your life in a way that feels authentic and empowering.

You might benefit from integration therapy if:

  • You’ve had a psychedelic experience that feels unresolved or overwhelming.

  • You’re noticing emotional or relational shifts you want to explore more deeply.

  • You’re seeking to honor and ground the spiritual or personal growth that emerged.

  • You’re feeling lost, disoriented, or changed—and need space to make sense of it.

  • You want to translate these experiences into real-life changes and growth.

You don’t need to have had a “bad trip” to benefit. Sometimes the most beautiful experiences are the hardest to integrate—because they ask us to change. Integration is the space to explore that change with care.

Ready to Begin Your Integration Journey?

Whether you’re in the glowing aftermath of a powerful insight or feeling untethered from a recent journey, you don’t have to walk this path alone. As a psychedelic integration therapist in Edmonton, I’m here to help you explore what you’ve touched—and bring it home to your life with care, courage, and compassion.

Book a session or reach out to ask questions — let’s create a space where your experience is honored, your voice is heard, and your healing can deepen.

References

jourdan tymkow https://jourdantymkow.com
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