For veterans pursuing psychedelic-assisted therapy, treatment is only one part of a much longer healing process. What happens afterward, when a veteran returns home to their family, relationships, routines, and everyday life, can be just as important to understand.
That perspective is particularly relevant during Suicide Prevention Awareness Month and VETS’ Sit With Someone campaign, which centers on a simple idea: veterans should not have to navigate healing alone. VETS’ work extends beyond access to treatment to include preparation, integration, peer support, family support, advocacy, and community, recognizing that different forms of support can matter at different points along the way.
As VETS Programs Director, Dr. Lori Camper has supported hundreds of veterans moving through this process. In this conversation, she reflects on what integration actually means, the complicated reality of returning home, the importance of community, and what she has learned from watching healing continue well beyond treatment.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Q: Is integration the same as talk therapy?
Lori: No, Talk therapy can certainly be part of somebody’s integration, but they are not the same thing.
At VETS, integration involves coaching. The coaching component helps one process their psychedelic experience. That does not necessarily mean to make sense of the experience. Coaches help grant recipients explore insights, work through revelations, look at patterns that may have become visible, and turn these into meaningful change.
Therapy and integration are not exclusive and can work well alongside each other. Integration focuses on the psychedelic treatment and how the experience can help one make the changes they planned to make in their lives. Therapy is still an important part of their ongoing healing, and many people continue working with their regular therapist after psychedelic-assisted therapy. That ongoing relationship can be an important part of their healing.
I think that distinction is important because integration is really about processing this particular experience and understanding how it fits into the rest of your life. Therapy may be part of that, but integration itself is not simply another name for talk therapy.
Q: What can the return home look like for veterans and their families?
Lori: That can be challenging, especially when there has been a lot of conflict in the family. The person returning from treatment may feel very different, but that does not mean the rest of the family has experienced change.
The veteran may return home feeling like a new person, while the spouse is still carrying the anger, resentment, or hurt from everything that happened before treatment. The argument they had a week before he left may still be sitting with her. Even when things at home are wonderful post-treatment, a spouse may be thinking, “How long is this going to last?” That’s understandable. Trust may take time to rebuild.
That is why it can be so important for spouses, partners, and family members to understand the integration process. They cannot do the veteran’s integration work for them, but they can support the healthy lifestyle changes the veteran is trying to make. The family may need to make changes too.
If alcohol was a problem, for example, and five o’clock was always cocktail hour, you have to find something else to do at five o’clock. Everything you give up has to be replaced with something. Maybe at five o’clock you go to the gym, take a walk, eat dinner, do something as a family, and go to bed. The specific activity matters less than creating a new pattern. The point is that you have to be willing to make those changes.
If you return to the same environment, the same routines, the same triggers, and expect that you will not return to the same behaviors, you are usually wrong. Lasting change usually requires changes in daily life.
The veteran may be coming home with a very different perspective, but the people around them have their own experiences too. They may need time, consistency, reassurance, and healing of their own.
Everybody does not automatically arrive in the same place at the same time. Understanding that - and giving each other some grace as the family adjusts - is an important part of integration.
Q: After supporting hundreds and hundreds of veterans through this treatment, what have you learned? Is there anything that continues to surprise you?
Lori: It was not necessarily a surprise, but it becomes more apparent to me all the time how important the brotherhood is.
These guys miss the camaraderie they had in service. They miss being part of a team and having that sense of connection with people who understand them. It is not true for every single person, but for a lot of veterans, finding that kind of community again is incredibly important. I’ve seen how much it means to them to reconnect with other veterans and feel like they belong somewhere again.
I have also learned that you cannot judge the experience too quickly.
The absence of visions does not mean it did not work. Just because something does not make sense initially does not mean it was not important. Sometimes an experience can feel completely bizarre or meaningless at first, and then it unfolds over days, weeks, or months.
A grant recipient may be a month out and suddenly have an “aha” moment and think, “Now I understand what that meant.” Something may happen in life, or they suddenly see an old situation differently, and a piece of the experience makes sense. And there may be other parts they never completely understand. That’s okay too.
Some people put pressure on themselves to come home knowing what every part of the experience meant and how it changed them. That’s not always how it works. Sometimes you have to give the experience time to unfold. Instead of immediately deciding whether the treatment “worked,” pay attention to what is actually changing. How are you responding differently? What are you noticing about yourself? What feels different in your relationships or your daily life?
Q: What do you usually tell veterans about the first days and weeks after treatment?
Lori: I always recommend that they not have anything too heavy planned for the week after treatment. If possible, take some time off work and try to avoid walking back into stressful situations. Sometimes I encourage people to stay an extra day or two before going home, especially if home is chaotic. They need to give themselves some grace and some time to process.
One thing people are not always prepared for is how exhausted they may feel afterward. They may be physically, mentally, and emotionally tired for a week or two. A lot happens during treatment, on all of those levels, and sometimes your body and mind simply need to recover and catch up.
I also remind them that when they leave treatment, they are not finished. They are really just beginning. The experience itself may be powerful, but integration is where you begin figuring out what you are going to do with the experience and how it is going to chang your life.
A big part of that is protecting your peace. Pay attention to who you surround yourself with, what you surround yourself with, and what you are putting into your mind and your body. Be thoughtful regarding the environments and routines you are returning to.
That does not mean you can avoid real life or eliminate every source of stress. You can’t. But you can be intentional about what you walk back into while you are processing the experience, understanding what may have changed, and deciding what you want to carry forward.
Q: If you could tell every veteran one thing before they begin, what would it be?
Lori: Trust the process. Lean in and let go.
You can prepare yourself, educate yourself, and go into treatment with clear intentions, and I absolutely encourage all of those things. But at some point, you have to let go of trying to control what the experience is going to look like.
That is something I try to help people understand from the beginning. Everybody’s experience is different. Some people come out of treatment and immediately feel a significant shift. For others, the changes may be much quieter and take days, weeks, even months to recognize.
Don’t decide ahead of time what is supposed to happen or compare your experience to someone else’s.You may have visions; you may not. You may get distinct answers to questions you had, or you may come away with something completely different. Pay attention to what you are given or shown. Give yourself time. Stay open and curious about what begins to change in your life afterward.
The treatment itself is not the finish line. What you do with the experience after you return home is where the work - and the opportunity for lasting change - really begins.
The Circle of Healing
One of the clearest lessons in Lori’s experience is that healing continues in relationship with the world a veteran returns to. The spouse who is adjusting alongside them, the therapist who continues working with them, the other veterans who restore a sense of camaraderie, and the community that remains present afterward can all occupy different places within that larger process.
That understanding is central to Sit With Someone. Throughout September, VETS is highlighting the circle around healing and the many ways people can show up for veterans, from spouses and coaches to fellow veterans, friends, donors, and community members.
There is no single person who can do another person’s healing for them, just as there is no single form of support that meets every need. What we can do is help make sure veterans do not have to navigate that work without people around them.