Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy

Understanding Ketamine-Assisted Therapy

Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) is a holistic approach to therapy that uses ketamine’s pain-relieving properties to treat symptoms and help individuals work through mental and/or emotional challenges.

The trancelike states that ketamine can produce relax the walls that often come up when trying to address painful emotions. With these walls down, patients can access those issues in a controlled environment without fighting against the mind’s natural defenses.

Many have found that the experience of KAP led to therapeutic breakthroughs at an exponentially faster rate than traditional talk therapy. They’ve uncovered repressed memories, faced previously unbearable emotions, and even found the purpose they have been searching for.

Although our prescribers determine eligibility and customize the treatment plan, anyone who is treatment resistant, or those who inadequately respond to or find relief in conventional medication and therapy, can qualify.

Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic that decreases sensitivity to pain and, depending on the dosage and means of administration, can create hypnotic, dreamlike, or fully dissociative trance states.
It distorts perceptions of sight and sounds, and it can make the user feel detached from their pain and environment. It can induce a state of sedation, or a feeling of calm and relaxation; immobility; and amnesia, or no memory of events while under its influence.
While its means of administration vary between a nasal spray or injections, the providers our office works with supplies it in the form of a lozenge or a dissolvable tab. (See reference photos below).
Before the first session, you will have a thorough evaluation and discussion with both the provider and therapist to ensure you’re knowledgable of the drug, its effects, your long-term goal with the use of the drug, what your session will look like, and what you will discuss during the session. This discussion includes an agreement to a safety protocol, which consents to any potential call to emergency services. You will also take note of your blood pressure and heart rate before and after administration.
You will usually lie down in a quiet room and take the prescribed dosage. The therapist might put on soft music or have you wear an eye mask to keep the environment as relaxed as possible.
After approximately 10 minutes, you will start to feel its effects. For the next 45 minutes or so, with the therapist monitoring, you will explore whatever arises.
After the experience, you and the therapist will discuss what came up. You can continue to work through your mental health challenges in the weeks following, ketamine included or not.
Patients tend to report few side effects from KAP, aside from those typically expected from psychedelic substances (dizziness, nausea, vomiting, and increased heart rate being the most common).
There are three main states that occur through the use of ketamine. Depending on your dosage, you will enter a state of:
1. Relaxation
2. Meditation
3. Dissociation
Your therapist and provider will illustrate the exact overview of ketamine and its effects before you sign your Informed Consent.
After the death of actor Matthew Perry, medical professionals and pharmacologists have reexamined ketamine’s reputation. While the actor’s death wasn’t shown to be directly connected to his therapy, it called into question the use of the non-FDA-approved drug.
Ketamine is a Schedule III controlled substance. It is seen as a hallucinogen and anesthetic and therefore does not produce a chemical dependence. However, given its ability to produce dissociative sensations and hallucinations, ketamine, as with other drugs of abuse, has the potential of increasing its risk of recreational misuse in those who “crave” the sensations associated with the drug.
Due to its reputation and hallucinogenic effects, this drug is administered in a highly controlled and supervised setting. Pairing ketamine with psychotherapy involving a therapist specially trained in its use significantly lowers the risk of misuse. Home dosing sessions with the therapist on Zoom works just as well, especially for those with social anxiety or autism spectrum disorder.
While KAP is a safe therapy, therapists are trained extensively in any type of potential medical or psychological emergencies that may arise.
Ketamine is both safe and beneficial to adults and children.