Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)

Get Unstuck

Have you been feeling stuck for a long time, no matter what you try? Some mental health challenges just don’t respond easily to treatment. Many people go from specialist to specialist without getting the relief they need. This is especially the case with conditions that stem from unresolved trauma. Because of how trauma affects the brain, trauma survivors often get stuck in rigid patterns of thinking that are too powerful for standard talk therapy to treat.

If you’re struggling with anxiety, depression, or PTSD, and your symptoms aren’t responding well to therapy or medication, then I encourage you to try Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) with me. KAP was actually designed to help with treatment-resistant mental health challenges. As I’ll detail below, this is because ketamine has a way of softening rigid ways of thinking, allowing new understandings of yourself and the world to emerge. For this reason, I often refer to ketamine as a “spirit molecule,” since it has a transcendent quality that connects you to something bigger than yourself or your day-to-day grind. It also softens the protective barriers that trauma creates, allowing you to gently access the vulnerable places within you that need new awareness the most.

Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP): The New Frontier in Psychotherapy

The therapeutic landscape is evolving, embracing new and innovative approaches that intertwine with age-old wisdom. Among these is the emergent field of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, a realm where science and soulful healing converge. In this spirit, I am privileged to offer Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) in collaboration with Journey Clinical, a distinguished medical organization. This partnership harnesses the profound potential of ketamine within a therapeutic setting, providing a path to deep healing for those who may have found traditional methods less effective.

How Does Ketamine Help?

Initially designed to treat treatment-resistant depression and PTSD, later research has found that ketamine, when used in an intentional therapeutic space, can help with a number of emotional and spiritual health issues, including burnout, anxiety, existential purpose, exploration of identity, and help with making lifestyle changes (1).

Ketamine is a legal and safe medicine, commonly used in hospital settings, that belongs to a class of medicines called dissociative anesthetics. Ketamine’s dissociative quality helps you experience yourself as separate from the problems you may normally identify with. For instance, if you suffer from depression, ketamine can help you feel like depression is less of your whole identity and more of an aspect of yourself that you can relate to with curiosity and compassion. By providing an adaptive form of emotional detachment from depression, you gain a clearer sense of who you are as distinct from your challenges. This, in turn, fosters a greater connection to your true, Higher Self, from which you can care for the part of you that feels depressed.

The Science of Ketamine

There are several mechanisms of action on how ketamine supports mental and spiritual health. For one, research shows that Ketamine’s antidepressant effects are related to increases in Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) levels in the brain (2). Secondly, Ketamine also has an anti-inflammatory effect on the brain, which is important since brain-inflammation is linked to mental health conditions (3). Thirdly, ketamine is known to enhance neuroplasticity, which promotes new social-emotional learning (4).

KAP Treatment Process

My role as your therapist is to guide you on your psychotherapeutic journey while the medical team at Journey Clinical oversees the medical aspects of your treatment. This comprehensive care includes assessing eligibility, crafting a personalized treatment strategy, prescribing the right dosage of medicine, and diligently monitoring outcomes.

Outlined below are the five stages of this holistic healing journey:

1. Initial Consultation

Your journey will begin with a comprehensive medical evaluation by Journey Clinical’s clinicians, focusing on your psychiatric and medical history, and assessing your suitability for KAP.

2. Preparation Sessions

We will meet for a minimum of 12 sessions to build rapport, review your mental health history and current symptoms, and discuss goals and intentions for our work together. We will leave plenty of time to address any hesitations or concerns about the process or outcome of healing. With respect to that, we will discuss the kind of mindset to bring to the experience, and how to best curate your physical environment for a comfortable journey.

As we get into the clinical material, we will engage in “parts-mapping,” a process of getting to know the parts of yourself seeking to heal. We will then use EMDR to create an inner “Resource Team” that comprises the healthiest parts of yourself – parts that are nurturing, protective, and wise — which will bring healing to the wounded parts we’ve mapped out. Lastly, we will explore somatic tools that relax your nervous system. This way, you’ll have a comprehensive tool kit with which to engage in KAP successfully.

3. KAP Dosing Session & Integration

These telehealth sessions range from two-and-a-half to three hours long, and involve self-administering the ketamine lozenge in your home environment under my supportive presence.

During the first thirty minutes or so, we will review your intentions for the journey and/or the EMDR protocol, if that’s what we had pre-planned.

Once you have taken the medicine, you will wear an eye-mask while listening to a curated playlist of soothing music to support your inward journey. I will be with you the whole time to help you facilitate your process of connecting with your parts, resourcing your Higher Self, and/or offering support for any difficult material if it should arise. If we have an EMDR protocol prepared, I will guide you through the steps of trauma processing and resolution.

Once the medicine has worn off, you and I will enter the integration phase of reflection. This is where the rubber meets the road – where we make sense of your journey, and reflect on how to incorporate new insights and perspectives into your daily life. We will develop an integration action plan, which may include things like journaling, spending time in nature, or other creative activities and mindfulness exercises that reinforce your insights.

4. Post-Journey Integration Session

Within a week of your dosing session, we will meet again to further reflect on and unpack the insights that emerged during your journey. We will review how those small experiments and mindfulness practices in your integration-action plan went for you – what you noticed and learned. This post-journey integration is designed to help you stay accountable to the changes you want to make in your life. It can also inform future intention-setting for subsequent medicinal journeys.

5. Follow-up Medical Evaluation

After you have had 2 KAP sessions, you will meet with the Journey Clinical Team again to assess your progress and adjust treatment as needed. Depending on the evaluation, the Journey Clinical medical team may prescribe for another eight dosing sessions.

Experience the Mind-Expanding Power of Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy

My path toward becoming a KAP therapist comes from my own personal healing experience with psychedelics. The provision of a safe container to explore and heal different aspects of my life has been profoundly beneficial to me. I’ve experienced firsthand how ketamine can soften the rigidity of certain parts of ourselves that are scared and guarded against change. I’ve also witnessed how it can also unburden the parts of ourselves that hold negative beliefs stemming from traumatic experiences, allowing us to live unencumbered by the shadow of the past.

Over the years, I have been trained in Ketamine-Assisted therapy with the Polaris Insight Institute, Fluence, and Journey Clinical. Between my expertise and your dedication to the healing process, I’m confident that you can use the benefits of KAP to assist in your journey toward fulfillment. To learn more about my approach, I encourage you to get in touch with me.