Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) is the combination of ketamine with psychotherapy for the treatment of many different mental health concerns like PTSD, depression, and major life changes. Ketamine is a well-researched, legal, safe, synthetic medication prescribed by a doctor. KAP synergizes ketamine and psychotherapy for a more potent healing experience.

Ketamine:
-Enhances neuroplasticity (it makes your brain more flexible)
-Provides immediate anti-depressant effects
-Delivers access to insights that are otherwise outside of everyday consciousness
(Dow & Levy, 2023).

KAP combines the evidence-based and rapid benefits to the brain from ketamine
with the structure, support, accountability, and healing of psychotherapy.

Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy has shown great results for mental health issues and I offer it to clients in my Folsom, CA office.

How does Ketamine work?

Ketamine is not a true psychedelic. It was developed in the 1960s as a battlefield anesthetic, and immediately recognized for its safety. Unlike other anesthetics, ketamine does not suppress respiratory drive or blood pressure (Dow & Levy, 2023).

Though ketamine has been approved by the FDA since the 1970s as a dissociative anesthetic, the research into ketamine’s mental health potential began in earnest in the early 2000s. Importantly, Yale researchers showed its efficacy as a rapidly-acting anti-depressant (Berman et al., 2000). Subsequently, these results were replicated by the National Institute for Mental Health (Zarate et al., 2006).

Brain imaging shows that ketamine supports brain health by returning dendrites to pre-stress levels (Moda-Sava, et al., 2019). Dendrites are structures on brain cells that help them communicate with each other. It also creates a window of increased neuroplasticity (mental flexibility) and optimism, during which time new habits and ways of being are easier to enact and much more likely to take root. This is where Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy comes in.

How does Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy work?

I offer Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy in Folsom, CA for clients who want the neurological benefits of ketamine within the container of a supportive and integrative therapy relationship.

First, if we determine that you are a suitable candidate for KAP, I refer you to the medical team at my partner organization, Journey Clinical. Next, the Journey Clinical psychiatric team assesses you for suitability and eligibility. If the prescriber determines you are a good candidate for KAP, they prescribe you your first two doses of ketamine.

The psychotherapy of KAP takes place over three types of sessions:

Preparation Session(s)

We meet in my Folsom office to talk goals and logistics, which includes intention setting for your work during and after ketamine administration. Together we clarify your goals for this work so that we can track our progress. We discuss your hopes, worries, and questions about the dosing session. Additionally, we give special care to your mindset and openness for the upcoming experience.

Dosing Session

This is the day that you self-administer your ketamine lozenges according to the prescriber’s instructions at my Folsom office. By this point, you are familiar with what to expect this day and I help you find the mindset you practiced for this experience. Unlike ketamine administration in medical or strictly psychiatric clinics, we work together to make this a comfortable, supportive experience and I stay with you the entire time.

Most people experience the acute effects of the ketamine and are in a deeply internal state for about 50 minutes. Then, as you re-orient to ordinary consciousness, you have the opportunity to share your experience with me and we track what feels especially important for our integration work. Overall, we expect this session to last 2-3 hours. For safety reasons, you have arranged for someone else to drive you home that day.

Integration Session(s)

Within 1-3 days of your dosing session, we meet again to begin integration of your ketamine experience. It is particularly important for us to meet this soon to maximize the benefits of neuroplasticity, insight, clarity, and openness to change that occur immediately after ketamine treatment.

At this time, we connect your dosing experience to your goals and identify new behaviors you feel ready to try outside of therapy. Together, we work with the material that emerged and use techniques like Brainspotting and body-centered psychotherapy to heal and integrate what you experienced. It is essential for us to have at least one therapy session for integration before you have another dosing session.

How Long does Ketamine Therapy last?

Current practice shows that at least 6-8 dosing sessions over a few months is ideal for treatment. In fact, ketamine therapy has a durability multiplier effect and sessions in close succession are shown to magnify treatment benefits.

Clients who continue the use of KAP after our first two dosing sessions, will meet again with the psychiatric team to review therapeutic gains, accuracy of initial dosing, and receive a follow-up prescription for the next six doses.

Ketamine Assisted Therapy in Folsom, CA

If you are located near Folsom, CA and curious about whether Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy may be a good fit for you, please contact me to schedule a short phone call or an intake appointment. You may find more information about me, my work, and services offered, as well as another article I’ve written about who can benefit from Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy, throughout my website .

References

Berman, R.M., Cappiello, A., Anand, A., Oren, D. A., Heninger, G. R., Charney, D. S., & Krystal, J.H. (2000). Antidepressant effects of ketamine in depressed patients. Biological Psychiatry, 47(4), 351-354. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0006-3223(99)00230-9

Dow, M. & Levy, R. (2023). The ketamine breakthrough (1st ed.). Hay House, Inc.

Moda-Sava, R. N., Murdock, M.H., Parekh, P.K., Fetcho, R.N., Huang, B.S., Huynh, T.N., Witztum, J., Shaver, D.C., Rosenthal, D.L., Alway, E.J., Lopez, K., Meng, Y., Nellissen, L., Grosenick, L., Milner, T.A., Deisseroth, K., Bito, H., Kasai, H., & Liston, C. (2019). Sustained rescue of prefrontal circuit dysfunction by antidepressant-induced spine formation. Science, 364(6436). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aat8078

Zarate, C. A., Singh, J. B., Carlson, P. J., Brutsche, N. E., Ameli, R., Luckenbaugh, D. A., Charney, D. S., Manji, H. K. (2006). A randomized trial of an N-methyl-D-aspartate antagonist in treatmentresistant major depression. Archives of General Psychiatry 63(8), 856-864. https://doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.63.8.856