“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.”
- Joseph Campbell
Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy is a powerful practice and synergistic to your healing journey.
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Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) is a psychotherapeutic intervention in which Ketamine is provided in conjunction with psychotherapy. While Ketamine on its own has anti-depressive effects, KAP sessions are designed to maximize the window of neuroplasticity to create meaningful change. Each session is about 3 hours long, and it is structured, supportive, and intentional. KAP is emerging as an effective treatment for depression, anxiety, complex trauma, and addiction. Currently, ketamine is the only legal psychedelic and has been used off-label for mental health conditions for over 20 years. KAP’s effectiveness derives mainly from psychological effects facilitated by a non-ordinary state of consciousness within a trusting therapeutic container. Conditions indicated for KAP are treatment resistant depression, complex trauma, complicated grief, ruminative passive suicidality, alcoholism, and overall feelings of stuckness. Ketamine treatment for mental health is endorsed by National Institute of Health and the American Psychiatric Association.
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Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic. Ketamine was widely used during the Vietnam War due to its rapid onset and portability, making it easier to remove a wounded soldier off a field. Currently it is still used widely used in hospitals for fragile patients and children due to its safety record. It works by blocking the brain’s NMDA receptors as well as by stimulating AMPA receptors, which are thought to help form new synaptic connections and boost neural circuits that regulate stress and mood. Ketamine has also been shown to enhance overall neuroplasticity for lasting symptom improvement.
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Step 1: Discovery call (30min)
Click “schedule consultation” button at bottom of page.
Phone call
Step 2: Initial consultation (60min)
Explore needs. Determine if KAP is right for you.
In-person or virtual
Step 3: Preparation session (45min)
Three or more Prep sessions to ensure safety. Develop therapeutic relationship. Establish safety. Explore intentions.
In-person or virtual
Step 4: Referral to Journey Clinical
Journey Clinical will perform a virtual medical assessment. You will be prescribed medicine for 2-3 KAP treatments. Your medication will be sent to your home.
Virtual only
Step 5: 1st KAP session (3hrs)
In-office only to ensure safety. Commitment of 2 KAP sessions minimum. If you choose to continue, a follow-up with Journey Clinical will be scheduled and a full protocol of 6-7 KAP sessions will be prescribed.
In-person only
Step 6: Integration session (45min)
Integration sessions are scheduled within 7 days after each KAP session.
In-person or virtual
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Preparation sessions are a critical part of the process. It is an opportunity to understand your concerns, needs, and expectations, and set your intentions for the medicine journey. It is also an opportunity for the therapist and client to establish a therapeutic alliance and safety.
Integrations sessions are the sessions between Ketamine sessions. Integration is the process of meaning making. This is an opportunity to examine the material that arose in the Ketamine sessions. Integration is equally as important as the dosing session. Integration is the process of moving towards wholeness. Integration sessions are where one can process what was seen, heard, felt, and how to weave the lessons from the non-ordinary state of consciousness into daily existence. It is during Integration sessions that one can make meaningful connections, maximize the benefits of the experience by bringing the experience to the broader scope of one’s life.
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Most patients find the medicine pleasant and lasts for approximately 45 minutes. These effects can make you feel “far from” your body, and facilitate shifts in perception that can often feel expansive in nature. Your motor and verbal abilities will be reduced, so you’ll be lying down in a comfortable position during the experience. Once these effects have subsided, we’ll spend the remainder of our appointment giving you space to process and discuss your experience. While it may feel hard to articulate what happened during the experience, patients feel like the insights gained are none-the-less clear. Studies have shown that the benefits to mood and neurological growth can last up to two weeks after the session.
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Bahji A, Zarate CA, Vazquez GH. Efficacy and safety of racemic ketamine and esketamine for depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Expert Opin Drug Saf. 2022 Jun;21(6):853-866. doi: 10.1080/14740338.2022.2047928. Epub 2022 Mar 9. PMID: 35231204.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35231204/
Dore J, Turnipseed B, Dwyer S, Turnipseed A, Andries J, Ascani G, Monnette C, Huidekoper A, Strauss N, Wolfson P. Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP): Patient Demographics, Clinical Data and Outcomes in Three Large Practices Administering Ketamine with Psychotherapy. J Psychoactive Drugs. 2019 Apr-Jun;51(2):189-198. doi: 10.1080/02791072.2019.1587556. Epub 2019 Mar 27. PMID: 30917760.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30917760/
Kohtala, S. (2020). Ketamine—50 years in use: from anesthesia to rapid antidepressant effects and neurobiological mechanisms. Pharmacological Reports, 73(2), 323-345. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43440-021-00232-4
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7994242/
Yavi, M., Lee, H., Henter, I.D. et al. Ketamine treatment for depression: a review. Discov Ment Health 2, 9 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44192-022-00012-3
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s44192-022-00012-3#citeas
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