Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapy (Ketamine):

"Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathic witness."
Peter Levine

What is Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy?
Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) is a unique therapeutic method used to address a variety of mental and behavioral health conditions, including: depression, posttraumatic stress, chronic pain, obsessive-compulsive disorders, and addiction. It involves the use of ketamine to enhance and deepen the therapeutic process, and the use of psychotherapy and other integrative forms of treatment to amplify and prolong the curative effects of ketamine.

In low doses, ketamine can serve as a supportive adjunct to psychotherapy as it provides an opportunity for the temporary softening of the psychological defense mechanisms, which allows for a deeper self-reflection and psychotherapeutic processing.

In moderate doses, ketamine has psychedelic effects, which have been shown to facilitate profound transpersonal experiences. These types of experiences can help people in a variety of ways, offering important clarity and insight into one's own struggle, adding a spiritual dimension to ongoing therapeutic work, and facilitating a sense of meaning and interconnectedness.

What to expect:

We will start with a formal intake evaluation in which you describe your symptoms, define the issues of concerns you want to address and determine whether KAP might be of benefit to you. If so, you will meet with one of our therapists for a few preparatory sessions before meeting with our prescribing physician for an initial consultation and our psychiatrist for a psychiatric assessment. If you qualify for our program after the intake, you will continue to work with your therapist to prepare for you KAP session. There will be a minimum of three preparatory sessions before your first KAP session. In some cases, more than three sessions may be essential to your treatment. In most cases a series of ketamine infusions will be given to provide immediate relief of symptoms and to allow your system to become accustomed to the medicine.
Ketamine infusion sessions typically last between 2 to 3 hours.
Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy sessions typically last between 1 to 2 hours.
Our staff will be with you or readily available to you throughout the ketamine session. The routes of administration vary depending on the type of session. The effects of the medicine begin to appear after about 15-20 minutes, peak for about 40 minutes, and dissipate over the following 1-2 hours. Positive impacts on mood have been shown to last over the following days and sometimes weeks.
After your first KAP session, you will have at least 2 integration sessions in which we will help you integrate your experience during the ketamine session, discuss how you responded to the medicine, and determine an individualized course of treatment moving forward. We recommend a commitment to at least 3 ketamine sessions, as this medicine tends to have a cumulative effect and is most beneficial after multiple treatments. Please contact us directly for more detailed information and to answer any questions you might have.
Some medical and psychiatric conditions need to be treated before you can safely work with ketamine. These conditions include, but are not limited to: hallucinations, untreated mania, cardiovascular disease, uncontrolled hyperthyroidism, increased intracranial pressure, cystitis, or evidence or liver disease.

Our therapeutic approach has been developed in accordance with the Psychedelic Assisted Therapy model standards of the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and in consideration of the Ketamine Assisted Therapy model of Sage Institute.