Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)

What is Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy like?

The purpose of the sub-lingual ketamine lozenge sessions is to generate a non-ordinary (altered) state of consciousness that facilitates a profound transpersonal (transcendental, mystical, spiritual, religious) peak experiences. Robust anti-depressant, or other (PTSD, anxiety, etc.) benefit often occurs over time with repetition of administration of the lozenges.

You will be assigned a therapist who has received training in Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP). The therapist will meet with you for 1-3 sessions prior to administration of ketamine. This is to allow for rapport building and creating a safe space for you prior to experiencing ketamine treatment. The ketamine experience may prove to be auspicious in resolving your existential problems, accelerating your psycho-spiritual growth, and leading to a deep personal transformation and optimization of your lifestyle, consequently improving your quality of life. Such change is best facilitated within a structured supportive psychotherapeutic milieu in connection with a facilitator who understands your concerns, hopes, goals, and struggles.

After the total amount of KAP sessions, you will engage in integration sessions with your KAP therapist. Guidance and insights often arise in KAP sessions, regardless of circumstances (i.e. KAP trainings or individual KAP work); therefore, it is important to have psychotherapeutic support available for processing and for meaning-making in the days and weeks subsequent to your KAP experiences. The sub-lingual lozenge sessions with accompanying psychotherapy may well be your successful strategy with ketamine.

We typically ask new patients to commit to three sublingual ketamine sessions and then be reassessed to determine the next treatment steps which may include an additional three KAP sessions. This promotes familiarization with the molecule (ketamine) and its associated experiences and will amplify therapeutic benefits. Your KAP experiences will be unique to you and each of your sessions will be different. The number of sessions varies based on personal needs and treatment responses and each session evolves from your own being in relation to the ketamine molecule. Each journey will vary in intensity; while it is encouraged to form a general intention, you are also encouraged to hold onto intentions loosely and allow each session to unfold. When we hold on to our intentions or expectations too tightly, we tend to resist relaxing into what is unfolding. This resistance is the primary source of anxiety in this and other related journeys. A ketamine session can be light, dark, or both. There will be concepts, visions, encounters, and you may well deal with your own death, mortality, and immortality. Some journeys are enjoyable and filled with awe and some are difficult, but everyone grows from their experience.

How does Ketamine work?

The current, most probable, understanding of ketamine’s mode of action is as an NMDA antagonist working through the glutamate neurotransmitter system. It is classified as a dissociative anesthetic. This is a very different pathway than that of other psychiatric drugs such as the SSRls, SNRIS, lamotrigine, anti-psychotics, benzodiazepines, etc.

Ketamine is classified as dissociative anesthetic, dissociation meaning a sense of disconnection from one’s ordinary reality and usual self. At the dosage level administered to you, you will most likely experience analgesic, anxiolytic, antidepressant, and psychedelic effects. Ketamine also may bring about “transpersonal,” “mystical,” or “out-of-body” experiences that may also serve to facilitate a shift in your perspective and emotional state.

While more recent work has demonstrated the possibility of an antidepressant response to low dosages of ketamine administered intravenously, intra-nasally and sublingually (orally) that produce minimal psychedelic effects, this effect tending to be more sustained with repeated use—in other words, a cumulative effect—it is our view that psychedelic, ‘dissociative’ experience is instrumental in providing a more robust effect. This may include a positive change in outlook and character that we term a ‘transformative’ response.

Essential to KAP is the concept of a time-out from usual daily experience; this time-out period being of varying duration, usually 30 minutes to 1.5 hours depending on the dose and administration. Relaxation from ordinary concerns and usual mind, while maintaining conscious awareness is characteristic during KAP. This tends to lead to a disruption of negative feelings and obsessional thought patterns.