Ketamine-Assisted Therapy

Psychedelic medicines have been used to heal and navigate life’s transitions for centuries. Ketamine is a legal medicine with psychedelic properties. It has been deemed an essential medicine by the World Health Organization in 1985 and utilized in Ketamine-Assisted Therapy (KAT) for mental health indications. Ketamine has dissociative effects that provide time out from the ordinary mind. These neuroplastic effects allow for reshaping of thoughts and patterns that may have previously resulted in depressive or anxious ways of being. Ketamine is an extremely safe medicine with a safety record spanning more than 50 years. Doses used for KAT are very low and a fraction of what is used in anesthetic indications. Please see FAQs for more information on ketamine and KAT.

Some of the experiential effects of ketamine in the KAT setting may include:

• Reduced anxiety and expanded window of tolerance due to the anti-anxiety effects of the medicine and its ability to create space around thoughts and feelings that can otherwise be too much to hold. This enables one to be with feelings without being activated by them.

• Improved mood and outlook from the rapid acting anti-depressive effects of the medicine, usually taking effect within hours to a few days. This can feel like lightness in having weight removed or clouds parting to reveal the warmth and light of the sun and can result in enhanced engagement with life.

• Dual consciousness or cognitive distance from which one is aware of one’s experience without being as easily triggered or otherwise reactive. This offers opportunities for transformation, where one can choose new, healthier responses to the usual triggers in our lives, thereby increasing resiliency.

• Greater embodiment and a shift in relationship to the physical body resulting from the dissociative effects of the medicine, which can also offer relief from physical pain. The re-entry into the body as the dissociative effects of the medicine wear off can enable an enhanced attunement to the body and feelings.

• Perspective shift from the sense of separation from one’s usual self & beliefs. This can lead to insights about one’s relationships, assumptions, behaviors, and life choices. These shifts in perspective can inspire expansive growth and life-affirming choices.

Who can benefit from Ketamine-Assisted Therapy (KAT)?

KAT can help create shifts in mood, stuck patterns, and self-limiting beliefs and enable access to feelings and memories that might otherwise lie outside conscious awareness. It can also help dispel the false sense of separation many experience, resulting in greater connection to ourselves and others and a deeply embodied sense of wholeness.. KAT differs from the traditional mental health model by helping individuals access in a safe container the underlying root causes of issues they may be struggling with rather than just treating their symptoms. For these reasons, it can be a useful tool for those working with anxiety (personal, social, existential), depression, grief and loss, burnout, and personal and spiritual growth.

Psychedelic medicines have traditionally and cross-culturally played an important role in helping people navigate the natural life transitions of grief, loss, fear of death, and existential distress. We serve as guides to help people find their own way to alignment, balance and connection within themselves and in the world in which we live. We have expertise in guiding those experiencing existential distress and who are seeking peace through healthy relationship with their own mortality. We work with depression and anxiety as a result of feelings and experience of inevitable loss that comes from living life and loving.