Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)
What is Ketamine?
Ketamine is an FDA-approved prescription drug that has been used since the 1960s as an anesthetic to quickly and safely sedate patients during medical procedures.
Ketamine steadily grew in popularity and versatility due to its remarkable safety profile and also due to its limited number of side effects, few medical contraindications, and lack of direct impact on the body’s vital functions (i.e. heart rate, blood pressure, respiration).
While Ketamine is typically administered intravenously in medical settings, there are multiple forms of administration (nasal, oral, intramuscular) which further lend to the range of utility and the variability of the experience for the individual receiving the medicine.
Clinicians have determined there is significant therapeutic value yielded by exploring the subjective effects and resulting insights associated with expanded states of consciousness occasioned by Ketamine administration when optimizing the mindset and setting of support.
What is KAP?
Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy, or KAP, is a form of therapy that aims to optimize the benefit derived from the subjective and dissociative effects that come from non-ordinary states of consciousness.
Within this treatment individuals are sometimes able to shift painful “stuck” states and/or achieve symptom relief by using Ketamine combined with a therapeutic process. This approach optimizes the idea of creating safety through therapeutic connection and preparation that teaches clients how to optimally “work” with the medicine and their own system in order to allow the process to powerfully unfold with ease, dignity, and care.
Also essential to this approach is the use of integration sessions where therapists can support individuals in exploring and making meaning of these often mercurial, inexplicable, non-verbal, profoundly expansive, and emotional experiences.
How does KAP work?
Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy is an adjunctive treatment with the potential to deepen, disrupt, or catalyze an existing therapeutic process. We believe that the “inner directed” approach works at the pace of each individual’s system and directly supports self-exploration by explicitly highlighting choice, agency, and safety. To facilitate this process, we often work in a “trance” or “psycholytic” dosing ranges (gentle, step-wise protocol).
In this range, clients can work collaboratively with the therapy team to determine what may be needed. Our therapists are highly attuned and skilled in working with expanded states of consciousness while honoring the inherent vulnerability that can come from these profound journeys.
This work often allows access to previously unreachable content and deeper access to emotions and sensations that serve as vital entry points for insights, understanding, and healing.
In this way, we can slowly “unwind” and rewrite the stories we carry about ourselves to become more authentic, compassionate, and expansive.
Is KAP for everyone?
Comprehensive screening and assessment are necessary to determine if KAP is an appropriate, relevant, and potentially effective treatment approach for clients. This process takes place at Integrata with the experienced perspective of both a medical and mental health provider.
We believe KAP has tremendous and transformative potential, however, this should not be considered a “cure all” and the course of treatment is inherently unpredictable. There are significant risks and benefits to KAP that should be very thoughtfully considered prior to embarking on this treatment.
For many the course of healing can be very disruptive and at times disorienting. Modifying and expanding what we “know” about ourselves can feel rather intense, at times overwhelming, and require a solid and available support system to support the continued process of integration.
At this same time, this work has also brought great joy, relief, and pleasure to many individuals who have been suffering for so long.
