Ketamine Treatment and Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)

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Ketamine Treatment and Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)

KETAMINE TREATMENT AND KETAMINE ASSISTED PSYCHOTHERAPY (KAP) is an innovative, transformative treatment protocol that is being used in therapy clinics across the country to relieve the symptoms of treatment-resistant mental health conditions.

What is Ketamine? Ketamine is a generic dissociative medication that has a 50 year history of safe use as an anesthetic agent in medical procedures. Recently, ketamine has shown to have great promise as an off-label treatment for Treatment Resistant Depression (TRD), PTSD, OCD, drug and alcohol addiction, and other psychiatric diagnoses. The doses used in psychiatry are a fraction (10-25%) of the doses used in anesthesia procedures.

‌Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) at Wholeness Health

Wholeness Health is a leading provider of Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) in Fort Collins and the Northern Colorado area. We are proud to offer Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) in three different routes of administration: sublingual (oral lozenges), IM (intramuscular injection), or IV (intravenous line).

During the initial screening session, our clinicians will determine whether ketamine is appropriate for your condition and will then recommend a specific route of administration and dosing strategy based on your treatment goals and psychiatric history.

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Sublingual
(Oral Lozenges)

Offered by Jason Sienknecht
LPC CAC II and Gail Dawson

  • 4-8 psychotherapy sessions over 3-4 weeks
  • Sessions last about 2 hours
  • Creates a milder and more gentle experience than the IV or IM method Ketamine lozenges are used to speed psychotherapy
  • A therapist will be present throughout entire session
  • Induces a low dose trance experience for a time out from the ordinary mind
  • Facilitates reduction in defenses and negative thinking but still allows for awareness and communication with your therapist
Ketamine may be the medicine for you if:
  • ‌Prior psychiatric treatments or therapies have been unsuccessful in reducing your symptoms
  • You would like a time out from your ordinary mind and a broadened perspective of your psychological condition
  • You are open to having a spiritual or mystical experience for the purpose of transformation and symptom reduction

Intramuscular Injections (IM)

Offered by Scott Shannon, MD and Craig Heacock, MD

  • 1-3 sessions over 3 weeks, with the possibility of monthly maintenance treatments
  • Sessions last 1.5-2 hours
  • Dosage is typically moderate-high
  • A psychiatrist meets with you periodically during sessions and monitors your progress
  • Allows for higher dose sessions for the purpose of inducing dissociative, psychedelic, or transformative experiences
Ketamine treatment may not be appropriate if:
  • ‌You are pregnant
  • You have a psychotic disorder
  • You have uncontrolled high blood pressure or heart/liver disease

Intravenous Line (IV)

Offered by Scott Shannon, MD, Craig Heacock, MD and Dr. Naveen Thomas

  • ‌1-6 sessions over 3 weeks
  • Sessions last 1-2 hours
  • Allows for low or high dose sessions, depending on treatment goals
  • A psychiatrist monitors your progress and is able to adjust the strength of the ketamine throughout the session, as needed
‌Appropriateness of Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) for individual clients will be determined by Wholeness Health professionals during an initial screening.

Ten reasons why ketamine is the best entry level agent for psychedelic exploration or psychedelic assisted psychotherapy training

  • It is legal. You can schedule a ketamine session in most major cities in the US. An increasing number of centers like ours have ketamine assisted psychotherapy sessions available. This is the harbinger of a new paradigm in mental health. At Wholeness, we believe that medicine assisted psychotherapy represents the emerging model for enhanced care of the psyche.
  • Ketamine is anxiolytic. It quiets that part of our central nervous system that worries and frets. Many of the major psychedelic medicines (especially LSD) can have a significant element of anxiety as part of the journey. If you are new to psychedelics this can be intimidating and overwhelming. Research indicates that ketamine is euphoric and mood boosting for most people. Bad trips are possible, but they are much less likely than with psilocybin or LSD.
  • Ketamine offers a sense of pure non-dual consciousness that introduces folks to a non-cognitive open field of awareness that is unique and awe inspiring.
  • Both ketamine and the major psychedelics decrease the default mode network, which is our closest neural equivalent to the ego. With the conscious constraints of the constructed self dramatically reduced, the major psychedelics can and will release a tsunami of unconscious material that can be very powerful (and overwhelming). Ketamine does decrease the filter of the self, but it simultaneously decreases the power of cortical awareness and this reduces the unpredictable wave of the unconscious material that is brought to experience. Traumatic experiences may be accessed, but the weight of the new insights are more limited. Ketamine can work as mild introduction to these experiences.
  • Never mind that ketamine is not a true psychedelic, this experience may be one of the most profound alterations of consciousness that you will ever experience. As a dissociative agent, ketamine disconnects most of our cortical awareness and leaves people with an experience that will astound you. Do not underestimate this experience. For therapists in training it is very important to have a personal experience of a powerful state of non-ordinary consciousness. Ketamine provides this and more.
  • Ketamine modifies the default mode network, disrupts thalamocortical relays and enhances neuroplasticity. Quite simply it offers a new way of thinking, particularly about one’s own life and the big picture of our existence. People come away with a refreshed look at their life journey and their options for change.
  • Ketamine has a clear dose response curve, so folks can dial in the type of experience they would like to have: mild, verbal and lightly dissociated (somewhat like peyote); moderate, some verbal capacity, but mostly gone (more like psilocybin); high, non-verbal and totally disconnected from this plane (similar to DMT).
  • The short half-life of ketamine is under 30 minutes. This means that the entire experience lasts less than one hour. Good or bad, the journey is short and manageable. The total time from check in at the office to walking out the front door is typically less than two hours.
  • The alterations in the default mode network and hippocampal plasticity, while maximal for the hour’s joyride, do linger for a day or so. This offers a practical window for enhanced psychotherapy. Low dose lozenges provide a twilight type of experience that enhances access to painful material and speeds psychotherapy. We tolerate the difficult insights better and can process our wounding at a much deeper level. Ego controls are reduced, but not gone. This catalyzes psychotherapeutic change. It is an anesthetic agent, but used in this manner it opens our process and does not numb. This is because it is dissociative and thus does not diminish our awareness. By comparison, alcohol reduces ego controls, but it reduces clarity and self-awareness simultaneously rendering it useless.
  • It is legal. This bears repeating. The only other options that might be better involve travel to another country or breaking the law. It is difficult to rationalize a training track for therapists that involves a criminal act or mandates international travel. Years from now we will likely have MDMA, psilocybin and perhaps other legal options. We have ketamine right now.