Empower Your Mental Health Journey with Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy
Let me uplift you in your journey
Amy L Decker LCSW
I have had the great privilege of working with people for years as they navigate through life transitions. I believe we all suffer and through our individual sufferings we are able to connect with our own resiliency and learn and grow from those challenges. Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) is a type of symbiotic therapy that is a beneficial treatment for trauma, anxiety and depression. I have found that integrating counseling with ketamine as a medicine can increase awareness, connection and insight, shifting narratives and chemistry that keep you static. Ketamine can accelerate the process of the personal psychotherapy journey. It is not the medicine itself that facilitates major change; it is conduit that allows the body, mind and spirit to incorporate all the advantages of that psychotherapy has to offer.
What does KAP Look Like?
What is Ketamine
Ketamine is a legal, safe and effective medicine used to treat a variety of mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety and PTSD.
Ketamine has rapidly-acting antidepressant and mood-enhancing effects, which can begin to take effect within 1-2 hrs. after treatment and last for up to 2 weeks.
It works by blocking the brain’s NMDA receptors as well as by stimulating AMPA receptors, which are thought to help form new synaptic connections and boost neural circuits that regulate stress and mood. Ketamine has also been shown to enhance overall neuroplasticity for lasting symptom improvement.
How Does Ketamine Feel?
The effects of ketamine, which most clients find pleasant, last for approximately 45 minutes. These effects can make you feel “far from” your body, and facilitate shifts in perception that can often feel expansive in nature.
Your motor and verbal abilities will be reduced, so you’ll be lying down in a comfortable position during the experience. Once these effects subsided, we’ll spend the remainder of our appointment giving you space to process and discuss your experience.
Studies have shown that the benefits to mood and neurological growth can last up to two weeks after the Ketamine experience.
KAP process
1. Preparation: You schedule an initial evaluation with a clinician from the Journey Clinical medical team via zoom. They will go over your medical and psychiatric history with you, provide education on the treatment and determine if you are eligible for KAP. Meet with Amy to set intentions and psycho therapeutic evaluation and planning
2. Experience: medicine session which is administered during a longer session of 2.5 hours. Unconscious material can arise from the expanded awareness and the non-ordinary state of consciousness that can happen with the ketamine sessions. Depending on the dose, you will experience a sense of relaxation, or you may have thoughts, feelings or visuals that make sense at the time or later during integration. You will always have a therapist as a guide in the room.
3. Integration: A separate session allowing you to reflect and process what came up during the med session.