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.

Ketamine can be administered in a variety of ways, including IV infusion, intramuscular injection, via nasal spray and using sublingual lozenges, which is what you will use in our work together.

The effects of ketamine, which most patients find pleasant, last for anywhere from 30-120 minutes. These effects can make you feel “far from” your body, and facilitate shifts in perception that can often feel expansive in nature. It can offer distance from you habitual thougts and thought processes, allowing you new perspectives.

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. While it may feel hard to articulate what happened during the experience, patients feel like the insights gained are none-the-less clear. Studies have shown that the benefits to mood and neurological growth can last up to two weeks after the Ketamine experience.

KAP can offer a bit of a format to therapy, and the process can help you get more clear on what healing can look like for you. We have four phases: Preparation, Dosing, Integration and Deepen. All are equally important to your journey.

Preparation - We will do at least one to as many as needed sessions to fully explore and understand what your hopes and goals are for this treatment. During preparation sessions, we will build our relationships, we will explore your history and goals. From there we will look at what your dosing session will look like, the logistics, your ideal set and setting and what you might want with you to create a healing space.

Dosing Sessions - We will plan on at least 2 and up to 8 dosing sessions, each one followed by at least one integration session. Your dosing session will last between 2-3 hours and can occur in my office or remotely at your home (a chaperone must be present at home with you during the entire session). During a dosing session, you will self-administer your ketamine lozenge either in my office or in your home. You will be in a comfortable, reclining position wearing an eye mask and listening to calming music. Although a KAP dosing session may be largely an internal experience, I will be present with you the entire time to provide support as needed.

Integration - Following every dosing session we will do at least one integration session, usually a few days following your dosing session. During integration we will explore and help strengthen what felt meaningful to you in your experience, work with feelings, and explore how these experiences could impact your lifestyle and ways of being in the world.

Deepen - This phase allows you to weave your growth and self discovery into your daily life, applying new themes and ways of perceiving the world. You may choose to continue psychotherapy or explore other opportunities to continue on your healing journey.

I partner with Dr. Julia Bramwell who will evaluate you and prescribe the medicine. After we decide KAP is something that feels beneficial, you schedule and complete an intake with Dr. Julia. She prescribes and works with a pharmacy to have the medicine sent to your home.

After you and I have talked about your interest in Ketamine Assisted Therapy, I will connect you with Journey Clinical. From there:

● 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.

● If Dr. Bramwll determines that you are eligible for KAP, she will develop a personalized Ketamine prescription and outcome monitoring plan for you.

● Dr. Bramwell will write a ketamine prescription for you, and a small amount of oral ketamine will be sent to your home. We will review self administering the medicine and your blood pressure as instructed by Dr. Bramwell.

Then you and I will schedule your dosing sessions!

Yes. I offer thorough preparation and integration for experiences you may have had outside my practice. Whether you are seeking to integrate work you are doing at a clinic, are microdosing on your own or have had a bigger experience you are trying to make sense of, giving yourself time to fully explore your intentions and integrate those experiences can deepen your healing.