How Does Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy Work?
Harnessing the Power of Intentions and Meaning-Making Through Metaphors
I recently was trained in ketamine assisted psychotherapy (KAP), and I was trying think of how I would compare it to other therapies. In this training, like many therapy trainings, you both practice it on someone, as well as experience it yourself, so I am reflecting upon both perspectives. I provide trauma therapy, with modalities like Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) and Internal Family Systems therapy (IFS), and the primary difference I found was that when I experienced KAP, I was able to move past my thinking brain into the part of my brain that feels. It was almost like ketamine helps to unlock the part of you that is hidden deep down, but in a way that feels safe and warm.
Many people struggle in therapy when they already have insight, where they are aware of why they act or feel a certain way, but they struggle to move beyond that. This is where trauma therapies usually add in a somatic component, where the bodily experience is focused on in order to shift how you feel. Ketamine assisted psychotherapy does this too, working on your physical experience of your senses and showing you messages through metaphors.
Now you might be a bit skeptical when I say that ketamine “shows messages to you through metaphors”, but many therapies harness this power. When utilizing sandtray therapy, you are picking out miniatures to tell yourself a story in the sand, inviting your brain to not be so literal, and to work in metaphors and imagery. In Accelerated Resolution Therapy, the therapist directs you to ease sensations in your body with imagery and puns, also guiding you through metaphorical imagery to help get rid of what is weighing you down, helping you cathartically feel like you are moving forward.
It isn’t just therapies that use imagery and metaphors to get at our emotions, much of the world around us does. Ads, movies, propaganda, and music, all get us to feel something with the metaphors and imagery used. Ketamine assisted psychotherapy helps you harness that ability to reach your emotions in this guided and purposeful way.
Now, does the medicine itself have benefits? Yes, even without imagery and meaning ascribed to images felt and seen, it definitely does. In fact, that is how its benefits were first discovered! Anesthesiologists were noticing how patients they had used ketamine on had significantly improved mental health outcomes in the weeks following their surgeries. Science has even shown that ketamine helps neural pathways start blooming again after a period of dying off when someone struggles with their mental health.
However the real benefit in ketamine assisted psychotherapy is in setting an intention ahead of time, allowing yourself to ask your mind to focus on the emotions, wisdom, and healing needed in a particular area of your life. Then you benefit from having someone transcribe what your experiences as you come out of it, asking you more about certain images encountered, helping you take more meaning from it. Doing this helps you maintain the gains experienced while on ketamine, and then integrate those benefits throughout your life!
No therapy is going to change your life without you doing some of the hard work. Ketamine assisted psychotherapy just helps open up those locked doors so that you can heal what is going on inside, addressing that stuff is keeping you stuck. If you are local to the East Valley, just outside of Phoenix, and you are interested in how this might work for you, just reach out! I am more than happy to answer any questions you might have.
(Don’t mind the imagery of these office supplies spotted over at OfficeMax on Broadway and Rural, I was just using a metaphor to deepen the meaning of this post!)
