Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy

Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) is a form of individual and group therapy that involves the concurrent administration of the psychoactive medication ketamine to facilitate the work of therapy. The sessions are focused on experience rather than cognition and patients often report gaining new and helpful perspectives or feelings regarding mood, anxiety, inter-connectedness, difficult past experiences or obsessive or ruminative thought patterns.

Why Ketamine?

Ketamine is a medication which was developed in 1962 as an anesthetic agent. At very low doses, ketamine produces psychedelic and trance-like effects.  Ketamine is, in fact, the only legal psychedelic medication in the United States. While there are promising studies regarding the use of other psychedelics in psychiatry, they are not FDA approved medications for any indication and they are not available outside of strict research protocols. Due to its psychoactive properties, ketamine garnered the interest of psychiatrists almost immediately after its introduction. It has been studied extensively since the 1970s for treatment of various psychiatric conditions including depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, substance use disorders and others. Relatively recently, one of the active components in ketamine called “esketamine” gained FDA approval for the treatment of “Treatment Resistant Depression”. Likely due to lack of financial incentive for pharmaceutical developers, injectable ketamine used in our clinic and in other psychiatric clinics across the US is still used “off-label” in the treatment of psychiatric conditions. Despite this off label use, ketamine has a substantial body of evidence supporting its use for mental health purposes.

What should I expect during a Ketamine session?

The initial treatment course will consist of 6 total sessions. The first session is longer and will involve preparation, treatment, and integration all in the same 3-hour block of time. We will evaluate the effectiveness of the medication after each treatment. For patients who do respond to treatment during a 3-hour session, it is recommended they continue with 5 more sessions scheduled in shorter 1.5 hour time blocks, and the preparation/integration work is completed with the patient’s individual therapist or in one of our process groups separate from the actual ketamine treatment.

How much does KAP cost?

3 hour KAP session with MD (Required for first-time ketamine patients): $1200

1.5 hour Ketamine treatment only: $500

All currently established patients who are interested in KAP will need to schedule a 45 minute KAP-focused consultation with either Dr. Browning or Dr. Halverson prior to scheduling treatments.