Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy
Our next Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KaP) Group will be starting April 2024. To learn more, contact us.
Despite strides in treatment options, many individuals continue to grapple with persistent suffering. Conventional approaches may fall short in addressing common psychological disorders, impeding individuals from reaching their utmost potential across various life domains—be it personal, relational, spiritual, or professional.
When conventional treatments prove ineffective, our 10-week group ketamine-assisted psychotherapy program steps in, offering a unique opportunity for healing through expanded states of consciousness and interpersonal connection.
A referral from a physician is required before our intake and screening process for our Ketamine-assisted Psychotherapy program. If your physician requests more information, please refer them to our KaP Information for Physicians page.
What is Ketamine?
Ketamine is a novel dissociative compound with some hallucinogenic effects, originally designed and used in medical treatment as an anesthetic. When used in conjunction with psychotherapy, research shows that ketamine has exciting potential for its use in mental health treatment at lower, sub-anesthetic doses.
While traditional antidepressants focus on neurotransmitters like serotonin and norepinephrine, ketamine targets NMDA receptors and the glutamate system. Ketamine's distinctive mechanism of action promotes mood regulation and growth of new neurological connections, along with features like rapid-acting effects, making it a promising option for various mental health conditions.
When used in conjunction with psychotherapy, clinical research excitingly underscores ketamine's potential for various mental health conditions, such as:
Treatment-Resistant Depression
Major Depressive Disorder
Suicidal ideation
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Additionally, there is ongoing research exploring racemic-ketamine's efficacy for other conditions, including anxiety, OCD, and trauma.
Ketamine can be safely administered in four ways: intramuscular (IM), intravenous (IV), intranasal, or orally. At our clinic, we offer ketamine intramuscularly.
What is Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KaP)?
While ketamine offers high efficacy in symptom reduction and increased well-being, ketamine complements existing treatments, rather than replacing them. Psychotherapy provides preparation and integration of dosing sessions to support and maximize long-term positive outcomes. In our program, preparation and integration sessions include evidence-informed and session-specific education, skills building, discussion, and material provided for in-between session support.
Our 10-week group ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KaP) aligns with current best practices in psychedelic therapy, which combines the unique therapeutic capabilities of ketamine with a shared group experience. Group KaP sessions can address individual treatment-related goals while also building community by creating opportunities to share experiences, discuss intentions, learn through others, explore ways to integrate learnings, improve nervous system co-regulation through shared experience, and address personal challenges in a warm and supporting environment.
Group Treatment
Our 10-week KaP Group combines medically supervised ketamine dosing with an integrated group psychotherapy program. Delivered by a multidisciplinary team, our program weaves together ketamine treatment and community-based care.
After completion of the group program, participants will have the opportunity to join Edgar Psychological's psychedelic-assisted therapy (PaT) alumni integration groups, and will have access to individual KaP maintenance sessions.
We are currently accepting client inquiries for our upcoming Ketamine-assisted Psychotherapy Group, contact us to learn more.
A referral from a physician is required before the intake and screening process. Physicians can be referred to our KaP Information for Physicians page for more information.
Benefits of Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KaP)
Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) can quickly and profoundly allow individuals to reconnect with positive memories, shift negative thinking patterns, enhance cognitive flexibility, cultivate deep insight, reconnect with social supports, and help process and regulate difficult emotions.
Many individuals report lasting improvement in their condition within hours of a treatment session, with up to 70% of research participants experiencing significant symptom reduction following treatment. Research has also shown that an individual's personality and mood are improved in the days to weeks following therapy and that reductions in symptoms can be maintained with long term maintenance treatments.
What are the effects during treatment?
The most common experience from ketamine is short-term dissociation. This medication often distorts your perception of sight and sound while producing experiences of detachment from your environment or yourself, allowing you to gain new perspectives. During treatment, you may also temporarily experience the following:
feeling separate from your thoughts and feelings
visual hallucinations
alterations in perception of time and space
intense emotional states
headaches
nausea
dizziness
blurred vision
drowsiness
elevated mood
anxiety
elevations in blood pressure and heart rate
A licensed provider and compassionate witness will be with you during your medicine sessions to assist and support you through any physical, emotional, or psychological challenges you may experience.
Safety & Considerations
Ketamine administration occurs in a safe, controlled setting designed to optimize the experience. Our KaP-trained psychologists and medical professionals ensure that ketamine sessions are safe, comfortable and meet safety requirements and psychedelic therapy regulations outlined by the Government of Alberta and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta. You will meet with our Intake Coordinator, Registered Nurse, and Medical Director to ensure it is safe for you to participate in the program based on your medical and psychiatric history.
Together, our team will work with you to determine the best approach and options based on your medical history as well as where you are at in your healing journey, creating a personalized plan through an environment of compassion, wisdom, growth, and safety throughout the process.
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge that the use of psychedelics have been used for therapeutic and ceremonial purposes by Indigenous communities spanning thousands of years who continue to be stewards and knowledge keepers of this sacred work. We aim to respect these lineages by respectfully integrating principles of neuro-decoloniality, diverse cultural wisdom, and cultural humility into a modern therapeutic framework appropriate for our community, acknowledging this is an ongoing process.
We are grateful for the ketamine-assisted psychotherapy research and evidence-informed programming developed by Roots to Thrive, as well as the knowledge and experiences shared from their participants, both of which have inspired our program development.
Next Steps
Our Psychedelic Integration team is here to help. For more information and inquiries, please contact us at 780-860-7338
