Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy
Deeper access for patterns that haven't shifted with talk therapy alone
Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) combines a legal, medically supervised ketamine experience with focused psychotherapy, before, during, and after each session. For clients who feel especially stuck or disconnected, KAP can open a level of emotional access and insight that's difficult to reach through conversation alone, creating space for real, lasting change.
What is Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy?
Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy is a legal, medically supervised therapy that combines a ketamine experience with focused psychotherapy to help access deeper insight and emotional openness. Ketamine works by stimulating the release of key neurotransmitters like glutamate, promoting synaptic growth and rewiring neural pathways that may have been stuck due to trauma, depression, or anxiety. This heightened state of neural flexibility opens critical windows for learning, allowing patients to process emotional wounds and cognitive patterns more effectively. When paired with psychotherapy, ketamine can accelerate therapeutic progress, helping individuals break free from long-standing mental health challenges and facilitating lasting transformation.
I offer this work in partnership with a prescribing medical provider Journey Clinical, who evaluates you medically and oversees dosing. This includes determining eligibility, developing a custom treatment plan, prescribing the medicine and monitoring outcomes. My role is the therapeutic container around the experience: preparation beforehand, presence during, and integration after.
Who is Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy For?
KAP tends to be a strong fit for clients seeking depth-oriented approaches to treatment-resistant depression, treatment-resistant anxiety, and trauma that hasn't fully shifted through talk therapy or other modalities alone. It's also a good fit for clients who feel emotionally numb or disconnected and want a way back into feeling, or who sense there's something underneath a pattern that conversation alone hasn't been able to reach.
Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy isn’t appropriate for everyone. All clients must complete a medical evaluation with a licensed psychiatrist or nurse practitioner to ensure ketamine is a safe and appropriate option.
How Can KAP Help?
Clients often describe sessions that surface insight they'd circled around for years without quite landing on it, or an emotional openness that talk therapy alone hadn't been able to access. Because the ketamine experience temporarily loosens rigid thinking, patterns that felt fixed, "I'm not enough," "I have to hold it all together," "I can't trust this feeling," become available to actually question and rework, rather than just managed from the outside.
Benefits of KAP
Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy may help by:
RELIEVING SYMPTOMS
One of the biggest advantages of ketamine therapy is its ability to provide fast relief from symptoms of depression, anxiety, and other mood disorders. Unlike traditional antidepressants that can take weeks to start working, ketamine often delivers noticeable results within hours or days.
INCREASING COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY
Ketamine has been shown to encourage neuroplasticity, which is the brain's ability to form new neural pathways. For those dealing with depression or anxiety, this means that ketamine may help “retrain” the brain, making it more adaptable and better able to cope with stress and emotional challenges.
DEEPENING EMOTIONAL PROCESSING
Ketamine helps create an altered state of consciousness, which can allow people to tap into deep emotions and experiences that might be difficult to access through regular talk therapy. This can lead to significant breakthroughs, helping individuals confront and heal from unresolved trauma.
LOOSENING RIGID PERSONALITY STRUCTURES
When combined with psychotherapy, ketamine has the potential to create lasting positive changes by shifting thought patterns and emotional responses in a sustainable way. This can lead to long-term improvements in mental health and loosening patterns that previously felt rigid or stuck.
OFFERING NEW PERSPECTIVES & INSIGHTS
The effects of ketamine can create a sense of distance from usual thought patterns, offering clearer insights and helping individuals look at their challenges from a new perspective.
How does Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy work?
1
Initial Consultation with Journey Clinical
Your KAP journey begins with a virtual evaluation through Journey Clinical’s medical team. They’ll review your medical and psychiatric history and determine if it’s a safe and appropriate treatment for you. If approved, they’ll create a personalized prescription and treatment plan. A small supply of oral ketamine lozenges will be mailed to your home for your first two dosing sessions, along with clear instructions for self-administration and taking your vitals.
2
Preparation Sessions
We’ll meet for one or more preparation sessions to set intentions, discuss the process, and establish the internal and external conditions for a safe and meaningful experience.
3
Dosing Session
A dosing session typically lasts 2–3 hours and can take place either in my office or remotely from your home. You’ll self-administer your ketamine lozenge, and I'm happy to provide an eye mask, headphones, cozy pillows and blankets, and a personalized curated playlist made specifically for each client to support your inner experience. While much of the session is internal, I remain present throughout and ensure your physical and emotional safety. I provide snacks afterward to help clients transition back after their journey.
4
Integration Sessions
After each dosing session, we meet for integration therapy. These sessions help you process and make sense of the material that surfaced — connecting insights, sensations, and imagery to your everyday life. Integration is where the deeper transformation unfolds.
5
Ongoing Support
Journey Clinical continues to monitor your medical progress and refill prescriptions as needed, typically meeting with you every few months. Together, we stay in dialogue about your evolving experience and adjust your treatment plan to best support your growth.
Pricing
Psycholytic Ketamine Session (90–120 minutes) — $500
A psycholytic session uses a lower dose of ketamine, allowing us to remain in conversation throughout the experience. This approach combines the reflective nature of talk therapy with the therapeutic effects of ketamine, making it especially helpful for exploring emotions, relational patterns, and what is unfolding in the moment.
Psychedelic Ketamine Session (2–3 hours) — $600–750
A psychedelic-dose session offers a deeper inward experience. After preparing together, you'll spend approximately 30–60 minutes in your own internal journey while I remain present, providing support without directing the experience through conversation. We then spend time afterward integrating what emerged and exploring how it relates to your life and therapeutic goals.
The Brain Science Behind Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy
Ketamine has rapidly-acting antidepressant and mood-enhancing effects, which can take effect within 1–2 hours after treatment. It blocks the brain’s NMDA receptors and stimulates AMPA receptors, which are thought to help form new connections in the brain and boost circuits that regulate stress and mood
Ketamine works by stimulating the release of key neurotransmitters like glutamate, promoting synaptic growth and rewiring neural pathways that may have been stuck due to trauma, depression, or anxiety. This heightened state of neural flexibility opens critical windows for learning, allowing patients to process emotional wounds and cognitive patterns more effectively. When paired with psychotherapy, ketamine can accelerate therapeutic progress, helping individuals break free from long-standing mental health challenges and facilitating lasting transformation.
Helpful Resources:
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Paradigms of Ketamine Treatment by Raquel Bennett, Psy.D. for MAPS
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Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP): Patient Demographics, Clinical Data and Outcomes in Three Large Practices Administering Ketamine with Psychotherapy, research study by Jennifer Dore et al, 2018
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Ketamine for Depression and Mood Disorders by Erica Zelfand, ND for Townsend Letter
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Ketamine-Facilitated Psychotherapy for Trauma, Anxiety, and Depression by goop
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Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy with Jonathan Sabbagh of Journey Clinical on Psychology Talk Podcast
Frequently Asked Questions
Who handles dosing?
Journey Clinical handles all medical components of the process, including determining medical eligibility, customizing clients' treatment plans, prescribing the ketamine, and monitoring ongoing outcomes. My role is to support clients through preparation sessions, providing support during the dosing sessions, and integration afterward. Clients themselves administer the ketamine during the dosing session.
Is this use of ketamine legal?
Yes. KAP uses ketamine legally prescribed and medically supervised by a licensed prescriber in a therapeutic context.
What does a session actually feel like?
The effects of ketamine, which most patients find pleasant, last for approximately 30–60 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 subside, we’ll spend the remainder of our appointment giving you space to process and discuss your experience. While it can sometimes be difficult to articulate exactly what happened during the experience, clients often feel that the insights they gained are clear.
How many sessions does this typically take?
Most clients complete around 6–8 KAP dosing sessions, though there’s no one-size-fits-all timeline. Sessions are often spaced about two weeks apart, but we’ll find a cadence that works for your life and therapeutic goals. For some clients, that might mean meeting for a dosing session once a month.
