What happens before and after the session can matter as much as the experience itself.
Ketamine can open a window in which things that feel stuck become more movable. Therapy helps that openness turn into lasting change. Preparation shapes what you bring into the experience, and integration helps you carry it back into your life.
I am certified in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy through the Integrative Psychiatry Institute, and trained in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy at a Harvard-founded integrative practice. I am currently working toward offering on-site ketamine sessions. Until then, I will help arrange your treatment if indicated, and see you for preparation and integration therapy.
Should ketamine come up as a reasonable option to try, we consider it together. If you decide to go ahead, I will help arrange your treatment at a partner clinic, where you will go for medication administration. Before each session, we talk through what you hope for, what worries you, and what might come up. Afterward, we meet to make sense of what you experienced and to notice how it shows up in your days, often over several months. Some of it will feel important right away, and some of it only becomes clear with time. You set the pace throughout.
For people already in treatment with me, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy can become part of our ongoing work. I also see people who are receiving ketamine at another clinic and want preparation and integration therapy with someone trained to do it. As a psychiatrist, I can offer a medical perspective alongside the therapy, and think about how it fits with the rest of your mental health care.
Ketamine is FDA-approved as an anesthetic and used off-label for depression; esketamine is approved for treatment-resistant depression.