Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)
In recent years, Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) has emerged as an innovative and evidence-supported approach for individuals struggling with treatment-resistant depression, trauma, anxiety, and other mental health concerns.
KAP blends the biological benefits of ketamine with the emotional processing and integration offered through psychotherapy — helping clients access deeper healing, insight, and relief.
What Is Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy?
Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic that, at low doses, can induce altered states of consciousness. Unlike traditional antidepressants that can take weeks to work, ketamine often creates a rapid antidepressant effect and increased neuroplasticity — the brain’s ability to form new neural connections.
When combined with psychotherapy, ketamine’s effects can help clients explore emotional material, release stored trauma, and gain new perspectives on their experiences.
KAP is not just about the medicine — it’s about the therapeutic process that surrounds it.
How a KAP Session Works
A KAP process generally includes three main phases:
1. Preparation
Before the medicine session, therapist and client work together to clarify intentions, establish trust, and create a sense of safety.
Clients may explore questions like:
“What am I hoping to understand or heal?”
“What inner wisdom might I be ready to access?”
This stage sets the emotional and psychological foundation for the experience.
2. Medicine Session
During the ketamine session, the client receives a low dose of ketamine (often through lozenges, intramuscular injection, or another prescribed route) under professional supervision.
The therapist provides grounding support, ensuring safety and emotional containment as the client journeys inward.
Common experiences include:
Heightened self-awareness or spiritual connection
Emotional release or catharsis
Expanded perspective on life events
Temporary separation from limiting beliefs or trauma narratives
3. Integration
After the medicine session, integration is essential.
In psychotherapy, the client reflects on insights and emotions that surfaced during the experience and translates them into meaningful, lasting change.
Integration helps turn insight into action — fostering emotional regulation, resilience, and self-compassion.
Who Can Benefit from KAP?
KAP may be helpful for individuals struggling with:
Depression, including treatment-resistant depression
Anxiety and generalized anxiety disorder
PTSD and complex trauma
Grief and loss
Existential distress or disconnection
KAP is always provided within an ethical, trauma-informed framework and in collaboration with a medical provider who prescribes the medication.
Why Combine Ketamine with Psychotherapy?
Ketamine can temporarily quiet the brain’s default mode network — the part responsible for rumination and self-criticism — while enhancing emotional openness and neuroplasticity.
This creates a unique therapeutic window where clients can:
Access repressed emotions with less fear or shame
Reframe old narratives
Build new emotional patterns of safety and self-acceptance
Without therapy, these insights may fade quickly. With therapy, they become integrated into long-term healing.
Is KAP Safe?
When administered and supervised by trained professionals, KAP is considered safe and well-tolerated.
Side effects are typically mild and short-lived (e.g., dizziness, nausea, dissociation).
Because KAP involves altered states of consciousness, therapeutic support and medical oversight are crucial for ensuring emotional and physical safety.
Final Thoughts
Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy represents a powerful intersection of science and healing — one that honors both the mind and body in the recovery process.
For many, it opens a door to self-understanding, compassion, and transformation when other treatments have fallen short.
Healing happens when safety, support, and openness come together.
If you’re curious about Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy and whether it may be a good fit for you, contact Empowered Healing Trauma Therapy to learn more or schedule a consultation. We provide trauma-informed, integrative care to support your journey toward healing and wholeness.