My Own Ketamine Journey: Experiential Learning for a KAP Clinician
A central tenet to my work as a therapist is to never ask my clients to do something that I would not do myself. If I am assigning an exposure for OCD or asking my clients to confront their fears, I must also be able to do the same. A therapist may not have shared lived experience with their clients, but they must try, when possible, to live in congruence with their therapeutic philosophies.
For this reason, among others, I decided to experience two Ketamine journeys as part of my professional training, before coming back to Boulder to expand our KAP (Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy) program at Kairos Wellness Collective. While some clinicians are favoring a stronger approach, Kairos has chosen a more measured, gentle approach to Ketamine work.
Our clients are mostly high-anxiety individuals, and we believe that a balanced structure that builds up to greater comfort and incorporates holistic relaxation techniques is the most desirable approach. For many of our clients, it takes tremendous courage to get into the KAP session in the first place, and we do not want to lose their trust by encouraging too intense of a journey.
Full disclosure: I have severe ADHD and moderate OCD. While you are able to continue OCD medications on the day of a KAP journey, it is not suggested to take ADHD medications as they can lessen the productive impact of the Ketamine. I was curious to see how these two presentations of my mental health would show up in a Ketamine treatment.
When taking Ketamine, you are primarily inward for your experience. You wear a soft eye mask and lay down on a soft mat with a blanket. The therapist creates a productive and safe environment for the experience by having soft lighting, comfortable ambiance, and leading you in breathwork before beginning. Next you set an intention and draw a symbology card to inspire self-reflection and connect with a spiritual mindset. The brain needs something to hold onto, so the KAP practitioners will provide a soundtrack of music and scents, such as burning sage, palo santo, or sweetgrass. In the ethical (in my opinion) practice of Ketamine treatment you are never left alone, but rather are accompanied in a generally silent but honoring way by your therapist.
The first approach I tried was 25 mg of intramuscular, given over the course of two dosages. At this dosage, my experience can best be described as the expansive state of calm achieved by a seasoned meditation practioner. While I was expecting intense visuals, my inner world was primarily beige and consisted of waves of stairs. I was surprised and shocked by the nothingness of this experience, and it truly felt like a nervous system reset. As a person with hyperactive ADHD, I am rarely able to have this sort of pause. My mind and body are constantly in motion, and I find I do not have the patience, attention span, or skills to reach a state of calm. The blandness of my first Ketamine experience took me off guard, and was initially disappointing and eventually enlightening. Ketamine has a habit of giving you not what you may want, but exactly what you need. This Ketamine journey was simply a soft landing spot after a hectic year, and gave me a glimpse of what it might be like to achieve this sort of peace within. I left this session with an expansive mindset and a surprising quiet in my normal OCD chatter.
The second journey, 55mg intramuscular over two shots, was also conservative by industry standards, but provided a vastly different experience. Suitably prepared after having journeyed once, I came into this morning with hope and ease. I set an intention to understand more deeply whether I was overreaching and overworking myself by building a bustling wellness center, and if I should make myself smaller again. The card I drew with my guiding nurse practitioner was a Moose, which was interpreted as a large animal that awkwardly bursts into the scene with confidence. I relaxed into the medicine with this moose on the front of my mind, expecting to drop into a naturescape that would help give me clarity on the direction of the business.
Instead, I once again experienced a world with no color but only geometrical motion. Walls kept shifting in front of me and I had a deep feeling of the connectedness on a metaphysical level. My soul felt somehow unified with the souls of everyone I love, and I felt a strong sense of inevitability. For me, in my distorted vantage point as a psychedelic traveler, this portion of the journey felt like the vast majority of my time. The last few minutes felt like a desperate attempt to connect back to the people in the room with me, most notably my partner Matthew. Time was warped, however, and the experience was actually only 3 minutes of silence and 30 minutes of interactivity. I said Matthew’s name over and over with an anxious attachment reminiscent of an abandoned child, and I kept seeking physical reassurance despite not actually being in my body. Near the end of the trip, my Relationship OCD compulsions kicked into full swing and I began reassurance seeking, asking for nourishment, asking for affirmations, compulsively apologizing, and trying to find my way back either to reality or back to the expansive world in which my journey began.
Others in the room with the same dose were fully silent and only traveled inward. Exhibiting my compulsions like I did near the middle end of my journey was highly illuminating as to how Ketamine might affect those of us with OCD. While my general inclination is that these two experiences will have the cumulative effect of rewiring my brain to greater calm and less anxiety, the actual psychedelic journey was significantly activating for my OCD.
My personal experience is only my own, and I plan to continue for a full Ketamine course of treatment as a means of disrupting my established patterns and creating new neural pathways. However, I believe that a titrated approach to Ketamine will more correctly honor our diversity of brains and meet every client where they want and need to be.
If you are interested in learning more about Ketamine journeys at Kairos Wellness Collective, contact us today.
