Ketamine for PTSD
Ketamine treatment for PTSD
“Why did this happen to me?” “How can I move on?”
Questions like these arise in the minds of many trauma survivors in unending echoes. They highlight two of the fundamental roadblocks in the minds of those struggling with PTSD. Usually, there is just nothing that can be articulated in words that will adequately answer these existential questions, but the profound transpersonal experience of ketamine allows for your trauma to be positioned in a different perspective; a perspective that allows one to heal from the events that have led you here.
We have found that a question like this needs to be answered in a radically different way. It needs to be answered on a subconscious and spiritual level through the experience of ketamine therapy, whose transformative element helps patients reframe themselves in relation to their trauma.
Think of it like this: When a traumatic event has impacted your life, you are left with the feelings and memories of that event, whether consciously or subconsciously. When under the ketamine experience, the event no longer feels like something that necessarily happened to you, but just an event that happened. It allows you to review the event, analyze the event, and reposition yourself in regards to that event. When we can reframe ourselves in relation to our trauma, we can then heal and move past that trauma.
Our goal is to reset our patients’ cognitive paradigms so that, on a subconscious level, trauma no longer defines who they are.
How does ketamine help PTSD?
One way to conceptualize post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is that it is like carrying all the feelings, emotions and memories of said event with your body at all times.
At Klarisana, we believe that ketamine therapy works in two ways: through biochemical mechanisms, and equally as important, the psychedelic experience.
The exact mechanism however, (as with many treatments for mental health) is not totally understood. One of the leading theories is that ketamine blocks the NMDA receptor which causes an increase in a chemical called BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor). This increase in BDNF causes new synapses (connections) to be created in the brain which in turn improves one’s mood and gives your brain the ability to connect those feelings, emotions and memories currently associated to your PTSD to new, more positive pathways.
We theorize that when combining these mechanisms with a non-ordinary state of consciousness, ketamine therapy can allow for one’s perspective to be changed, creating long term change in one’s perception of the events that have occurred throughout their life and moving forward.
Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy is proven to have the potential to change ones perspective and offer patients a real chance of breaking through the chaos of PTSD and coming out the other side with a renewed sense of healing.
What is the ketamine therapy procedure for PTSD?
At Klarisana, we recommend an initial series of six intramuscular ketamine sessions spaced out over two to four weeks to treat mental health conditions. Each intramuscular session is about one to two hours long. During the Induction Series, patients are treated in a private room with careful monitoring and a personalized dosing plan designed by a dedicated team of medical and behavioral health professionals with augmenting each patient’s healing experience in mind.
We progressively increase the dose of ketamine over the course of the Induction Series sessions to help the patient enter a powerful transpersonal and mystical space known as the Psychotropic Therapeutic Response. The Induction Series is a very dynamic process because who you are in terms of how you see yourself and your relationship with the world changes between each session.
After the Induction Series, patients are recommended to continue their journey by engaging in Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy with one of our licensed Behavioral Health providers. These sessions consist of a low dose of ketamine being administered during a psychotherapy session. In this slightly dissociated state, patients can process the events of their IM ketamine sessions in a more productive and raw manner than with traditional psychotherapy.
A research-based PTSD ketamine therapy
Klarisana published a study in the Annals of Clinical Psychiatry in November of 2019 in which we administered PTSD and depression screening tests to thirty combat veterans before and after completing Klarisana’s ketamine therapy Induction Series.
Our study volunteers received the PTSD Checklist (PCL-5), which is an 80-point score of PTSD symptoms, and the Periodic Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) which consists of a 27-point scoring tool that assesses symptoms of depression. The veterans had a 45% decrease in their average PCL-5 score (56.2 to 31.3) and a 50% decrease in their PHQ-9 score (18.9 down to 9.5). Our manuscript has been submitted and will presumably be accepted for publication soon.
Click the link below to read the manuscript.
Ketamine treatment for PTSD near me
Interested in becoming a patient at Klarisana? Check out our locations page to see if there is a treatment center near you.
Ketamine therapy redefines PTSD treatment
At Klarisana, we embrace the idea of breaking the cycle of PTSD with ketamine therapy, whose reduced risk of side effects and addiction allows patients to get rid of long-term psychological pain and enjoy a long-awaited emotional well-being.
Behavioral health services for PTSD
In case you don’t feel ready to incorporate ketamine into your treatment approach yet, Klarisana works with a wide range of national insurance providers to make behavioral health services a more accessible and viable option for your mental health care journey.
Case studies
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