Psychedelic-assisted therapy can, for many people, accelerate the process of emotional recovery. The pain and trauma that many of us carry can be difficult or impossible to face, much less resolve. Counseling helps in most cases, but it is a long road, and sometimes it isn’t enough. Psychiatric medications (antidepressants, etc.) are often truly needed and can help ease suffering, but rarely lead to a cure.

Psychedelics can accelerate this process. In the brain they release a massive amount of “brain-derived neural growth factor,” or BDNF. This stimulates new connections in the brain, more or less giving the opportunity to do some re-wiring. Those thoughts and patterns that feel like they’re stubbornly welded to our lives? Psychedelics, when used therapeutically, can loosen them.

Ketamine is the only psychedelic drug that is legal to use in Wisconsin. (I meticulously follow the drug laws.) It can allow a significant acceleration in the process of healing, of taming our demons. But the drug is not a cure!

The best analogy I know is: Take a glass vase and put it in a kiln, and heat it up really hot. When you take it out it’s glowing, but it’s still the same vase. But there’s a period of time when the vase can be re-shaped. That’s what psychedelics do in our brain.

Ketamine is often used as an antidepressant, as a therapy in and of itself. It’s effective; in studies it’s effective for treatment-resistant depression in about 70% of patients. The standard therapy used in many clinics is IV ketamine, 6 sessions in 3 weeks (a schedule adopted from electroconvulsive therapy!) In my experience, many patients feel better - for a few weeks, then everything goes back to the way it was. It usually is not effective in the long run.

Using the vase analogy: if you just let the vase cool, in the end you will have exactly what you had to start with. That is what happens if you just give the drug as a stand-alone treatment. For that reason I don’t offer “ketamine therapy.” This is not a "ketamine clinic."

This is why counseling is so critical. The client has to do the hard work or all of this is for naught. But the ketamine can make the work a lot less hard. I strongly prefer that clients are working with a therapist before and after ketamine treatment, and that the therapist is on board with ketamine. I know that not everybody can afford therapy, and not everyone can find a good therapist in a rural area. But if I don’t think someone is trying to do their inner work I will likely not proceed with ketamine.