KETAMINE TREATMENT

Ketamine has been shown to have antidepressant effects and tends to produce dissociative or psychedelic experiences, which may be leveraged to stimulate the process of growth and change. Ketamine is a powerful tool to aid in your healing journey by providing symptom relief and perspective on your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

Ketamine has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use as an anesthetic agent for many years. The use of ketamine in lower, subanesthetic doses to treat mental health conditions is a newer, off-label use of ketamine. This means the FDA does not endorse the use of ketamine for mental health indications and classifies such uses as investigational. While the FDA has only approved racemic ketamine as an anesthetic used primarily in hospitals, there are now many studies that demonstrate ketamine may be an effective and rapid treatment option for depression, PTSD, anxiety disorders, and OCD. The “off-label” use of racemic ketamine to treat certain mental health conditions is therefore supported by scientific literature. It is important to note that FDA has not established. For dosing, administration, safety precautions, and contraindications, our clinic follows best practices supported by mental health scientific literature and model protocols established by the Integrative Psychiatry Institute’s Ketamine Medical Provider Program.

THE KETAMINE PROCESS

Initial Consultation: We’ll discuss your goals for treatment and review what’s ahead in the treatment process.

Preparation Session: We’ll develop your individual treatment plan and prepare for the initiation of treatment.

Initiation: 6 to 8 initial ketamine treatments over 3 to 4 weeks accompanied by integration therapy.

Maintenance: You will receive a ketamine treatment every 2 to 8 weeks, on average. We’ll pair your treatments with further recommendations to help you keep new patterns of thought and behavior strong and healthy. The number and frequency of treatments will be limited to the minimum necessary to reach your goals.

Through the process of ketamine therapy your brain will start to grow new connections, re-wire and strengthen the healthy patterns that we are trying to maintain. Our clinic utilizes intramuscular or intranasal routes of administration.

THE PIECES OF RECOVERY

Ketamine is a powerful tool to aid in your healing journey by providing symptom relief and perspective on your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. This helps you face the challenges in your life and, ultimately, change your life.

REPAIR THE PAST

  • Resolve individual past trauma

  • Evaluate inherited family trauma

  • Examine maladaptive coping skills

PHYSICAL HEALTH

  • Nutrition

  • Sleep

  • Exercise

  • Medications

  • Supplements

AUTHENTIC LIVING

  • Engagement in life

  • Community

  • Healthy Relationships

  • Meaning

  • Accomplishment

MENTAL HABITS

  • Positive emotions

  • Gratitude

  • Mindfulness

  • Meditation

  • Psychotherapy

The process does require work, but it is work worth doing. Recovery involves looking in depth at the four core areas where people experience disconnection. It is important to begin with the areas you can control, rather than tackling everything at once. We encourage you to work with our clinic team or your individual therapist to create a road map for recovery. Once you have been feeling well consistently, our goal is for you to no longer require ketamine as you continue your healing journey.

THE SCIENCE

One of the current theories being explored around how ketamine works centers around the Default Mode Network (DMN) in our brain. The DMN is a collection of brain regions that are connected to each other and are thought to involve internal mental state processes.

A ketamine treatment allows the unhealthy neuronal pathways that are constantly “on” in your brain to turn off for a period of time. One can consider all the unhealthy thoughts that continuously occur – such as automatic negative thoughts, obsessive thoughts, anxious thoughts – as unhealthy pathways. When your brain comes back “on-line”, you can then access the more healthy pathways or loops in your brain. Through the process of ketamine therapy your brain will start to grow new connections, re-wire and strengthen the healthy patterns that we are trying to maintain.

WHY CHOOSE US?

Integration: Our team includes clinicians trained in ketamine medical administration, ketamine assisted psychotherapy, psychotropic medication management, TMS, additional psychotherapeutic modalities (e.g., EMDR, CBT), and more. Employing a collaborative team of clinicians under one roof improves client outcomes.

Location: With convenient access to I-64 and I-264, we are within a 15 minute drive from most of Hampton Roads. Given driving restrictions post-treatment, our central location and ease of access makes receiving treatment seamless.

Support: We offer options for therapy within treatment sessions, either from one of our trained ketamine assisted psychotherapists or your own external therapist. We offer individual treatment rooms with space for a support person, be it a therapist, family member, or friend. We will provide comfortable reclining chairs, eye masks, noise cancelling headphones, and music recommendations to enhance your treatment experience.

Affordable: Our most recent prices can be seen here.