Ketamine & Cannabis Assisted Therapy

Ketamine & Cannabis Assisted Therapy2023-02-15T16:54:02+00:00

I offer Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) and Cannabis Assisted Therapy in-person in my Orlando office.

Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy or KAP is, above all, an intensive psychotherapy that gets to core feelings and rewires emotional memories.

Ketamine lowers anxiety and helps us bypass defenses, giving us access to deep feelings. At one time we needed the protection of defenses and anxiety, but today they are activated automatically, underneath our awareness, and keep us stuck. Once they are soothed, a natural healing orientation is released.

Researchers have called this ‘inner healing intelligence’, but we think of it as a human’s innate orientation to healing, connection, empowerment and curiosity, so clear in childhood but stifled in difficult or traumatic development. KAP certainly also has a psychedelic component, that releases us from those stuck pathways, probably through temporary modulation of a specific serotonergic gate; and it also enhances new learning through glutamine mechanisms, so that we can quickly learn new habits.

The Process

Contact Wendy Kimelman for Ketamine Assisted Therapy

1. Contact Me

Reach out to me to express your interest in KAP. We’ll have a brief phone conversation and set up an initial therapy session.
Exploratory Session with Wendy Kimelman before starting Ketamine Assisted Therapy

2. Exploratory Sessions

We meet for three or four sessions to explore your goals for KAP and to ensure that it’s the right fit for you. These include assessing and establishing coping strategies that will support you as you move through the process. You must have a robust ability to access and use your resources prior to beginning KAP.
Evaluation by a Ketamine prescriber is the third step in the process of KAP

3. Evaluation from a Prescriber

You’ll need to have a prescription from a qualified physician. I will provide referral information for an evaluation from a qualified physician or Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner.

4. The Medication Session

Medicine assisted therapy sessions are scheduled for 4 hours in duration but can take less time. You’ll bring your own medicine to the session and consume it based on your doctor’s recommendation. All clients must have a driver to bring them to and pick them up from sessions. The driver will meet me and provide me with contact information prior to the session.

5. Integration Sessions

After each KAP session, we will do an integration session to process anything that came up during the KAP session. Generally after 6-8 oral ketamine sessions, many clients report feeling less anxious, less depressed, less reactive, and better able to manage stress and triggers to their autonomic nervous system.

It is important to remember that every client experiences KAP differently.

These sessions are highly tailored to your nervous system to provide you support and insight, using your body’s natural healing ability to make new neural connections and heal scars of previous trauma living in your nervous system.

We can also work with your existing therapist if you already engage in therapy to allow the established relationship you have created with your therapist to advance the healing process.

I am happy to tailor the process to allow integration to happen with your current therapist after we move through a few integration sessions of our own. We want to use all of the resources you have learned over time to enhance your healing journey.

Investment

Medication assisted sessions are $650 (3-4 hour session) and integration/preparation sessions are $150 per session.

Pathway in the sunset, finding a new direction after Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy with Wendy Kimelman in Orlando, FL

Ketamine’s Effects

Neurobiological 

  • Neuroplasticity in human reward pathways ↑
  • Anti-inflammatory effects
  • Lateral habenuola bursting
  • Effects on hippocampus and prefrontal cortex
  • Neuroplasticity in thalamocortical circuits ↑

Clinical

  • Anhedonia ↓
  • Social avoidance ↓
  • Rejection Sensitivity ↓
  • Pessimistic thinking ↓
  • Specific cognitive deficits
  • Perception ↑ Memory ↑

Psychological

  • Reinforcement learning ↑
  • Therapeutic bond ↑
  • Bias toward negative information ↓
  • Disruption of fear memory
  • Personality dimension openness ↑

With Psychotherapy

  • Behavioral activation
  • Interpersonal psychotherapy, etc.
  • Cognitive bias modification
  • Trauma-focused psychotherapies
  • Humanistic psychotherapies
Reach Out Today

Thoughts from Wendy

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