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
1. Contact Me
2. Exploratory Sessions
3. Evaluation from a Prescriber
4. The Medication Session
5. Integration Sessions
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.
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
Thoughts from Wendy
“It’s hard, I can’t” and other things that get in my way
Sometimes I find myself with an overwhelming feeling that I can’t do something. It is a really powerful experience! [read more]
Good Enough
As I move around the world, I am constantly struck by the messages that define what makes us good enough. I hear messages of not good enough every day in my office with my clients. [read more]
Movies Reframe Life
I love movies! There is nothing I like more than going into a dark cool movie theater, with my favorite snacks and losing myself for 2 hours in the words and images of artists. [read more]