Exploring Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy: Healing, Insight, and Identity

If you’ve been struggling with depression, anxiety, trauma, identity shifts, disordered eating, or a sense of disconnection from yourself, you’ve likely heard about Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP). But what does it actually involve? And how is it different from casual ketamine use or ceremonies you might see online?

As a therapist in Sherman Oaks, I offer KAP both in person and virtually (when appropriate), in a safe, supportive private-practice environment. This guide will give you a clear, grounded understanding of what KAP is, who it helps, and what you can expect if you choose to explore it.

---

What Is Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy?

KAP combines low-dose ketamine with psychotherapy to create a uniquely open, flexible mental state. Ketamine temporarily softens the patterns that feel rigid or repetitive, allowing therapy to reach places that have long been protected or inaccessible.

This isn’t a party drug experience and it isn’t a free-form ceremony. It’s a structured, intentional therapeutic process where your therapist guides, supports, and anchors you through the experience and the meaning-making that follows.

---

How Ketamine Works in the Brain — And Why Therapy Deepens Its Impact

Ketamine works differently from traditional antidepressants. Instead of adjusting serotonin, it targets glutamate, the neurotransmitter involved in learning, emotional processing, and forming new neural pathways.

Here’s what happens under the surface:

• Ketamine briefly blocks NMDA receptors, creating a surge in glutamate activity.
  
• That surge stimulates the release of BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), a protein that strengthens neural connections and supports healing.
  
• The brain enters a state of increased neuroplasticity, becoming more flexible and capable of shifting old beliefs, patterns, and emotional loops.
  

This softening can feel like emotional “armor” loosening. Thoughts that were cemented feel more spacious. Protective patterns feel less gripping.

But ketamine only opens the window.
Therapy is what helps you step through it.

During the hours and days after a session, the brain is especially receptive. With skilled therapeutic support, insights deepen, patterns shift, and new emotional or identity footing becomes possible.

---

Who Can Benefit From KAP?

KAP can be especially supportive for people who:

• Have depression or anxiety that hasn’t responded fully to traditional treatment
  
• Carry unresolved trauma, including reproductive trauma or loss
  
• Feel stuck in postpartum identity changes
  
• Experience rigid self-criticism or looping thought patterns
  
• Struggle with eating disorders or body distrust
  
• Feel detached from themselves or meaning after years of striving or achievement
  

Many clients describe KAP as a “reset” that lets them reconnect with parts of themselves they haven’t accessed in years.

---

How KAP Supports Women’s Unique Emotional Journeys

Reproductive Trauma & Infertility

Years of trying, medical interventions, or pregnancy loss can teach the nervous system to brace for disappointment. KAP helps loosen that long-held vigilance, making space to process grief, rebuild trust in your body, and reconnect with hope and emotion safely.

Postpartum Identity Shifts

After birth, many people feel disoriented by who they are now. KAP supports exploration of identity, softens self-criticism, and helps integrate the “before” and “after” versions of self during this profound transition.

Eating Disorders & Body Distrust

Ketamine can interrupt shame-based thoughts long enough for therapy to take deeper root. With guided integration, clients often find compassion, flexibility, and a more humane connection to their bodies.

Feeling Detached or Disconnected

For clients who have spent years pushing, striving, and achieving, KAP can create space to ask:
What actually matters to me now?
It supports reconnecting with values, desire, authenticity, and meaning.

---

What a KAP Session Looks Like

Preparation

We begin with grounding, intention-setting, and reviewing safety. You’ll clarify what you hope to explore or understand. For clients using virtual KAP, we also set up medical and emotional safety protocols.

The Medicine Session

You’ll receive a carefully controlled dose while resting comfortably. Many people use eye shades or music to turn inward. I remain present throughout — not directing, but supporting.
The medicine experience itself lasts about 45 minutes, with 15–30 minutes of guided reflection beforehand.

Integration

Once the medicine softens, we shift into integration — about 45 minutes of processing insights, emotions, sensations, IFS material, and anything that surfaces.
This is where real change takes shape.
A full session usually runs 2–2.5 hours.

---

How Long Does KAP Treatment Usually Last?

People are often surprised to learn that KAP isn’t meant to be a never-ending treatment. It’s typically a short-term, focused container designed to create movement where things have felt stuck for a long time. Most clients work within a 6–12 session framework, though this varies based on your goals, history, and how your mind responds to the medicine.

A typical course might include:

• 1–2 preparation sessions to set goals, clarify intentions, and make sure KAP is appropriate
  
• 4–6 ketamine sessions spaced one to two weeks apart
  
• Integration sessions immediately after each dose to help insights land in your daily life
  
• Optional maintenance sessions for clients who find they benefit from periodic tune-ups
  

Research with strict ketamine treatment (medicine only) shows maximal impact with approximately 6-8 sessions over 3-4 weeks (typically 2 sessions per week), but with KAP there is more support, processing, and integration, so it is often spaced out to allow clients to go deeper and make meaning of the material that comes up during medicine sessions. Some people feel major shifts after just a few sessions; others prefer a slower, more spacious approach. The goal is to help you unlock insight, soften rigid emotional patterns, reconnect with yourself, and move forward with clarity and steadiness at the cadence that is most manageable in your life.

---

Why Professional Guidance Matters

It’s tempting to try ketamine casually or in ceremonial settings, but there’s a difference between unsupervised experiences and KAP:

• Intentionality: KAP is guided by your goals and therapeutic work, not just the medicine. Your therapist can help you focus your goals, and then weave in tools that best support those goals during session.
  
• Safety: Dosing, monitoring, and protocols are all designed to ensure safety, stability, and the best framework for integrated therapeutic work.
  
• Support: You’re not alone navigating intense emotions — your therapist is there to help process and integrate them. A properly trained therapist will not only be able to help navigate any material that comes up, but can help you take advantage of the cognitive flexibility window that ketamine offers by pulling in internal family systems work (IFS), somatic therapy, and more.
  

---

Integrating Change

KAP is a powerful tool, accessing both medicinal and psychological tools to help foster real change. But it is easy to lose the benefits without intentional integration. It is imperative to reflect on the work you do and weave changes into your daily life while the window of flexibility is still open (especially the 36-48 hours following session). Integration is what turns insights into real-life shifts. What does this look like? Journaling, mindfulness, and talk therapy help translate in-session experiences into meaningful change, whether that’s processing trauma, reshaping identity, easing postpartum transitions, or reconnecting with yourself after years of striving.

---

Is KAP Right for You?

KAP isn’t for everyone, but it can be deeply meaningful if you’re ready for emotional exploration, identity work, and integration. Many clients find it accelerates healing in ways traditional talk therapy alone cannot.

If you’re curious, I offer consultations in my Sherman Oaks practice — and virtually when appropriate — to help you explore whether KAP may support your healing journey.