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Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy: A New Path to Healing
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May 18, 2025
Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy: A New Path to Healing Kelly Ohoro and Dr. Eddie Shahnaz share how ketamine helps reduce anxiety during trauma work—making space for real breakthroughs. 🎧 Full episode on Adaptable | Behavior Explained 👉 https://youtu.be/9BnyML27cUY #KetamineTherapy #MentalHealthAwareness #TraumaHealing #EMDR #AdaptableBehaviorExplained
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can you talk about a client yeah so I'm
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thinking of one particular client who
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for years and years has just had the
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worst sleep regardless of you know
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medication that they've been on whether
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that's benzo or hypnotics or
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anti-depressants anti-anxiety meds um
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has been through a plethora of therapy
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EMDR processing um pretty significant
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trauma history and sleep has always been
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the biggest challenge so for a very long
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time she kind of resisted you know
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whether or not ketamine was the right
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thing feeling very anxious about you
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know the dissociation that could occur
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and what that would look like for her
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it's a dissociative so that's that's
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happening yes um so once she went
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through the full six sessions she has
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actually um gotten off of most of her
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medication the most important thing
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she's gotten off of her sleep meds so
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right now we're just doing supportive
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care and she's doing wonderful and she's
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able to shut her brain off at night
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she's able to sleep through the night
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and she doesn't have you know that fight
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or flight right is just it's turned off
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a little bit she's able to sit within
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herself and you know when triggers come
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up she's able to identify what it is
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that's bothering her and not ruminate
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about it right before she sleeps right
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there's more space between that stimulus
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and her response so that she can kind of
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attest to the truth of her current
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reality right right so awesome you know
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I think that it got a lot of buzz
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because my experience has been you know
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the the big uh the big push for ketamine
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assisted psychotherapy started with
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ketamine clinics that are primarily run
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by anesthesiologists and so they don't
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have any mental health training
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background integrative work with trauma
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like yeah they know how to administer a
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medication but they don't understand
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that like um a lot of this trauma
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happened in the absence of a caregiver
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that was supportive or safe and so if
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they're going into an associative state
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in a dark room by themselves that's
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terrifying and so I became interested in
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becoming trained primarily because we
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were kind of cleaning up the mess of
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people who had gone that route desperate
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for help desperate for support and at
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the same time you know they got the
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autonomic nervous system reset but they
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were kind of additionally traumatized by
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the experience because they felt alone
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and sometimes you feel a little
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untethered in that experience and I mean
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it's so beautiful to be able to put your
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hand out and have someone who's a
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grounding element of safety and trust
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and support with you in that experience
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so maybe talk to us a little bit about
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any clients you've had that have gone
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either route and what their experiences
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have been so similarly I've had clients
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that have gone gone through like the
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intravenous ketamine process right and
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both that were you know um suicidal at
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the time depressed or having really
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significant trauma responses and their
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experience has been completely different
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you know doing the intravenous versus
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doing like the oral or the intramuscular
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route with a therapist actually going
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through the reintegration process
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whereas when they did the intravenous
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route it was exactly what you said they
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went in there they did the treatment and
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that was it there was no no followup to
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that and so they weren't able to process
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what they experienced and those memories
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and feelings and emotions they just kind
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of sat with those and that's not really
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beneficial we we're not bringing like
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you know heart to mind and connecting
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the body to the mind and I and the other
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thing I love about it is I I really
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believe in the triad of healing you know
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it's mental it's physical it's spiritual
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and I think the part of this this that
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gives us access to this other dimension
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of imagination and you know elements of
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the experience that that as a therapist
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I don't I would never even consider
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saying and also how dare I because who
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am I to say what your spiritual you know
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travel should look like and so for the
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fact that this gives us access to like
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that inner self in a way that just talk
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therapy or bottomup therapies just don't
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give us access to to me has been so
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beautiful and and I know that in my own
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experience um and I'll share a little
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bit about it i um one of my sessions I
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was I was trying to figure out it was
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actually input from one of my sons he
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says "Mom you come in too hot you've got
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all these opinions about what it is you
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think I need to be doing and what I make
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up about it is you don't trust me that
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I'll figure it out or if I do mess up
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that I'll be able to be resilient enough
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to figure it out and I was like whoa
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that's a hard message as a mom to hear
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and he's so right and so I I you know he
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told me that in between our first and
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our second experience and I went in and
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I was like I need to explore this
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because the last thing that I want is
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for someone that I love to feel
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reluctant to come to me about things
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because of the because of the way that I
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you know in a way make it about me
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because I'm anxious that he's going to
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have a hard thing and I try to insert my
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opinion and I don't stay in my lane and
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all of those things and so I went in and
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I was like "What is the part of me that
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does that
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