Ketamine Assisted Therapy + the Brain
The Science Behind Ketamine Assisted Therapy and Its Effectiveness
The brain is one of our most vital and complex organs in our bodies. An article shared by John Hopkins Medicine explains that the brain “controls thought, memory, emotion, touch, motor skills, vision, breathing, temperature, hunger and every process that regulates our body.” Everything that happens to us starts in the brain. This is why it is so important to keep our brains healthy and try to repair damage that can result from stress and anxiety.
Ketamine Assisted Therapy starts when a trained practitioner administers ketamine to a patient to help interrupt their thought patterns and allows for the brain to reprogram. According to the DEA, Ketamine is a “‘dissociative anesthetic hallucinogen’ because it makes patients feel detached from their pain and environment.” Using this medication gives a person the opportunity to separate themselves from their thoughts and the bodily feelings attached to the thoughts. This process is a temporary pause in the brain functioning which provides time for practitioners to use psychotherapy techniques to explore a patient’s experiences of trauma. During this time we are able to unlock the trapped experiences and help release them. The process of surrendering to the medicine allows people to unattach from their ego. Most of us spend our whole lives creating and defending our ego — our ego contains narratives about who we are, what we look like, who we can trust, what we are good at, etc. These narratives often hold us back with distortions like, “I am not good at things, I should do more, I can't do this, what's the point, the world can be dangerous.” With psychedelics, we can learn to leave our ego and realize we are part of a higher power, or the energy of the universe, and that energy we only get to borrow in this form for a short period of time before we die — so the conflicts which drive our ego (our need for petty affirmations, attachment to unfairness, etc.) don't seem so important any more. This is the kind of therapy that would take years if not done under the influence of psychedelics. It connects us to something greater, helps us fear our own death less, connects to our ancestors, and makes us realize we are worthy at all times while transcending the often distorted narrative we have created for ourselves.
To understand this process, it is important to look at the brain and its functioning. The brain is responsible for recognizing stress and alerting the body to respond. It is the job of the amygdala to receive the information and send a message to the hypothalamus if there is a potential threat as it is described in an article from Harvard Health Publishing at the Harvard School of Medicine. The hypothalamus will then send the message to the nervous system and the body will release adrenaline and cortisol in response. We feel this happening to our bodies when we experience something stressful and feel like it affects our safety. Over time, too much of this stress response can cause irreparable damage and result in several health problems such as anxiety, depression, and physical symptoms which are described in more detail by the Mayo Clinic in an article published about chronic stress. Using ketamine we are able to reprogram the response and help alleviate further damage.
Ketamine is being used by mental health professionals to heal patients from anxiety, trauma, depression and PTSD. Patients who have been resistant to healing through the use of traditional medications prescribed noticed a dramatic change in as few as one session. In a March 2021 TED Hour Radio show with Rick Doblin, he shares “Psychedelic psychotherapy is an attempt to go after the root causes of the problems with just a relatively few administrations, as contrasted to most of the psychiatric drugs used today that are mostly just reducing symptoms and are meant to be taken on a daily basis.” Doblin is a psychedelic-assisted psychotherapist and is also the founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). His research and work with psychedelics is providing the mental health community with valuable knowledge and insight into how we can help our patients.
Some of the benefits we are seeing with patients undergoing ketamine assisted therapy are:
Healing trauma responses in the body much quicker than talk therapy alone.
Being able to separate themselves from their experiences, shift their perspective and form new connections with themselves and the people in their lives.
Releasing the trauma that is trapped in our bodies and the unhelpful thoughts associated with the experience.
Having a safe environment to connect to their thoughts in a more productive way.
At Hampton Insight, we have seen patients who were looking to make a change and who felt stuck in their current reality. After one session, many felt a significant mindset shift and also having a deeper connection with themselves. In a recent article published in The London Times, a patient named Chloe shared, “It’s the whole thing with letting go of your ego and accepting what’s going on.” She came to our office after experiencing anxiety and after one session was able to work towards repairing family relationships with an open mind. Yung Pueblo writes, “The greatest adversary of the ego is change because the ego arises out of the craving to survive, which means it will attempt to control and keep things the same.” Ketamine Assisted Therapy gives patients the opportunity to disconnect from their ego and make intentional changes from a more open and loving perspective. The ego is Latin for “I” and is defined in an article published by BetterHelp as, “The part of the psyche responsible for our sense of self and our ability to interact with the outside world. It is generally thought to be the part of the self that is most closely connected to reality and our sense of self-awareness.”
In Thich Nhat Hanh’s book The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation, he writes “Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free.” Being able to let go of the unproductive thoughts and feelings makes space for new connections and to repair relationships.
We are still learning about the long term effects of ketamine treatments and are excited about the possibilities it has given to the mental health community. There are some amazing results from the studies by organizations like MAPs which has done and continues to do extensive research using psychedelics for mental health. Ketamine Assisted Therapy is providing relief for people with chronic conditions of anxiety, stress, PTSD, depression and pain. We are able to help treat patients who have been suffering and heal the brain in a new and innovative way.