Therapy Intensives
Intensives: Ketamine Assisted Brainspotting
Are you looking for a different kind of therapy? Do you feel like you’ve tried the alphabet of treatments: CBT, ACT, DBT and nothing has created meaningful or lasting change and relief?
Maybe when you were younger, and felt powerless, you developed thoughts about yourself and others - or reactions and behaviors that kept you safe then but are no longer working for you.
You’ve done enough therapy to learn that these patterns are no longer serving your highest self now, but no matter how much you talk it through—you just can’t figure out how to implement the skills when shit hits the fan and you are triggered.
If you are looking to:
Experience deep transformation and healing from trauma or C-PTSD
Reduce suffering from relentless anxiety & depression
Alleviate symptoms of burnout
Settle your nervous system so you are not always waiting for the other shoe to drop
Build new neural pathways to create new habits and ways of thinking
Change lifelong patterns
Low-dose Ketamine assisted Brainspotting could be the tool you have been waiting for. Clients may benefit from as little as a single two hour session, and some clients may need a series of sessions for deeper emotional processing.
What is low-dose ketamine-assisted Brainspotting therapy?
Low dose ketamine (also referred to as a psycholytic) allows our protector parts, our internal defenses, to stand down while we do the work in brainspotting. You may experience a shift in deeply entrenched patterns of behavior, trauma, or negative and limiting self-beliefs.
You may experience an immediate release from anxiety or it may be more gradual, where you notice one day that you respond differently to triggers and are not immediately bracing for the worst case scenario.
How does Brainspotting therapy work?
Brainspotting is a somatic therapy where we identify a spot (or spots) in your field of vision which connects to a distressing sensation, memory or event. The general idea is that by holding a specific eye position we drop deep into the subcortex. Accessing the subcortex allows us to make connections and metabolize trauma more gently and rapidly than with talk therapy alone, which is limited to the neocortex or thinking brain.
There are many ways to do this in session - to include using a pointer, nature, or gaze spotting - and then noticing where you feel the activation in your body. Many people find immediate relief and uncover answers from Brainspotting alone.
However, for some, the trauma or nervous system has kept us hypervigilant for so long that we cannot make a shift with a single modality. This is where low-dose ketamine-assisted Brainspotting can make an impact.
What is ketamine?
Ketamine is an atypical psychedelic that has been historically used as an anesthetic and analgesic, and has been used for close to 60 years. It is the only psychedelic that is approved by the FDA and legal in all 50 states.
It can be self-administered in low doses through prescription and allows clients to access non-ordinary states of consciousness. This helps clients access deeper emotional processing and increases neuroplasticity (which allows for rewiring of the brain). One study of 6 trials showed a remission rate for depressive symptoms of 24% at day 7 after low-dose ketamine administration*.
*Xu Y, Hackett M, Carter G, Loo C, Gálvez V, Glozier N, Glue P, Lapidus K, McGirr A, Somogyi AA, Mitchell PB, Rodgers A. Effects of Low-Dose and Very Low-Dose Ketamine among Patients with Major Depression: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Int J Neuropsychopharmacol. 2016 Apr 20;19(4):pyv124. doi: 10.1093/ijnp/pyv124. PMID: 26578082; PMCID: PMC4851268.
What is the process like for setting up this kind of intensive therapy?
Submit an inquiry and we will schedule a free consultation to see if this might be a good fit for you and to answer any questions you may have.
If you choose to proceed, we will schedule an intake appointment. During this time I will get more information regarding your psychological, social, emotional and family history, and we will clearly define what you would like to target during your intensive. We will review the benefits (and contraindications) for the use of ketamine.
Then I will connect you with my colleague from Avesta Ketamine and Wellness to schedule a consultation appointment. The cost for this is $250 but they take several commercial insurances so you may only have a co-pay.
Next we will do a brainspotting only session to prepare you for what to expect during the ketamine experience.
After medical clearance, a prescription can be sent to you or you can pick it up at a pharmacy. You will take the lozenge in the office and over the course of two hours we will brainspot for approximately one hour, harnessing ketamine’s calming properties to address difficult to process issues that are holding you back followed by processing themes that come up.
We will then have a follow up appointment to integrate the session, rewire old patterns, and create lasting change.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is the cost for an intensive?
$1015 for one series. This includes a 75 minute intake, a 60 minute preparation brainspotting session, a 2 hour combined ketamine assisted brainspotting session, and a 60 minute integration session.
How many sessions are needed?
You can do a single two-hour session with ketamine-assisted brainspotting - but for multiple, chronic or complex traumatic events, you may find additional sessions are beneficial.
What is the difference between high-dose and low-dose ketamine?
High-dose ketamine usually involves a dose that is higher than 100 mg and is administered intravenously, intramuscularly or with a nasal spray. Due to the dissociative properties on a high dose journey, a concurrent intervention such as brainspotting is contraindicated.
By using a low-dose of ketamine, we are still able to work during the journey to process trauma and content intentionally.
