Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy
A pathway to openness, healing, and integration
Discover how KAP can help loosen ingrained patterns and create space for compassion, curiosity, and connection.
Request AppointmentWhat is Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy?
Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) offers a different way of working with emotions that feel stuck or overwhelming. Ketamine can help loosen ingrained patterns and open space for contact with feelings, memories, and perspectives. Many people describe being able to see themselves and their relationships with more openness, compassion, and curiosity.
KAP at Center for Modern Therapy
Our mission at Center for Modern Therapy is to help individuals and couples find understanding, growth, and balance in the complex lives we lead in today’s world. KAP extends this mission by offering another way to support insight and growth alongside traditional talk therapy.
We approach ketamine work with:
- A steady therapeutic relationship you can rely on before, during, and after sessions
- Curiosity rather than expectation about what you “should” experience
- Respect for the mind-body connection
- A focus on helping you integrate insights into change
Who Can Benefit
Depression, including treatment-resistant depression
Anxiety and chronic worry
Trauma-related symptoms
Rigid or self-critical thought patterns
Loss of meaning, creativity, or connection
People who tend to benefit often have a motivation to work deeply in therapy and are curious about their inner world. We will work with you to assess whether KAP is a good fit for you.
What to Expect
Assessment
We begin with an assessment session to assess suitability, clarify goals, and answer questions about the process.
Preparation Sessions
We meet for two or more preparation sessions to build rapport, identify therapeutic intentions, and practice grounding strategies.
Medicine Sessions
Sessions take place in a calm, supportive environment with an experienced KAP therapist present throughout. You remain reclined with eyeshades and music. Your therapist stays engaged, tracking your emotional and physical needs, and offering gentle support when appropriate.
Integration Sessions
Following each medicine session, we meet to process emotions, insights, and shifts in perspective. Integration work helps crystallize the experience and translate it into change.
How Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy Works
KAP brings together the neurobiological effects of ketamine and the reflective work of psychotherapy. Ketamine can temporarily shift how the brain processes emotion, memory, and self-related thinking. This shift often creates more flexibility, allowing people to approach long-standing patterns with a sense of curiosity rather than avoidance or resignation.
Here are a couple of the ways researchers and clinicians understand how KAP works:
Neuroplasticity
Ketamine can increase neuroplasticity, the brain’s capacity to form new connections. Research led by Gül Dölen, MD, PhD showed that psychedelics—including ketamine—can reopen “critical periods” for social learning. These are sensitive developmental windows when the brain is especially responsive to new experiences and relationships. In KAP, this may translate into a temporary period where emotional learning and relational shifts happen more readily, especially when paired with therapeutic support.
This phenomenon has been described as a fresh snowfall on deep, icy sled tracks (thoughts/behaviors/patterns) that makes it easier to choose new, healthier pathways instead of dropping into the same ruts.
Perspective Shifts
The dissociative, dreamlike quality of ketamine can create distance from rigid self-criticism, survival-driven defenses, or habitual thought loops. This new perspective can make it easier to see emotions more clearly, recall memories with less overwhelm, or approach challenges with a fresh lens.
In short, ketamine often creates a temporary opening. Psychotherapy helps make use of that opening to help you achieve your goals.
Next Steps
If you are curious about whether KAP may be right for you, a brief consultation is the next step. You do not need prior experience with non-ordinary states of consciousness, only need a willingness to explore your inner world.
Click “Request Appointment” to schedule a call to learn more about ketamine-assisted therapy at Center for Modern Therapy, including pricing and insurance coverage.
Request Appointment