Ketamine-Assisted Therapy
Serving clients virtually in California, Washington, and locally in Berkeley
Ketamine-Assisted Therapy (KAP) works with trauma stored in the nervous system—patterns shaped by early experiences, systemic stress, and intergenerational wounds. As ketamine softens protective defenses and expands inner awareness, people can meet sensations, emotions, and implicit memories with greater compassion and curiosity, often reconnecting with a deep sense of resilience.
As old burdens loosen, many experience greater ease, presence, and trust in themselves—allowing life to move forward with more clarity and alignment.
Benefits of KAP:
KAP is particularly beneficial if you feel stuck in traditional therapy or struggle to make progress or meaningful change in your life.
- Healing Trauma: Gently releases deep-rooted trauma, softening protective and defensive mechanisms.
-Mood Disorder Relief: Provides lasting relief from PTSD, OCD, depression, and anxiety when other treatments fall short.
-Emotional & Nervous System Regulation: Improves resilience and regulation, helping manage stress, anxiety, and emotional overwhelm.
-Emotional Clarity: Clears emotional blockages, enhancing self-awareness.
-Body Awareness: Strengthens mind-body connection and emotional attunement.
-Spiritual Growth: Deepens intuition, self-discovery, and connection to your authentic self.
-Connection to Oneness: Facilitates experiences of spiritual awakening, oneness, and connection to the divine, universe, and earth.
My Approach To KAP
A central part of how I work in KAP is helping clients identify the core beliefs shaped by trauma, conditioning, lived experience, and long-standing self-criticism. Together, we clarify these wounded narratives and consciously reshape them into healing messages that reflect compassion, truth, and self-understanding.
During KAP sessions, I use guided meditation and visualization informed by these healing messages. As ketamine supports increased neuroplasticity and softens rigid patterns, clients are able to receive these messages more deeply—often experiencing them not just cognitively, but emotionally and somatically. When appropriate and with clear consent, I may also offer gentle, trauma-informed touch—such as craniosacral holds—to support the nervous system in releasing stored tension and trauma from the body. Many people report profound shifts in self-relationship, including greater self-compassion, forgiveness, clarity, and a felt sense of connection to themselves, the natural world, and something greater than oneself.
FAQs
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KAP blends the neuroplasticity-enhancing effects of ketamine with somatic and mindfulness-based psychotherapy. It supports deep emotional healing by helping you reconnect with your body, release trauma, and access your innate wholeness.
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Your journey begins with a 50 min intake session to assess appropriateness for KAP, clarify treatment goals, and determine if its a good fit. You’ll then meet with the prescribing medical provider for a medical consultation. Once you are medically cleared for KAP, we can begin preparation sessions before your first ketamine lozenge session.
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You’ll take a lozenge in a safe, supportive setting while lying down with an eye mask and music. I’ll be present the entire time, supporting you somatically and relationally.
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Everyone’s healing path is unique. You are required to commit to a minimum of 3 preparation sessions, 3 ketamine lozenge sessions, and 3 integration session. For complex trauma I recommend a minimum of 6 ketamine lozenge sessions.
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KAP may be helpful if you’re dealing with depression, anxiety, PTSD, OCD, or life transitions and want a deeply integrative and body-based approach. During the medical consultation the medical prescriber will determine if KAP is an appropriate treatment for you.
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I am currently out-of-network and do not bill insurance directly. However, I can provide superbills for you to submit to your insurance for potential reimbursement.
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Ketamine sessions are held in-person in Berkeley, CA or virtually throughout California and Washington. Preparation and integration sessions are held via telehealth.
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Please refer to the KAP Fees & Policies page.
The KAP Treatment Path
Step 1: Intake Session: If we decide to work together, we’ll schedule an intake session to assess your mental health history, treatment goals, and collaborate on a treatment plan.
Step 2: Schedule a medical consultation to be cleared medically for KAP.
Step 3: Preparation Sessions
-We’ll meet weekly for a minimum of 3 preparation sessions (50 minutes telehealth). During this time we’ll clarify goals, customize a treatment plan, prepare for your experience, practice coping skills, and do small bodies of therapeutic work to prepare your for the medicine sessions.
Step 4: Ketamine Medicine Sessions
-KAP sessions are 1, 2, or 3 hours long depending on your treatment plan. These sessions can be held in-person in my office in Berkeley, CA or via telehealth.
Step 5: Integration Sessions
-A few days after each medicine session we will meet virtually for an integration session (50 minutes telehealth) to unpack and extract the meaning making and insight of your medicine experience.
Who is a Good Candidate for KAP?
You may be a good fit for KAP if you:
• Struggle with depression, anxiety, PTSD/trauma, OCD, or PMDD and want to explore healing beyond conventional talk therapy.
• Feel stuck in emotional patterns or trauma responses that keep you disconnected from yourself or others.
• Are drawn to integrative, holistic, or spiritual approaches that go beyond just reducing symptoms.
• Want to explore somatic healing—connecting with your body’s wisdom and nervous system regulation as part of your therapy.
• Are seeking a therapeutic experience rooted in deep presence, relational healing, and expanded awareness.
How Does Ketamine Work?
Ketamine isn’t just a medicine—it’s a doorway. A doorway out of isolation, out of looping thought patterns, out of old stories that keep you feeling stuck. Unlike traditional antidepressants that work by increasing serotonin, ketamine acts on the glutamate system, stimulating neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to form new pathways. These changes can interrupt the grip of depression, anxiety, and trauma, often bringing relief within hours instead of weeks.
By quieting the overactive parts of the brain that keep us stuck in rumination and self-protection, ketamine helps soften rigid thought patterns and defensive mechanisms. It can open space for emotional flexibility, fresh perspective, and a felt sense of connection—often the very things that feel out of reach in daily life. Ketamine may open the door, but it’s in the therapeutic relationship and integration process where the real transformation takes root.
The Ketamine Experience
The ketamine experience varies for each person and is shaped by dose, mindset, and intention. At lower therapeutic doses, ketamine relaxes the body and mind, softens protective defenses, and allows greater access to emotion and insight. Clients may experience a shift in perception, emotional clarity, or relief from longstanding blocks that once felt immovable.
At higher psychedelic doses, ketamine facilitates a more inward, expansive journey. The usual sense of time, identity, or physical form may soften, creating space for deep personal exploration and profound connection—whether to the self, to others, to nature, or to something greater. Clients often describe this state as peaceful, spacious, or spiritually meaningful, with the potential to release old wounds and experience a renewed sense of wholeness.
Ketamine-Assisted EMDR Therapy
Low-dose ketamine can be thoughtfully combined with EMDR to support deeper and more fluid trauma processing. In these extended 90–120 minute sessions, ketamine helps soften protective defenses and increase cognitive and emotional flexibility, while EMDR supports the reprocessing of traumatic memories in a structured, integrative way. This approach can allow material that feels stuck or difficult to access to be worked with more gently, often supporting greater ease, insight, and nervous system settling.
This approach draws from the Ketamine-Assisted EMDR Therapy™ model developed by Danielle Ciccone, LPCC, LMHC, and Michele Topel, LPC, LCPC.
Cycle-Timed Ketamine-Assisted Therapy for Hormone-Related Mental Health
Cycle-timed Ketamine-Assisted Therapy is a specialized offering for individuals whose mental health symptoms are closely linked to hormonal shifts across the menstrual cycle. Sessions are intentionally timed to periods when distress tends to intensify—such as the luteal phase—to support emotional regulation, reduce overwhelm, and create greater internal steadiness.
This approach combines ketamine-assisted therapy with trauma-informed support, including somatic psychotherapy, parts work, and distress-tolerance tools, helping clients navigate hormone-related mood changes with more care, clarity, and self-compassion.
→ Learn more about cycle-timed KAP for PMDD and PME by clicking the link below.
Client Testimonials
“After years of feeling on edge, I finally feel a deep sense of safety and ease in my body—I’m no longer living in constant hypervigilance.”
“KAP helped me reconnect with my body in a compassionate way—I feel more grounded and my relationship to pain has completely shifted.”
“For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel alone—I felt part of something greater, like I belonged to the universe itself.”
Ready to Dive In ?
I offer a free 20-minute consultation to learn more about my approach and services, and see if its a good fit.