Ketamine with psychotherapy has shown researched-based efficacy “… for a wide variety of psychiatric diagnoses and human difficulties, significantly diminishing depression, anxiety, and PTSD and increasing well-being” (Dore et al., 2019).

Ketamine effects the Default Mode Network, the part of the brain that holds our habituated perceptions and assumptions of ourselves and the world. We have “brain-maps”, based on our experiences, conscious and un-conscious, that foment reactions and emotions to current experiences. When we have had overwhelming experiences, either repeatedly, as in the case of childhood adversity, intimate partner violence, or abusive work conditions, or only one significant trauma, like a car crash, the brain holds this information in the subcortical brain as “important.” The brain clings to overwhelming experiences in an effort to predict and manage any similar experience in the future- the brain is a predictive and protective organ.

​Unfortunately, the emotions and aversions created by adverse experiences are often better left behind. Yet, no amount of wishing away, or thinking away the traumatic memory shows efficacy. Symptoms from adverse experiences include overwhelming emotion, reactive behavior, sleep disturbances, depression, anxiety, intrusive thoughts, nightmares, and a host of other horrible experiences. Ketamine creates changes in the brain- neurogenesis- allowing the old maps to be re-made (Nardou, et al. 2021).

"...finding that subanesthetic-dose ketamine induced rapid and robust antidepressant effects, an outcome previously unheard of with traditional monoaminergic-based therapeutics. These rapid-acting effects were subsequently replicated in participants with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and bipolar depression, with remission rates significantly higher than those of traditional antidepressants." Jenessa, et al., 2023