At the Woodstock Therapy Center, we support clients in accessing their innate ability to heal and grow. However, many clients find that psychotherapy alone does not get them as far as they would like in their healing process. One of the tools we’ve found to be the most powerful when a client feels “stuck” or unable to see progress with their depression, anxiety, or trauma is Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy.
Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (known as KAP) uses a safe, legal medicine called ketamine as an adjunct to psychotherapy. Ketamine works in two ways to help clients heal; it gently brings clients into an altered state of consciousness where processing difficult material may become easier, clients may also experience a psychedelic-like journey into deeper parts of themselves.
Ketamine also has a positive impact on the brain itself. Ketamine targets the neurotransmitter glutamate, a different neurotransmitter than the ones impacted by typical antidepressants. Ketamine can cause the brain to undergo a period of openness called neuroplasticity where new, healthier thoughts and beliefs can be incorporated with therapeutic support leading to positive outcomes not seen through either psychotherapy alone or with anti-depressant medication.
What’s special about our program?
Ketamine is gaining popularity and there are many places to choose from when receiving your treatment. The Ketamine-Assisted Program at the Woodstock Therapy Center is unique in several important ways.
First, we provide a comprehensive team of physicians and qualified psychotherapists who guide you through every phase of your healing journey. Most ketamine programs offer infusions where you might receive ketamine, but without direct therapeutic support in your session. We believe ketamine plus psychotherapy together has the greatest positive impact on your healing. At the Woodstock Therapy Center, your session will be guided by a therapist team who administers the ketamine, acts as supportive guides during your experience, and then provides psychotherapy while you are still experiencing the medicine to maximize the benefit of your treatment.
Our team members are highly experienced and have expertise not only in treating depression, anxiety, relationship issues, and trauma, but every team member has specific training in working with clients experiencing altered states of consciousness. Our approach is tailored to your needs, highly individualized, and based on the vast experience of our staff working in collaboration with you. Unlike corporate or highly-medicalized ketamine settings, your therapists will get to know you and follow you through each step of the process. We have stakes in the Woodstock community and care for its members.
Following this protocol, you and your team will discuss further treatments to reach your personal goals.
Depending on your KAP MD's recommendation, we use intramuscular injection (IM)or lozenge by mouth (sublingual).
You will be ready to leave the center after 2 1/2 -3 hours. We recommend that you do not drive for a period of 6 hours following your Ketamine dosing.
As indicated earlier, the mental disorders most commonly associated with a sense of feeling ‘stuck’ are the ones most effectively treated by ketamine. These include disorders such as treatment resistant depression, ruminative anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and disorders that include suicidal ideation, moodiness, and hopelessness.
Many report rapid relief of symptoms after ketamine treatments. It seems to induce in people a broad sense of openness, expansiveness, and a sense of no longer being weighed down by recurring anxieties, worries, fears, or thought patterns. There is often an openness to entertain new ways of thinking or make different choices. These feelings are thought to be a direct result of ketamine’s chemically induced neuro-plasticity; a rekindled propensity for learning.
Ketamine has stood the test of time in the medical system. There has been no evidence of long term negative consequences at the frequency and dosages we are prescribing at the Woodstock Therapy Center. At this level of use, it is safe, predictable, and effective.
People who’ve been in therapy for years, whose treatment has been characterized as ‘maintenance oriented’ are finding themselves to be 70-80% responsive to ketamine assisted psychotherapy. With the protocol we offer at the Woodstock Therapy Center, combining psychotherapy with this powerful medicine, we bring the best tools available to help you optimize your chances for positive change.
Most existing clinics that offer ketamine treatment, do NOT offer the full support of Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP). They are primarily medicine infusion programs run by anesthesiologists or medical doctors, without psychotherapists on staff. This method avails itself of the pharmacological benefits of the medicine alone. At the Woodstock Therapy Center, we certainly see that approach as beneficial…to a point. Further though, we see that approach as not fully taking advantage of ketamine’s potential for healing. It is as though you’ve suddenly become very open to learning patterns, but then continue to live inside the same small assumptions and environment that had left you feeling constricted in the first place. When you receive ketamine treatments, there is tremendous potential for new learning. For a period of time you have a window of opportunity in which it’s particularly critical to listen carefully to your deepest hopes and desires and reset your sights on ways of being, ways you may have left for lost… At the Woodstock Therapy Center we will help you reconnect to your deepest self and align your day to day life with goals that are both realistic and more connected to your highest aspirations. You will want to focus on establishing new patterns. We will help you consider these new possibilities so you can optimize your chances of feeling success.
Just as a seed has within it the intelligence to grow into a vibrant and blossoming plant, you possess the inner intelligence to heal....
Our team includes Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners, Psychologists, Psychotherapists, Mental Health and Substance Abuse Specialists and Holistic Practitioners. We proudly serve the communities of Ulster County, The Hudson Valley and the entire Catskill region.