Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP): Patient Demographics, Clinical Data and Outcomes in Three Large Practices Administering Ketamine with Psychotherapy

Summary & key facts

Researchers looked at records from three private clinics that use ketamine together with psychotherapy, a method they call Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy or KAP. They reported outcomes for 235 patients and found that, in these real-world settings, KAP was linked with reductions in depression and anxiety symptoms. The clinics used non-intravenous ways to give ketamine and combined the drug with therapy. The paper says ketamine has a long safety record and that older people and those with worse symptoms seemed to get the biggest improvements. Because this report describes clinic experience rather than a controlled experiment, it suggests KAP may help but does not prove it works for everyone.

Key facts:

• The study summarized clinical data from three private practices that provide ketamine together with psychotherapy, calling this approach Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP).
• Researchers reported results for 235 patients who received KAP.
• Patients in these practices showed decreases in depression and anxiety symptoms after KAP.
• The authors noted larger improvements for older patients and for patients who started with more severe symptoms.
• The clinics used non-intravenous ways to give ketamine and combined the drug with psychotherapy rather than treating the drug effects as unwanted side effects.
• The paper describes ketamine as the only legal psychedelic medicine currently available to mental health providers and says it has a long safety record, supporting its use in office and supervised at-home settings.
• This work reports real-world clinical outcomes from private practices and is not a randomized, controlled experiment, so its findings suggest benefit but do not prove cause and effect.

Abstract

Currently, ketamine is the only legal psychedelic medicine available to mental health providers for the treatment of emotional suffering. Over the past several years, ketamine has come into psychiatric use as an intervention for treatment resistant depression (TRD), administered intravenously without a psychotherapeutic component. In these settings, ketamine's psychedelic effects are viewed as undesirable "side effects." In contrast, we believe ketamine can benefit patients with a wide variety of diagnoses when administered with psychotherapy and using its psychedelic properties without need for intravenous (IV) access. Its proven safety over decades of use makes it ideal for office and supervised at-home use. The unique experience that ketamine facilitates with its biological, experiential, and psychological impacts has been tailored to optimize office-based treatment evolving into a method that we call Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP). This article is the first to explore KAP within an analytical framework examining three distinct practices that use similar methods. Here, we present demographic and outcome data from 235 patients. Our findings suggest that KAP is an effective method for decreasing depression and anxiety in a private practice setting, especially for older patients and those with severe symptom burden.

Topics

Psychedelics and Drug Studies Treatment of Major Depression Tryptophan and brain disorders

Categories

Clinical Psychology Psychology Social Sciences

Tags

Antidepressant Anxiety Clinical psychology Demographics Demography Depression (economics) Economics Intervention (counseling) Ketamine Macroeconomics Medicine Mental health Psychiatry Psychology Psychotherapist Sociology Treatment-resistant depression

Substances

Ketamine

Conditions & symptoms

Anxiety Depression Anxiety or worry Sadness or low mood