Veronika Gold - Methods of Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy

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In this episode, Kyle hosts a conversation with Veronika Gold from the Polaris Insight Center, a center that offers Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy. They compare and contrast Ketamine Psychotherapy methods and Ketamine Infusion.

3 Key Points:

1. The most studied way of using Ketamine has been infusion, mainly used for treatment resistant depression and PTSD. Veronika used lozenges and intramuscular Ketamine therapy working for Polaris.
2. When people are healed from depression, there is a lot of anxiety and activation that happens. Infusion clinics don't offer the therapeutic help that comes with Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy.
3. The dissociation that happens with Ketamine is a different dissociation that happens with trauma. With trauma, dissociation happens when the nervous system can't handle the stress in someone's life, with Ketamine, it allows people who feel dissociated from their trauma, to feel again.

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Show Notes About Veronika

• She specialized in trauma treatment
• She is involved in the clinical trials for the treatment of PTSD, sponsored by MAPS in San Francisco
• Veronika is originally from Czech Republic
• She studied at CIIS
• She grew up in the Czech Republic in a communist time so she dealt with a lot of trauma
• She met Stan Grof at 16 at a Transpersonal conference
  • She was fascinated with his work and Transpersonal Breathwork became a part of her healing
  • It lead her to study psychology and become a psychotherapist and study non-ordinary states

Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy

• Ketamine therapy has been studied from the late 60’s until today
  • The most studied way of using Ketamine has been infusion, mainly used for treatment resistant depression and PTSD
• In Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy, the therapy is as important as the medicine
  • There is a biochemical effect of Ketamine
  • When people are healed from depression, there is a lot of anxiety and activation that happens
• Infusion clinics don't offer the therapeutic help that comes with Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy

Benefits of Ketamine Psychotherapy

• The treatment method used at Polaris includes a comfortable room, eye shades, music tailored to the therapy, and an ongoing therapist
• They use non-ordinary states of consciousness as a part of the transformation
• They use lozenges and IM (Intramuscular)
  • Only 30% of the ketamine from the lozenges are effective
  • The lozenges allow for a slow onset of the medicine
• With IM, a higher dose can be used because it's less taxing on the body and more effective
  • The property of Ketamine is dissociation
  • Veronika says she prompts people to explain where they are, to share about what comes up for them
  • “Sometimes there are memories that come up that are connected to their struggle. Sometimes they do full trauma processing. There are times where they go inside and then come out.” - Veronika

Ketamine vs. Classic Psychedelics

• They used Ketamine as a means to do the work legally
• For the work that is being done underground, the therap...