Veronika Gold - Methods of Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy

05/07/19 • 76 min

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:

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.
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.
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.

Support the show

Patreon
Leave us a review on iTunes
Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc
Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community.

Navigating Psychedelics

Trip Journal Integration Workbook

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...

Download

3 Key Points:

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.
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.
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.

Support the show

Patreon
Leave us a review on iTunes
Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc
Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community.

Navigating Psychedelics

Trip Journal Integration Workbook

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...

Previous Episode

Matthew Remski - Cultic Mechanisms and After Effects of High Demand Group Life

Download In this episode, Joe talks with Matthew Remski, yoga teacher, consultant and author. In the show they talk about high demand group life and their cultic mechanisms, and the after effects of living in a high demand group setting.

3 Key Points:

Matthew Remski shares his experience of spending most of his 20’s in cults, and his healing journey afterward.
Cults aren't defined by their content (political, religious, psychedelic), they are defined by their element of control. Another term for a ‘cult’ is a high demand group.
High demand groups can be very appealing from the outside, no one signs up for the rape, torture, or manipulative experiences that happen inside of a cult. And the after effects from high demand group life can be extreme, such as PTSD, inability to form romantic relationships, etc.

Support the show

Patreon
Leave us a review on iTunes
Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc
Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community.

Navigating Psychedelics

Trip Journal Integration Workbook

Show Notes About Matthew

Yoga was a safe space of retreat and recuperation after being in cults
He was in a cult for 3 years led by Michael Roach at the Asian Classics Institute
He was in Endeavor Academy for 6 years in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin
These experiences gave him group dynamic perspective
Yoga gave him somatic autonomy, and allowed him to feel himself again after the cultic nature of the groups
He spent age 22-29 in these groups where we would have built some sort of career, and he didn't
He became a yoga teacher and opened his own yoga studio as a part of his healing

Cults

People end up doing harm to themselves, or do things that they didn't sign up for
- An organization misrepresents itself, and presents itself as a safe haven for people who may be vulnerable for any reason
High Demand Organization, along with other synonyms, are other words for ‘cult’
‘Self Sealed’ implies that everything that happens within the group is to have the individual think it's for the ‘good’, a ‘bounded choice’ environment (saying that sexual advances or torture are a part of the development toward enlightenment, for example)
The high demand group rewires a person's attachment patterns to make them ‘unattached’
Steve Hassan’s BITE model
- Behavior Control
- Information Control
- Thought Control
- Emotional Control
The content of the cult doesn't matter (religious, psychedelic, political, etc), it's the element of control that is the same amongst true cults
- There can be political groups that aren't cults, but the element of control is what defines it as a cult
Octavio Rettig and Gerry Sandoval
- They are perhaps responsible for multiple deaths (maybe not directly but through negligence)
- They use 5-MEO-DMT with abuse and malpractice

Cult Impact

The impact from a cult can be cognitive, labor related, relationship/family oriented, etc.
- Matthew says the estrangement from his family has taken over a decade to repair
- The relationships he had prior, has been unable to restored
His identity was changed for him through social coercion
“The cult takes its be...

Next Episode

Shane Lemaster - Reaching the Maximum Potential of our Minds

Download

In this episode, Joe talks with Shane LeMaster, Licensed Addiction Counselor and Certified Mental Performance Consultant. Shane is also involved in Psychotherapy as well as Sport and Performance Psychology and Psychedelic Integration Therapy. In this episode they cover a range of topics such as social work, Ketamine, sensory deprivation, psychedelic icons and the psychedelic culture.

3 Key Points:

Shane has a podcast of his own, and his goal with the podcast is to bring people’s personal experiences to light to learn from them, to master the potential of our minds.
Ketamine is a great gateway to opening up people’s minds to all of the other psychedelics. Its also a great place to start for therapy.
Every single facilitator or shaman has different techniques and styles and that's okay If we don't have differences then we won't have styles to choose from.

Support the show

Patreon
Leave us a review on iTunes
Share us with your friends – favorite podcast, etc
Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community.

Navigating Psychedelics

Trip Journal Integration Workbook

Show Notes About Shane

Joe and Shane met up recently at a Psychedelic Club meeting about harm reduction in Fort Collins
Shane just got accepted into the PhD program in social work at CSU
- He had been pursuing a PhD program in psychology and it wasn't working out for him so he decided to take the social work route
- He works with many people and has developed a strong skill set on the micro level and he wants to start making impact on a macro level with helping people

Social Work

Shane thinks of social work as an integrative approach for every discipline that we find useful, to come to a holistic, greater understanding of an issue
Shane wants to use Ketamine as a ‘medium’ term goal, because it's legal
- But ketamine is not where he is going to stop, he finds there are benefits in many other substances
- He would love to work with LSD and Psilocybin
- He will continue to offer his services through his business Mind Ops
Shane’s Podcast - Conversations with the Mind
- His goal with the podcast is to bring people’s personal experiences to light to learn from them
- It's important to create dialogue and invite people for conversation with differing opinions
- The goal is to create a theory that implements both opinions

Ketamine

Ketamine is a great gateway to opening up people’s minds to all of the other psychedelics
Shane has had a lot of personal and recreational experiences on Ketamine and when he returns to it as a medicine, he is able to attain and sharpen skills for mindfulness
Joe brings up the idea that recreational ketamine could have the ability to bring up past trauma or may re-traumatize someone if not used therapeutically
- Ketamine has a lot of risks, but being educated and using the substance correctly can be absolutely beneficial
- Shane says we shouldn't try to avoid trauma, we should accept it and use it for good and let it power us
- “Sometimes we don't even know what were suppressing. We need some assistance to show us what were avoiding in life and I think that psychedelics help with that a lot.” - Shane

Sensory Deprivation