Ketamine Assisted EMDR Therapy

1. Trauma and the Brain

   • Trauma often creates rigid neural pathways and overactive fear circuits (like the amygdala).

   • This rigidity makes it hard for the brain to integrate traumatic memories or develop new perspectives.

   • Both Ketamine and EMDR aim to unlock these stuck patterns, but in different ways.

2. What Ketamine Does

   • Neuroplasticity Boost: Ketamine blocks NMDA receptors and increases AMPA signaling → triggers BDNF release and new synaptic growth, which increases openness for new learning.

   • State Shift: Creates a relaxed, dreamlike state, reducing fear and activation of protective parts.

   • Emotional Buffering: Allows clients to experience more receptivity to perspectives around their experiences that are not always accessible in fully conscious states

3. What EMDR Does

   • Uses bilateral stimulation (eye movements, tapping, tones) to help the brain reprocess traumatic memories.

   • Moves the memory from implicit (emotional, sensory) storage to explicit (narrative) memory → less triggering over time.

   • Strengthens adaptive memory networks, so clients can attach new and adaptive meaning to old events.

4.  Why They Work Well Together:

   • Ketamine opens the door; EMDR walks through it.

   • Ketamine: Increases plasticity, reduces fear response, and creates psychological flexibility and space for new learning to be integrated.

   • EMDR: Provides a structured way to reprocess and integrate trauma while the brain is in this flexible state.

   • Together:

     •  The client feels safe enough to approach traumatic memories.  The brain is biologically primed to form new connections.

     • The emotional intensity is softened, so processing is less overwhelming and more effective ​​​

     • Result: Stuck trauma patterns loosen, and new adaptive beliefs and emotional responses take root faster. 

The KA-EMDR process:  This is a gentle and safe process that can occur in the office. After meeting with a licensed prescriber, you will receive a prescription for Ketamine troches [similar to lozenges] which you bring with you to your appointments.

• Once we have competed your assessment and established the trauma target[s], we will activate the memory networks associated, you will swish the Ketamine for about 10 minutes and we will begin the EMDR process using tactile[hand held tappers] and auditory bilateral stimulation.

Clients describe this process as feeling "non threatening," "peaceful" and experiencing easier access to their "higher Self" along with increased self compassion, self understanding and self forgiveness. New insights and understandings from this experience can emerge for weeks and months following Ketamine assisted EMDR. 

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