Raymond Turpin

For ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP), I will take the time in the intake assessment to get a clear idea of what it is you are wanting help with to change. I pay particular attention to a client's history and trauma history so that I can have some context for later helping the client make sense of their ketamine experience, particularly if there were images generated that could be of a metaphorical or symbolic nature. After passing a medical screen, we then focus on preparation where I prepare the client for the likely effects of the ketamine. give them some helpful instructions for how to best work with the medicine, make sure they feel safe and comfortable and spend as much time as we need to identify and articulate 1-3 intentions for each KAP session. The KAP sessions themselves consist of prep and intentions review, checking and monitoring vitals, getting comfortable and then administering the ketamine, usually by IM injection. The last 60-90 minutes of the 3 hour KAP session is spent doing initial integration work which is vital to helping clients get the most out of their experience. It is not my job to tell them what things mean but to help them arrive at their own meanings that resonate with them. Then there is follow-up integration sessions that can happen online or in-person where I assist the client in being able to bring their ketamine insights into their everyday lives. For psychedelic integration, same level of attention is spent getting to know a client and their personal life story and then examining their psychedelic experience(s) to understand the nature of the integration challenges and then use my experience and training to help them find meaning so that they can successfully make this knowledge a contributing part of their healing process.