Why You Need Support During Ketamine Therapy
This blog is adapted from the transcript from the above video.
This blog explores why social and emotional support is so important when undergoing transformative ketamine therapy, which reveals deep insights that require integration.
Your ketamine journey can be emotionally challenging as you uncover your unconscious mind, which is why having a strong support system around you is important.
Why Is Support Essential When Undertaking Ketamine Therapy?
Embarking on ketamine treatment can lead to profound personal growth. But during this time of healing and growth, it can be emotionally challenging. As you dive into unconscious realms and uncover deep insights, having a support system is critical to integrate this intense experience. Human connection is essential for health; which makes a trusting community so important when ketamine therapy reveals and reshapes deep neural patterns. Let's explore why you need support during this journey, from leveraging neuroplasticity to processing unearthed emotions. With the right assistance, your transformation through ketamine therapy can flourish.
Having someone on your side as you go through your ketamine journey is critical, especially when things get difficult.
Exploring Your Mindscape: How Ketamine Therapy Works
Getting ketamine therapy can be a lot of work. You're going to be doing a deep dive into the unconscious mind – maybe uncovering things that you don't necessarily want uncovered consciously. So it's really important to have support around you, whether it's a close friend, a family member, or someone that you trust and is on your side and corner. When you have people in your corner supporting you, that can actually help. Humans were not meant to be alone. We did not evolve as a species as solo siloed individuals. We evolved in a community.
Are you worried you might have a scary experience during your ketamine treatment? If so, check out our How to Handle Challenging Experiences With Ketamine blog post.
You’re literally transforming your brain through ketamine infusions. It’s an experience that’s hard to comprehend, which is why you need people who really understand what you’re going through.
Integration Through Connection: The Importance of Support Networks
As you're receiving ketamine infusion therapy, it is important to have that network around you. People that you trust. People that you love. People that can really understand what you're going through. Think of your brain like a piece of clay. Clay can become rock hard and very stiff. Now, imagine if our minds can be like a ball of clay. We have these neural grooves that have become so conditioned with chronic habitual thoughts that don't support us and are hard to “reshape”.
As you go through your ketamine infusions, your brain becomes more susceptible to changes. This allows you to incorporate new habits and mindsets for the better.
Leveraging Neuroplasticity for Growth: Ketamine's Impact on Neural Pathways
Maybe you might think "I'm not worthy. I don't love myself. I don't deserve it." These beliefs are not true. They may have been something that you picked up as a child or as a toddler. Maybe you got them from some siblings or parents. We need to be able to change that. So how does one change it? Well, ketamine is really interesting because it creates new neurons and new synaptic connections. Going back to our analogy, imagine that piece of clay getting warmed up again, becoming a little bit more malleable. Ketamine “warms up” the clay, and now we can create new neural grooves after the therapy. To maximize benefits, it's really important to leverage that time after the infusions because we think it's actually the metabolites of the ketamine that seem to promote increased changes in the brain.
Learn how you can continue your healing after and between your ketamine infusion treatments in our 5 Ways to Maximize Progress After Your Ketamine Infusions blog.
Post-infusion, integration through your support community is important for you to reap the full benefits of your ketamine therapy.
Cultivating Your Healing Community: Finding Support for Your Journey
As we've seen, ketamine treatment leads to an opportunity for deep personal work. While infusions can lead to profound biochemical changes and psychedelic experiences, integrating the experience extends beyond the clinic. Cultivate a community of trusted loved ones and trained professions to process revelations, manage difficulties, and actualize growth. Our brains evolved for connection – leverage that. With assistance from those who understand and believe in your transformation, the insights uncovered through ketamine therapy can flourish into authentic healing. You need not walk this path alone. With support, your journey can progress further than imagined.
Related Questions:
What types of specialists are best for integration support after ketamine treatments?
Since ketamine can induce a non-ordinary state of consciousness, aka psychedelic experience, it’s important to discuss this experience with someone familiar with these types of experiences such as a psychedelic integration specialist. Another option is to talk with your own therapist a day or two after the treatment. But it is important that they are supportive about your ketamine treatments as some professionals do not believe in this therapy.
How long after infusion treatments can ketamine's benefits last?
A single infusion typically lasts anywhere from a few days to a month. A series of 4 – 6 infusions may last anywhere from weeks to months, and often a single booster infusion when effects are wearing off can restore and extend response. Every patient responds differently, and some patients get several months of relief with just a few infusions.
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3 Tips For Explaining Your Ketamine Treatments To Friends and Family
There is a lot of misinformation about ketamine on the internet. So you might be excited about your ketamine treatments, but your friends and family think you are doing something unsafe or questionable. Not sure how to talk to them about ketamine? We got your back in this blog!
Ketamine’s Ability to Treat Depression Through Increasing Brain Connectivity
Depression is a mental illness that presents alterations in brain connectivity in the Default Mode Network. There are plenty of pharmaceutical drugs available to treat major depressive disorder (MDD). However, less than half of these patients remit within the first 3 months of treatment, and around 30% remain unresponsive.
Integration: Take Action After Your Ketamine Infusion
Although you may have certain insights from your ketamine infusion, if you don't take action on that knowledge, it remains kind of useless. True transformation happens during integration and reflecting on these insights. Read this blog to learn more about integration.
In this blog, explore why social and emotional support is so important when undergoing transformative ketamine therapy.