Do You Really Need Multiple Ketamine Sessions? Here’s What the Research Says

If you’ve heard about ketamine as a treatment for depression, you might have seen the headlines: Rapid relief! Breakthrough drug! Hope in a single session!

But when it comes to real, lasting healing, there’s more to the story. Ketamine is not a silver bullet for mental health; administered in the proper setting, though, it can have real, lasting effects. 

A major 2024 study published in Psychiatry Research followed people struggling with treatment-resistant depression—individuals who hadn’t improved with traditional antidepressants. Researchers gave them six ketamine infusions over a two-week period and tracked how they responded to each dose.

Here’s what they found:

• After just two infusions, about 50% of patients showed a clear and meaningful improvement in symptoms. 
• After six infusions, over 67% saw strong, lasting benefits. 
• Even better, those benefits lasted at least one month in many cases.

This is encouraging, but it also shows that ketamine is not a one-and-done miracle cure. For most people, it’s a process (and one worth sticking with).

Why Does It Take Multiple Sessions?

Ketamine works differently than traditional antidepressants. It doesn’t need to build up in your system over weeks. Instead, it acts quickly on a brain chemical called glutamate, which plays a big role in mood regulation and neural connectivity. That fast action can provide near-immediate relief, but keeping those benefits going often requires repeated treatments.

Think of it like physical therapy for your brain: one visit can help, but a series of visits allows your brain to form new patterns, stabilize mood, and create more lasting change.

What This Means for You

If you’re considering ketamine treatment and hoping for a single-session breakthrough, it’s important to adjust your expectations.

We typically recommend a series of six treatments, often spread over 2–3 weeks. During that time, we track your mood, sleep, anxiety levels, and overall well-being. We’re looking for patterns and helping you build on each session’s progress.

If you start feeling better after a few treatments, that’s great. 

But stopping early can mean missing the opportunity for deeper and more sustained change.

How Therapy Fits In

Ketamine opens a window in your brain where it becomes more flexible and open to change. That’s why we pair it with therapy. Working with a trained mental health professional during this period helps you explore what’s really behind your depression and how to move forward in a healthy, grounded way.

This combination is called Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)—and we now offer it at New Pathways..

The Bottom Line

Healing takes time. But for many people who’ve felt stuck in a cycle of ineffective treatments, ketamine offers a new option, and the research shows that it works best as a short, structured series.

Ready to take the next step? We’re here to help you do it safely, with real support and care.