Ketamine treatment can help you feel better. Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) helps you understand why. With KAP, you can build/enhance on the progress that ketamine treatments offer.
At New Pathways Clinic, we now offer in-house KAP with a licensed counselor on-site in Middleburg Heights and virtually at all locations. (On-site services at other locations are coming soon.) This allows us to support you through the full process, not just the treatment itself.
KAP combines ketamine treatment with individualized , evidenced-based therapy practices before and after your treatments.
Ketamine can quiet the constant noise of depression, anxiety, or trauma. It often creates a sense of openness or clarity that can be hard to access otherwise. Therapy helps you make sense of that experience and connect it to your life. Meaningful insights can emerge from the medicine that might otherwise be hidden or misunderstood. Ketamine can open a doorway; therapy helps you collaboratively explore it deeper and intentionally.
Together, they serve different roles. Ketamine helps shift your internal state. Therapy helps you understand your relationship with your inner world and move forward in a more focused and deliberate way.
We now provide KAP at our Cleveland-West location with licensed professional clinical counselor Kelsey Jager.
Having therapy and treatment under one roof allows for a more connected (and seamless?) experience. Your care team can coordinate more closely, and you don’t have to manage separate providers or timelines.
For many patients, this makes the process feel more structured and easier to follow.
KAP is not a single session. It’s a sequence of steps, or individualized process, designed to support real and lasting change.
You’ll begin with a preparation session, where you meet with your therapist to talk through your history, your goals, and what to expect. This is also a chance to ask questions and get comfortable with the process.
Your ketamine treatments take place in our clinic in a calm, private setting. During these sessions, many people notice a shift in how they experience thoughts and emotions. Some feel more distance from stress. Others gain new perspectives on things that have felt stuck for a long time. Those insights and changes are felt during treatment and sometimes people notice them in the days that follow.
After treatment, you’ll meet with your therapist again for integration sessions. This is where you talk through what came up during or after treatment, and begin connecting it to your day-to-day life. Some insights are clear right away. Others take time to understand. That’s part of the process. Your therapist will help you excavate meaning from your experiences in life and ketamine, and help you create new ways of seeing and being in your life. These treatments work together to help you live connected to your authentic self and your true values.
Over time, this cycle repeats. The goal is to help you build on each experience in a way that supports steady, lasting progress.
KAP is often used for people dealing with depression, anxiety, trauma, or a general sense of feeling stuck. It can be especially helpful if you’ve tried therapy or medication in the past and didn’t get the results you were hoping for.
Many patients come to KAP not because nothing has worked, but because nothing has worked well enough. They are willing to try something different and new.
Ketamine can create a shift, but that shift doesn’t automatically translate into lasting change.
Therapy helps you examine what comes up during treatment with a fellow traveler who can offer perspectives you might not see. It gives you an opportunity to be curious about your pre-existing patterns, explore their purpose, and begin building something different. In a safe and nonjudgemental space, you can enhance your healing by adding focused care around your ketamine treatment with a clinician who will provide relevant education and find meaning in unexpected places.
Without that step, the benefits of ketamine can fade. With it, those changes have a better chance of sticking. Adding an experienced professional to your journey has been proven to improve the results of your treatment.
While we now offer KAP in-house, we continue to work closely with Stella Luna Counseling and Wellness, a trusted partner who can also offer KAP virtually across the state.
If our program is at capacity, or if you prefer to work with a therapist outside of our clinic, we can help connect you with their team. They also remain a strong option for traditional talk therapy, whether or not you pursue ketamine treatment.
Our priority is making sure you have access to the support you need, even if that support happens outside our walls.
Therapy sessions within KAP are often covered by insurance, similar to standard psychotherapy. Coverage depends on your specific plan, and our team can help you understand what to expect before you begin.
At our New Pathways Clinic locations in Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati, we are always sensitive to each patient’s unique history and needs. If you’ve been feeling stuck, or if your current treatment isn’t moving things forward, KAP may be worth exploring.
We’ll help you understand how it works, what to expect, and whether it’s the right fit for you. Reach out to any of our locations to schedule a consultation or ask questions.