From February 24 to March 2, we recognize National Eating Disorder Awareness Week 2025—a time dedicated to raising awareness and providing hope to individuals impacted by eating disorders. According to a 2020 study, eating disorders have the second-highest mortality rate among mental health conditions, with one person dying from an eating disorder every 52 minutes.
Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) is emerging as a tool in the treatment of eating disorders, offering patients an opportunity to explore the underlying emotional patterns and traumas that contribute to their struggles. By fostering neuroplasticity and deepening therapeutic breakthroughs, KAP can help individuals develop a new relationship with themselves and their bodies.
Many of our KAP providers specialize in working with clients with eating disorders and utilize KAP in their work with them – we’re honored to share their insights below on how KAP has supported their patients’ recovery journeys.
Heidi Dalzell, PsyD
Heidi Dalzell, PsyD, is a Journey Clinical KAP Provider based in Lambertville, New Jersey, and works with clients in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Arizona. She has been working with male and female clients with eating disorders for more than 25 years and specializes in midlife presentations, the focus of this year’s EDAW theme for the Office on Women’s Health: Break the Silence, Embrace Recovery: Addressing Eating Disorders in Midlife.
“As a specialist in midlife eating disorders, I often work with clients whose eating concerns span most of their lifetime or who live in a ‘semi-recovered’ state. As with any longstanding concern, it’s common to lose hope and ‘burn out’ on these clients. Sessions are often repetitious, and clients can feel stuck and unable to move forward. Many of these clients have had years of outpatient therapy and hospitalizations with goals such as weight restoration and symptom reduction.” – Heidi Dalzell, PsyD
We asked Heidi to share how KAP has played a role in her patient’s healing journeys:
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Heidi added: “I primarily use KAP for enduring eating disorders – most of the people that I see who have had enduring eating disorders also have significant traumas, especially attachment traumas. These are men and women who have not been able to find recovery through standard approaches. KAP has served as a vital lifeline for them.
On my own first ketamine journey, I had the insight that while we are bodies, we are also Souls. That was profound for me. Clients have similar insights and begin to question longstanding patterns of basing their self-esteem on what they see in the mirror; what they see may well be distorted or completely age-appropriate (in the case of a middle-aged person.) We change as we get older. KAP allows people to look at themselves more compassionately.”
Dana McDowell, LPC
Dana McDowell, LPC, is based in Denver, Colorado and is the founder of New Beginnings Psychotherapy. She is a certified eating disorder specialist with over 18 years of experience and the founder and former president of the Denver Metro International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals (iaedp) chapter. She integrates holistic approaches and KAP to help clients heal from eating disorders and trauma. Dana discussed how she has seen KAP allow clients to gain new perspectives on their eating disorders and implement them into their daily lives:
Dana shared the story of one of her client’s powerful transformation through KAP:
“One of my clients is a gentleman in his 50s who has binge eating disorder. What he shared was that, although his thoughts about food are still evolving, the biggest change that he has experienced is the quantity he consumes is much less with each binge and the binges are getting further apart. He’s starting to notice a shift in his behaviors, and that’s profound.”
Dana added: “Working with KAP tends to drive a lot of my clients that way, giving them some of the strength to fight back that inner critic instead of feeling so overwhelmed all of the time.
Ketamine gives my clients the opportunity to get the 10,000ft view of the issue that they’re coming into therapy with. They can step back and witness it, instead of not being able to separate themselves from it. That’s where I find KAP to be really helpful.”
Sonia Albin, LPC
Sonia Albin, LPC is a Journey Clinical KAP Provider based in Houston, Texas. She is the founder of Kite Ecotherapy, and her work focuses mainly on treatment of complex trauma and eating disorders. During our interview with Sonia for her member feature, she spoke about the impact that KAP can have on patients struggling with eating disorders:
Sonia continued: “Eating disorder treatment has traditionally been kind of linear, in my opinion. You go through intensive treatment, partial hospitalization, and it's been very CBT and DBT heavy, which is very useful. But these are more mental tools – I think that people with eating disorders often need a more existential approach.
We can teach you how to think about eating, but purpose or worth is something that you have to intrinsically feel in your body. And that's often just not something that's accessible to someone who has been living in a state of fight or flight for a really long time. To them, eating disorders are effective coping mechanisms. I think KAP gives these individuals the freedom to disconnect from the structure and protection of the eating disorder, and recognize they can still feel safe outside of that.”
Allyson Inez Ford, LPCC
Allyson Inez Ford, LPCC, is based in San Diego, California, and is the founder of Eating Disorder and OCD Therapy. She specializes in treating eating disorders, anxiety, and OCD and discussed the client outcomes she has seen through KAP:
Allyson added, “One of my clients told me that they feel like they met themselves for the very first time in a KAP session.”