Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the incidence of mental health diagnoses has doubled, and today, nearly half of the US population suffers from some form of depression or anxiety condition. We urgently need effective, novel tools to help ease the burden of those suffering and improve their long-term outcomes. Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy (PAP) is one of those tools. PAP is defined as the professionally-supervised use of psychedelic medicines as adjuncts to psychotherapy programs, and it is increasingly showing positive, safe, & lasting clinical outcomes for a growing number of difficult-to-treat conditions.
Of all the psychedelic medicines, the most studied has been ketamine. Over the last several decades, ketamine’s record of clinical safety in ER, outpatient and psychiatric settings has produced an extensive body of clinical evidence which supports its safety for use in psychotherapeutic settings (source: Dore et al, 2019). Leveraging ketamine as an adjunct to psychotherapy, also known as Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) has been particularly effective for significantly improving clinical outcomes.
A 2019 study by Jennifer Dore et al. which examined outcomes from three psychotherapy practices using Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy for hundreds of patients over the course of several years concluded that KAP is “an effective method for decreasing depression and anxiety in a private practice setting, especially for…those with severe symptom burden” (source: Dore et al, 2019). In this study, participants with severe symptom burden (i.e. psychiatric hospitalization, suicidality at intake and within the past year) who underwent KAP treatment demonstrated higher levels of improvement in well-being, anxiety, Beck Depression Inventory, Hamilton Anxiety Scale, PTSD scores and drug and alcohol use scores. Further analysis of the improvement in anxiety and depression demonstrated that people with cPTSD or developmental trauma showed the highest level of improvement in depression and anxiety scores (source: Dore et al, 2019). Data from the study supports the efficacy of KAP for a host of psychiatric conditions, rapidly and significantly decreasing depression, anxiety and PTSD.
To read more clinical studies on ketamine and mental health, visit our Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy research library.
Many trials have shown that ketamine and other psychedelics produce better clinical results when used in conjunction with psychotherapy:
- MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy: A 2024 study by Zeifman et al. found preliminary evidence for individuals with chronic PTSD, stating that the therapeutic alliance predicted changes in PTSD severity.
- MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy: A 2024 study by van der Kolk et al. found that MDMA-assisted therapy was correlated with a significant decrease in alexithymia, meaning that participants were better able to name, discuss and process their emotions.
- MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy: In a 2021 study by Mitchell et al., the effect size of MDMA-assisted therapy for severe PTSD was 2.1 vs. MDMA alone at 0.91, more than doubled with the inclusion of psychotherapy.
- Psilocybin-Assisted Psychotherapy: A 2022 study by Murphy et al. concluded that a strong therapeutic alliance predicted lower eventual depression scores, and a weaker alliance yielded fewer emotional breakthroughs.
- Psilocybin-Assisted Psychotherapy: A 2021 study by Davis et al. found that the stronger the therapeutic alliance, the better the patient outcomes for major depressive disorder.
At Journey Clinical, we practice a collaborative care model in which Journey Clinical members (licensed, trained psychotherapists) take on the therapy portion of the experience (including preparation, dosing sessions and integration sessions), while Journey Clinical’s in-house, KAP-trained medical team supports patients on all medical aspects. This includes determining eligibility, developing a custom treatment plan, prescribing the medicine and monitoring outcomes. To learn more about how KAP works with Journey Clinical for therapists click here, and for patients click here.