Ketamine Assisted Therapy with Veronika Gold
My unofficial Vital Study Zine #13 with observations from Vital Psychedelic Training and recent happenings in the space
Noëlle Matip ‘Therapy’
San Francisco’s Veronika Gold set up the Ketamine Training Centre ‘emphasising the skills unique and germane to ketamine assisted psychotherapy.’
The MAPS co-therapist has written K treatment programs already in use across the USA. Her impressive CV includes somatic experiencing and EMDR expertise on top of academic psychology credentials. She works as an independent psychotherapist, and at stand-out San Francisco clinic Polaris Insights. Veronika has even curated a specialist ketamine therapy playlist.
Her overview of the high street K revolution: “People get a series of sessions over to to three weeks which is usually what it takes to get the anti-depressant effect. Then they will come for what are called booster sessions: maybe every two weeks, or every three weeks, for somebody it might be four to six weeks.”
Veronika plainly admits this is “Almost like an indefinite treatment,” but points out “for many people it’s still a preferable treatment compared to being a a daily SSRI.”
We all love to rag on K clinics. But for the sake of successfully treating depression and alcoholism, please put snobbery to one side. Plus set-ups are likely to eventually incoporate MDMA and psilocybin treatments. So what’s happening now is a fascinating precursor to the future. There’ll be DMT on the go eventually.
Precise therapy alongside ketamine (KAP) catalyses long term results, summarises Veronica: “The psychological paradigm has an emphasis is on processing the underlying issues and challenges that are causing the symptoms. We actually see healing and change that the booster sessions are eventually no longer needed.”
Shamanic-style trauma processing with its ‘the only way out is through’ ethos can hit flabby westerners hard though. Not only during the experience itself but afterwards: “They have to face all the losses that were connected to being depressed after it suddenly lifts… perhaps not being able to enjoy relationships, or having relationships that are no longer working for them when they are not depressed.” If that’s anything like my own revelations after going on ADHD medication, it feels like someone else has been living in your body all this time.
Veronika talks about her training program here, and see her on Psychedelics Today’s up to the minute ketamine therapy panel from earlier this summer plus more on the New Psychonaut YouTube Lecture channel.