Ketamine For Depression - How Does It work?

Ketamine is a safe and effective treatment for clinical depression. Let’s delve deeper: What is Ketamine? How does it work as an antidepressant? How does it work alongside therapy for dramatic, swift results?

What Is Ketamine?

Ketamine is a safe medicine that has been in use for almost a century. It’s on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medications. It’s most commonly used as an anesthetic and a sedative. It’s also used all over the world for acute and chronic pain.

In 2019, the FDA approved a derivative of ketamine (esketamine) formulated in a nasal spray to treat depression. A Yale psychiatrist and ketamine researcher said of the ketamine nasal spray:

“This is a game changer. With most medications, like valium, the anti-anxiety effect you get only lasts when it is in your system. When the valium goes away, you can get rebound anxiety. When you take ketamine, it triggers reactions in your cortex that enable brain connections to regrow. It’s the reaction to ketamine, not the presence of ketamine in the body that constitutes its effects,”

How Does Ketamine Work For Depression?

Scientist are still investigating the mechanisms of action that make ketamine an effective treatment for depression, but it’s clear that ketamine works differently than other antidepressants like Lexapro or Prozac. Ketamine activates certain neurotransmitters (notably glutamate) as well as certain neural pathways that trigger growth of new neural connections. In short, ketamine kickstarts new connections between brain cells, and whole new networks of brain cells. On the human level, ketamine therapy for depression leads to:

• New ways of thinking about old problems

• Enhanced ability to let things go from the past

• Forgiveness of yourself and others

• Getting unstuck from ruminating thought patterns

• Increased openness to new ideas and experiences

In a study involving 41 people with treatment-resistant depression, a single ketamine treatment decreased 27% of the participants' depression scores by 22.3 points at the 24-hour mark. Each additional decreased decreased participants' depression scores by another two points.

Your Brain Under Stress

Experts agree that exposure to prolonged stress causes negative effects in the brain. You brain is an organ in your body, and just like any organ it can be stressed if the environment is not ideal. This causes neurons (brain cells) to die off and connections between them to wither and become weak. This results in depression.

Ketamine causes rapid regrowth of neurons, as well as strengthening neural connections. It can also spur the brain to make new connections.

How Ketamine Works with Therapy

With ketamine treatments, therapy is supercharged, in a sense. The rapid growth of new neuronal connections leads to more progress in therapy. While with your therapist, you feel safe and supported enough to dive deep within yourself. In the integration sessions between the ketamine doses, you are able to process more, make more changes and are more open to your therapist’s suggestions.

In therapy, we often deal with (and try to soften) psychological defenses. These are patterns of thinking and behaving that we construct over our lives to keep us psychologically safe. For example, we may avoid thinking about past traumas. We may head off relationships that appear to be growing towards true intimacy and vulnerability. We tells ourselves things that don’t serve us, in order to escape a harsher truth. Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy can gently bring down these defenses (while still flooding you with safety and security) in order to really deal with underlying issues which contribute to depression.

What People Say About Ketamine Therapy for Depression

“Ketamine gave my a break from depression. I hadn’t realized how much of a mental burden I was living with every day. That first ketamine session showed me a glimpse of what it could be like, to live without depression. My therapist fanned the flames of that hope and helped me with the tools to move towards that reality. I’m grateful that ketamine treated my depression-much quicker and better than the pills did.”

“Depression, for me, was all about seeing the negative. All the money I wasn’t making, all the love I longed for but didn’t have, all the friends I wanted, the mess in my house, the ways motherhood was difficult. I couldn’t see past it until I worked with my therapist and had ketamine as a prescription. It’s not just a medicine to take like a pill. It all works together - the ketamine plus the therapy jolted me out of my rut. I saw the beauty in my life again.”

Curious about Ketamine Therapy for Depression?

Contact us and book a free 20-minute consultation. We’re here to answer your questions and get started towards healing.