KAP Clinics Are All Across America
Once A Soldier is a big fan of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, or KAP. More and more research facilities like Stanford University and Johns Hopkins continue to explore the ways this disassociative drug can help us all on the way to better mental health. KAP clinics are plentiful across the nation, with at least 7 here in Jacksonville, Florida. In this ever-maddening world we live in, it’s good to know that we’re progressing on this breakthrough mental health option. Here’s some detail information about what ketamine-assisted psychotherapy is all about.
Chronic stress weakens neural connections in the brain over time. Depression actually decreases the number of synapses in the brain. Ketamine works directly to restore these connections. It binds to the NMDA receptor and releases a glutamate surge. This in turn releases growth factors, like BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), which help make new synaptic connections and pave healthier thought patterns in the brain.
The unique experience that ketamine facilitates with its biological, experiential, and psychological impacts has been tailored to optimize office-based treatment evolving into a method that we call Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP).
Thanks to its legal status and the psychedelic renaissance underway, ketamine-assisted therapy has reached the mainstream. And companies like Field Trip Health, Novamind, Nushama, Mindbloom and others are stepping on the gas and expanding locations and services to patients across the country.
While psilocybin, MDMA and LSD grab most of the headlines for the promising clinical results as potential treatments for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues, ketamine is able to cash in on the growing interest in psychedelics.
Ketamine also has another advantage over other psychedelics: it’s short-acting. One of the biggest hurdles in widespread treatment of psychedelic-assisted therapy for drugs like psilocybin, LSD and MDMA is the duration of the experience, which can range from 4 to 12 hours. But for ketamine, a patient can be in and out of one of these swanky clinics in two hours. (Some companies are trying to remove the psychedelic experience altogether, while others are modifying psychedelics’ molecules to make the trip shorter.)
