Profs and Pints Philadelphia Talk

Recorded for Profs and Pints Philadelphia, this talk lays out how analytically oriented clinicians use ketamine much like dream work — to collect unconscious material, excavate early relational patterns, and help clients access parts of themselves their own defenses had made difficult to reach.

Karen walks through why clients who've already done a lot of therapy, who already know their own inner landscape, can still get stuck — blocked by mind and body defense systems laid down in infancy, before language and memory, that became default mood processing. She covers three specific features of ketamine that get past those defenses: as an anesthetic, it offers a calmer, less defended, more regulated nervous system for exploring core material; as a dissociative, it lets clients experience a "tripper" and an observing ego simultaneously, strengthening the latter; as a promoter of neuroplasticity, it opens room for new, original thought.

For clinicians curious about KAP as a treatment model, it's also a chance to get a feel for how Karen approaches this work clinically — her framework, her thinking, her vibe — before investing in her larger training or supervision offerings.

From Karen L. Smith, MSS, LCSW — author of Prepare Yourself, Your Clients and Your Practice: A Step-by-Step Guide to Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy, and clinical director of Full Living.

Digital educational resource. No physical product will be shipped. Access instructions are delivered electronically after purchase.