195 Exploring Ketamine Therapy | The Transformative Benefits: Interview With Austin Francom & Candace Curzon

Aug 21, 2024

What is ketamine therapy and how does it work? How can you go beyond talk therapy to treat depression, anxiety, and PTSD?

MEET Austin & Candace

Austin Francom is a board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner through the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP). He started his work in health care at Volunteers of America social detox and the University of Utah’s Neuropsychiatric Institute while obtaining undergraduate degrees in Psychology and Sociology.

After starting a nursing career, with experience largely in mental health and critical care, he earned a master’s degree in nursing from Westminster College. He has been practicing in the Salt Lake Valley in primary care since 2013.  

Candace Curzon graduated from the University of Utah in 2000 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology, and in 2012 with a Master of Social Work. She worked at the University of Utah’s Neuropsychiatric Institute as a member of their crisis team and as a therapist on the inpatient psychiatric unit at LDS Hospital.

While working at LDS Hospital, she saw excellent results with Ketamine treatment for severe depression, OCD, and suicidal ideation. Realizing she wanted to do deeper work with clients beyond the initial crisis of being in the hospital, she opened Ally Counseling in 2016.

Candace and Austin have both trained in Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP). They have also trained through the Ketamine Training Center by Phil Wolfsen, who is the leading researcher on Ketamine and Ketamine Assisted Therapy. Together, Austin and Candace began Ketamine Therapy at Therapeutic Alternatives in February 2019. They believe that Ketamine therapy could be safely and effectively administered in a setting that is less clinical, more welcoming, and safe. They set out to create a clinic that reflected this belief that inviting and comfortable surroundings could foster a more ideal environment for healing to happen. 

Find out more at Ketamine Therapy At Therapeutic Alternatives

IN THIS PODCAST:

  • What is Ketamine? 9:06
  • What are the effects of Ketamine on the brain? 13:23
  • What does a Ketamine session look like? 19:58

What Is Ketamine?

  • A History of Ketamine
  • What has Ketamine been used for in the past
  • What is Ketamine in therapy?
  • The importance of self-compassion for healing

What Are The Effects Of Ketamine On The Brain?

  • What is the Neurobiology behind Ketamine 
  • Does Ketamine react differently to different people?
  • What is Neurogenesis?
  • What can Ketamine be used to treat?

What Does a Ketamine Session Look Like?

  • The importance of a psychiatric evaluation before Ketamine treatment
  • Setting expectations for your clients
  • What is Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy?
  • How long is a Ketamine session?
  • Dealing with negative Ketamine sessions
  • What are the benefits of Ketamine use?
  • What are the side effects of Ketamine?

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Find out more at Ketamine Therapy At Therapeutic Alternatives

Transcript

Chris McDonald: Are you or your clients finding limited success with conventional antidepressants or therapy methods? Do you feel you've tried everything for depression for some clients but nothing seems to provide lasting relief? Do you have clients who feel stuck in their progress no matter what interventions you've tried with them?

It can be disheartening to try to help clients yet see they're still struggling and you feel like you need to do something more. Join us today as we dive deep into the groundbreaking world of ketamine therapy in our latest episode, exploring ketamine therapy, the transformative benefits, discover how this innovative treatment is revolutionizing mental health care, offering new hope for those struggling with depression, anxiety, and PTSD, learn about the science behind it.

It's Therapeutic Potential and how it could change the future of mental health treatment on today's episode of the Holistic Counseling Podcast.

This is Holistic Counseling, the podcast for mental health therapists who want to deepen their knowledge of holistic modalities and build their practice with confidence. I'm your host, Chris McDonald, Licensed Therapist. I am so glad you're here for the journey. Do you have any ethical or legal concerns about blending

holistic modalities with traditional therapy? Is this holding you back from integrating these? You are not alone. There are some things to consider to protect your license and practice before diving into holistic counseling strategies. This is why I created my one hour recorded training, The Ethical and Legal Considerations of Holistic Counseling.

In it, we will explore how to protect yourself against liability as a holistic therapist. You will learn more about scope of practice versus scope of competence and informed consent. Also addressed is how you can expand your therapy practice ethically into the holistic realms and where to draw the line.

I also address the ethics of research based interventions and how this works for holistic counseling practices. You get all this plus one continuing education contact hour. To learn more, go to hcpodcast. org forward slash ethics course. That's hcpodcast. org forward slash ethics course. Welcome to today's episode of the Holistic Counseling Podcast, where we help deepen therapists knowledge of holistic modalities and help them build their practice with confidence.

I'm your host, Chris McDonald. Thank you for being here with me today. Have you ever wondered how ketamine could help your clients? In this episode, we're exploring this groundbreaking treatment, known for its powerful and rapid acting benefits. Ketamine is emerging as a beacon of hope for individuals struggling with conditions like depression, anxiety, PTSD, and chronic pain.

We'll uncover the science behind ketamine's effects on the brain, discuss its therapeutic benefits, and what a session is like. Here to guide us on this topic is Austin Francom and Candice Curzon. Austin is a nurse practitioner practicing in the Salt Lake area for approximately 13 years, and will guide us through what is involved with ketamine treatment, shedding light on its potential to revolutionize mental health care.

Candice is an LCSW and worked at University of Utah's Neuropsychiatric Institute as a member of their crisis team and as a therapist in the Inpatient Psychiatric Unit at LDS Hospital. While she was there, she saw excellent results with ketamine treatment for severe depression, OCD, and even suicidal ideation.

Both have been trained in ketamine assisted psychotherapy and began working together at Therapeutic Alternatives in February 2019. They believe that ketamine therapy could be safely and effectively administered in a setting that was less clinical, more welcoming, and a safe experience. So welcome to the Holistic Counseling Podcast, Austin and Candice.

Hi. How are you doing? Hello. Good. So let's get started. So I wanted to know what first interested you in offering ketamine as a mental health therapy treatment?

Candace Curzon: So I am a social worker and I worked, um, at LDS hospital. I've done crisis work at a University Neuropsychiatric Institute, which is now a Huntsman Institute.

Mm-Hmm. . Um, and then I transferred and did some inpatient psychiatric social work. where we were doing crisis work, people coming in with in, in mental health crisis. And that's when I was first introduced to ketamine and I just saw the benefits of it and how well it helped people. There were some doctors who would use ketamine in combination with the anesthesia that they would give for people who are receiving electroconvulsive therapy, the ECT.

And those doctors, the psychiatrist told me that they saw better results with mental health when they use the ketamine. In addition to the ECT and my thought and my questions were, why weren't we using that first? Why weren't we using that as a first line? Because it's a lot less invasive than ECT. And so I did a bunch of research and just got really excited about it.

And, um, in 2016, I decided that I wanted to go beyond the initial crisis of working with somebody for one week and then getting them out, sending them out into the world. I wanted to do more work. And so I opened ally counseling in 2016. Um, it was just me and one other person at that time, it was me and then a student and, and then kind of grew, grew from there.

But I would send my, my patients out to another ketamine clinic because I had seen such great results. There were some treatment failures going on with, with just talking. Talking and talking, I'm a trauma therapist. Um, I do EMDR and a lot of somatic in your body type of therapy, but still with, we're seeing a lot of treatment failures and just, it was getting frustrated with just the talking and talking and talking about things.

And, and so I had sent out some of my patients out to another Academy clinic and when they come back after one or two treatments, I'd see huge changes in their affect and their mood and how therapy changed and, uh, It was just so exciting. And so I reached out to the ketamine clinic that I was sending people to and asked if them, if I could try it myself for my own, my own stuff, and I wanted to know what I was sending people into.

And I, um, I saw such great results. It was so exciting. After two, three visits, I envisioned creating a clinic that the clinic that I went to is great. And I saw great, the medicine was doing what it was doing, but I felt like the setting could be more inviting, more safe. I felt like it was pretty important for people to understand what ketamine felt like that were providing it so that they could know what we're sending people into.

And so I envisioned a clinic that felt more like therapeutic rooms, less clinical and with people who understood what ketamine was and had done their own work with ketamine. So I reached out to Austin, Austin and I knew each other from the university. Uni days when we worked at the university, uh, Utah, and he's a nurse practitioner.

And I said, Hey, do you want to give this a try? And I'll let you tell your, your side of the story.

Austin Francom: So, yeah, I mean, similarly, like, uh, I did a lot of med management, I have a small practice, so I did a lot of referrals for medication and management and a lot of treatment failures. And then people starting initially on an antidepressant, I'd say success rate is probably 30 to 40%.

It's fairly

Chris McDonald: really that low.

Austin Francom: Wow. And then, uh, you know, side effects. And so a lot of people end up on a cocktail of medicine. Yeah, it's, you know, there's limited. You know, tools with medication and, and, uh, along and, and, uh, so I've had some treatment failures with meds, you know, sometimes, you know, you want to, I would refer people to therapy, but there's at least since the night, you know, late eighties, nineties, there hasn't been a lot of new stuff as far as medication, there's different SSRIs, different SNRIs, but it's a fairly low body average and a lot of trial and error with.

Conventional medication, it doesn't mean that I'm very pro those kind of interventions, but it can be a long road for people and they don't work immediately. So, so we basically, we decided for some of our patients are having. Treatment resistant depression or anxiety or trauma. We, we tried ketamine with, with some of our patients and we felt like we had a lot of success.

I think our patients responded well to it. So we started doing it more proactively and we were kind of the 1st, I think things have caught up with us now, but at the time we weren't just giving people ketamine and we had a therapist in place to kind of help process. So, you know, we, we aren't just giving people ketamine and turning them loose because we think that's really more than just that.

The medicine, it's, it's the work you do after and stuff like that. So kind of evolved from there, but we kind of just started that way.

Chris McDonald: Can you describe what is ketamine for those who may not know what that is, who might be listening?

Austin Francom: Yeah. Uh, ketamine was initially a drug used in the sixties for anesthesia.

And the facility is very popular with veterinary medicine, with pediatrics, because it's very safe, even at high doses, it doesn't affect your blood pressure, breathing heart rate. So you can get, you can use that without needing an anesthesiologist to manage in every way. Um, so it's used worldwide. Because of its value as an anesthesia, I think there's with, uh, people having used it in the field, particularly, uh, my, my history may be off a little bit, but veterans that had used it and noticed, uh, improvement in PTSD or depression symptoms.

Um, and so that there was some push to use it off label. I began hearing about it about 10 years ago, but it had been used off label for depression or anxiety, but it's used a much lower doses for those things. So, um, about a third or a fifth of what you do is a higher dose for anesthesia. For it's essentially a psychedelic intervention, not low doses.

It induces kind of a state of dissociation. where you're able to kind of process in a, in a weird space, I guess, but it's kind of a similar to a psychedelic drug, essentially.

Candace Curzon: The way I like to describe it is ketamine. It can be an out of body experience. It's a very strange experience. It's very fast acting, but what it does is it, I like to describe it as a container for you to go in and do your work in a really safe way, a container for you to go in and feel what you need to feel.

In order to heal, and it's not necessarily people go in and have memories that they never had before, and they can relive everything. It's I've seen that happen probably 5 times, right? But more often than not, people go in and they feel what they need to feel in a really safe way and in a really loving way and a way where they can look at themselves with love and self compassion in a way that they, they knew that But they didn't know that I'm pointing to my head and my heart and our heart.

Yes. There's a knowing there's a knowing, Oh, I know I should do this. I know, I, I know I should love myself. I know I should be kinder to myself, but ketamine and psychedelics in general, but, but ketamine is the one we can work with because it's legal. It provides a way for people to have a self compassion, which is needed for healing.

Because there's some safety that's created when they create safety inside themselves, then they can start to heal the parts of themselves. And so I, I believe that I think it's like a container for you to go in and just feel and love on yourself.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. I've not heard it described that way. That's very interesting.

That's one of the main ways it was so many ways it works, but that's, that's the

Candace Curzon: way.

Austin Francom: And it can always go within a psychedelic journey. It can always go any direction and sometimes it can be scary sometimes, you know, and, and sometimes those are the most healing types of, you know, it can go any direction, but that is pretty common experience of just, you know, that, that part of your brain that has the, that's talking and negative self talk.

And when that goes away, you can just kind of see yourself. A different light. It's nice to have a therapist there because sometimes hard things come up or it can be scary or it can be dark and and being able to to manage those situations and reframe it in a way that, you know, this is just a medicine and people are bigger than the.

And this drug that are bigger than the, than their trauma, their, their depression. And I think it's nice to be able to fill that, to kind of those things that seem so huge in our psyche, sometimes after ketamine, uh, ketamine treatments, they don't seem quite so big. It doesn't make. So

Candace Curzon: it is a really strange experience and we really have no control over what the person and the medicine do, like what they're doing and what work they have to do.

We have no control over that, but we do have control over just kind of the setting and, and just. Helping them feel safe to providing the space for them to do it. So you can definitely feel scary. We never know which

Chris McDonald: way it's going to go. Sounds like the uncertainty principle we have in brain spotting as well.

Never know what's going to come up. Never know. Yeah. Yeah. So Austin, can you talk about like the effects on the brain? Like what is happening neurobiologically?

Austin Francom: Well, so it has some anesthetic type of qualities that kind of suppress your central motor function, which is probably why it's a little more dissociative.

It does promote. Neurons that don't normally talk with each other that they're allowed to kind of communicate. And there's a neurogenesis theory that that kind of supports this idea that, you know, it reinforces positive pathways and, and, or it creates new pathways. And that's a little more of the neurobiology kind of theory towards, uh, we, we feel pretty strongly.

There's a, there's another theory that kind of supports having kind of a profound or mystical experience, uh, things in our Western culture that we don't have, like rites of passage or, or a medicine tradition. But. There is some evidence, you know, I don't know, having a powerful experience, even if it sometimes can help reframe stuff in here, everybody doesn't have a powerful experience.

It's just it's between them and and and the medicine and we just try to be supportive of with whatever comes up. So there's a couple prevailing theories, but generally there's. What most people talk about is neurogenesis, meaning it kind of causes some, some connections to kind of happen that that weren't previously there.

It's it's hard because there's a gap in the knowledge that there's a gap, you know, and with behavioral medicine where there's some good theories out there, but there's always human behavior or emotion life experience very so much that that it's hard to kind of. To just one size fits all kind of experience.

So,

Chris McDonald: yeah, it sounds like it could be very individual based on the person.

Austin Francom: No, it's a, it's very,

Candace Curzon: yeah. And also, also it's different every time someone could come in here a hundred times and have a hundred different experiences. And it, it's just, there's no way to know where it's going to go and what they're going to do with it.

So it's hard. It's a very hard work to do.

Austin Francom: And you go through different, you know, you're not the same person you were five years ago. You're going, you're a difference phases in life. You're, you're dealing with different for, you know, people, I don't know if you have kids or not, but when your kids are young, it's a completely different phase of life than when your kids are leaving or, or if losing a loved one or, you know, different things that are just part of the human experience and medicine like ketamine can kind of help you move through those It doesn't mean it, it solves those problems for you, but it just kind of helps you.

It's just a tool to kind of help you work through life events that we all kind of experience being human.

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This workbook provides simple strategies that are not only practical, but easy to integrate into your busy life. Discover how to boost your energy and how to improve healthy habits for eating, exercise, and sleep. Revitalize your practice with holistic morning and evening self care routines. Plus, get access to links for soothing meditations, self massage techniques, and grounding yoga.

Elevate your well being and become a more mindful counselor today. Check it out at hcpodcast. org forward slash workbook. That's hcpodcast. org forward slash workbook. Today, I guess, is there certain conditions like mental health diagnosis that this is good for? Or is it for anybody?

Austin Francom: You know, we do have to work in a Western model, of course, for sure.

So could it be good for anybody? Yes. Um, usually though, our, our main things that we see the people for our depression, anxiety, and PTSD, we have used it for. Pain and addiction, recovery, uh, and OCD, which I guess, yeah, is a, another, some variations of anxiety disorders, but OCD, um, intrusive thoughts

Candace Curzon: and stories and, and can kind of calm the chatter that's going on.

Nice.

Austin Francom: We don't typically use it for disorders with psychosis. So, um, schizophrenia, uh, you know, uh, get so effective or, or mania where there's psychosis. We don't use it with mania at any time because it is a very strange experience and we don't want to unmoor anybody from reality, I guess, but generally the more common things that people Go through in life.

Yeah.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. I was just going to ask about addiction. So is this something that that people are willing to do? Cause I know a lot of times if people are sober, they don't want to use any kind of quote unquote medication or drug or.

Austin Francom: Yeah. I mean, back when we were younger, the kind of 12 step model of recovery was very abstinence.

And I think, you know, there's been a bit of a trend that that model doesn't work for everybody that

Chris McDonald: that's good to know.

Austin Francom: And so, if the 12 step model works for you, ketamine is probably not the best resource, but, um, but we found a lot of, you know, there's a pretty good stats, particularly with alcohol that it can reduce recidivism quite a bit.

Stats aren't very good with opioids, but that's kind of across the board. The board opiates are just kind of tough, uh, alcohol and, uh, stimulants have very good results with ketamine though, as far as maintaining sobriety.

Candace Curzon: We've also had some people who have tried to reduce, um, smoking with ketamine with some good results.

Oh, great. Yeah.

Austin Francom: It's helpful for addiction and, and also, you know, people that suffer from addiction often have underlying depression and trauma and underlying causes of why do you, why you would turn to a substance. So typically it is abusable, but it's in this kind of setting, it's not abused, you know, for a number of reasons, but, um, uh, mainly because it's, it's You know, it doesn't have a predictable reward, you know, sometimes it can be beautiful or, or even euphoric, but sometimes it can be scarier or hard feel like you're doing hard work.

So, it doesn't have that linear reward that say, alcohol, you kind of know what to expect when you have a drink, but with ketamine, it's a little bit more of a wild card, but it

Chris McDonald: doesn't

Austin Francom: seem to be healing for people with addiction. I suspect though, it's possibly is. It helps with those underlying causes of addiction as well.

So

Chris McDonald: yeah, exactly. It's all connected. So can you walk us through, like, what would a session look like? So if somebody comes to you for ketamine, what, from start to finish, what is that like?

Austin Francom: For a new patient, I do a, a psych eval and it hits. So we have a coordinator that That does a consult and we'll get a medical history, psychiatric history.

Usually we'll put a memo and then

Candace Curzon: prepare them for what's what

Austin Francom: it is before their first session, I'll do a psych eval and a kind of abbreviated history of physical and just make sure they feel safe and comfortable about the procedure. Then Candace will usually give them some instruction on managing the experience.

You know, either me or one of a nurse, an RN will, will administer the medication after that.

Candace Curzon: So they get the medication, um, they're in one of our therapy rooms with couches or chairs reclined, we've got eye shades, music, kind of like just a very therapeutic room and we're in one of them now and the medicine we will do IV intravenous or intramuscular will let people choose which way they want to go.

People just kind of feel comfortable with what they feel comfortable on the research they've done. The different routes of administration, the difference, the medicine feels the same, and it's about the same absorption rate. The difference is how fast it hits them. Difference between, uh, intramuscular, it'd be faster about 3 to 4 minutes and IV is about 10 minutes and they'll start to feel it.

We're here to support them. It's a very internal process. They have eye shades on music going. We're very aware of what's going on. We're poking our head in and out. We're not sitting with him the whole time. We do offer ketamine assisted psychotherapy where there is a therapist with him

Austin Francom: through the whole

Candace Curzon: process.

Not

Austin Francom: true.

Candace Curzon: And talk about that in a minute, but the immersive process is we're poking our head in about every five minutes, just checking in first time we try not interrupt him because so we just, they're kind of in a flow, but we'll just touch them, you know, get permission, then touch them and ask them if they're okay.

And, and then encourage them to keep going. If at any point of the process, they need extra support, we're, we're here helping them ground, breathe, move through it, reminding them there. They have a body reminding them they're alive, you know, we'll, we'll use tools like. Oils and other things just kind of ground and bring them back to their body and help them move through the process.

The whole process, depending on which route of administration is about an hour of the deepest part of it. And then they have another hour to come out of it, come back to themselves and ground. And then we are there to process and talk about what happened with it. They need to have a ride to go home. You know, we don't let them drive after we offer support group.

On zoom, which is, is, uh, we have the preparation group, a weekly preparation group to prepare them intention, setting playlists, what to expect, how to, you know, how to prepare. And then we also offer weekly processing integration group, where they get a check in on zoom. And just talk about the experience.

Um, we have a life coach, Allie, who's really great at helping people, you know, putting words to the experience and helping them get the most out of the treatment that they can and, and giving them ideas on how to process and integrate through movement, writing. Breathing all the, all the things we also are going to be offering two weekly groups, not whether on ketamine, but after ketamine, it's an, it's an eight group close group with two IFS therapists.

That's the internal family systems therapist, uh, to help them. Really get the most out of this experience and to bring together their parts and to IFS and ketamine go hand in hand. And these ladies are wonderful and they know ketamine and they know IFS and they bring they're bringing the 2 together.

And so we're, we're going to be offering that here in the next month. So we're pretty excited about that, but it's a really great way to get the most out of just coming in and getting ketamine.

Austin Francom: We also encourage, if you have your own personal therapist to, you know, do therapy sessions in between your ketamine sessions, so that while you're open and, and really when we're doing the immersive sessions of ketamine, when you're in that state of dissociation, your cognitive faculties are really kind of offline.

You can be very powerful. So those are our kind of. We kind of do try to get people in that assistive state within reason, but, you know, we have dosing parameters, but most of the time people have a very powerful experience with that. So we, we try to offer the support around it, but the, the easy part really is coming in and doing the ketamine and then the.

The work you have to do after is kind of the hard part.

Candace Curzon: Can I mention something about the ketamine assisted psychotherapy? Yeah. Yeah. I was curious about that. So if somebody chooses to, we always want people, if they have a therapist to stay with their therapist, because they already have that relationship and a therapist doesn't need to have done ketamine nor know how to do.

Ketamine assistive therapy to do work with it, because what ketamine does is it opens up somebody just opens them up. So therapy changes whether the therapist knows anything about ketamine or not. But if somebody wants to do a deeper dive and have a therapist sitting with them in this office, they can come in and we do a lower dose.

It's usually subcutaneous, so it's a shorter, it's a longer,

Austin Francom: it's absorbed slower. We administer in a way that's absorbed slower so that they don't, it doesn't, yeah. So that they're kind of in a meditative state, but they're not, their cognition's not offline.

Candace Curzon: So it opens them up. They got one foot in this world, one foot in that world.

They're not completely offline. And then we can, we'll do a 30 minute session before where we check in and chat and like figure out what they, what, what it is they want to work on and get a little bit of the history. And then we, we do a deep dive of some therapy with lower dose ketamine fully supported by a therapist.

And then an integration session the next day or two after.

Chris McDonald: So it sounds like you really try to keep it a safe experience and trauma informed.

Candace Curzon: Yeah.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. Cause I would think that it would be scary for a lot of clients to, to figure out what this would be like, because they probably heard of bad trips. I don't know if that's something that you address.

Austin Francom: Bad trips happen. I hate to call them a bad trip cause it's kind of pejorative, but I think almost everybody will have a bad trip, I guess. And, and I would argue sometimes those can be the most insightful, you know, they cause hard stuff comes up. You know, subconsciously, you know, your subconscious wants you to kind of look at some things that maybe you haven't wanted to look at.

I don't look at it as bad. I look at those kinds of trips as good, but they don't feel good.

Candace Curzon: Kind of mean amplifies what's going on with you. It's like, it holds up a mirror without bias that makes any sense. It's kind of like, here's what's going on with you in a really amplified way. And sometimes that can be hard to look at.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, I imagine. So

Candace Curzon: just like, here it is. Yeah, what are you going to do with this and offers a little bit of a roadmap for what to do.

Austin Francom: A good example is, you know, people have, um, things that are, you know, maybe a trauma that comes up and they'll kind of have a, they'll freak out a little bit during the session, but after it's over, you know, it's like, there's a feeling of like.

You know, I, I survived that I have a sense of detachment from that, and it really wasn't as big of a deal if, if I felt that as, as I thought it would, you know, do we, do I fully understand the psychological process? No, not, not at all. But, but it, that seems to be kind of a common experience of like facing something that they haven't sometimes that can even feel like they're having a near death experience.

And even though they're physically perfectly fine, that, that can be very powerful, all that kind of frame. Okay. I feel a lot of gratitude of just being on this earth, even though we all have our issues. It's, it's nice to know we're, we're alive and here and having a experience where you might think you're dying, even though you're perfectly safe, can feel just as powerful as if you, if you think you're happy, you think it's happening and it can be very powerful, whether or not it's the realities there.

I don't know. I don't know if I'm explaining that well.

Candace Curzon: Um, touch on that. Um, it's something we didn't bring up. Ketamine can be really great for suicidal ideation because it works fast. SSRI is traditional. They could take weeks to months and then maybe it works. And then maybe we need to try something else.

Ketamine can work. Fast. So that's why it could be very helpful for someone who is in that state of, of just thinking of that. There's no hope. And ketamine can, I'm not going to say a hundred percent, but a lot of times it can just spark a little bit of hope and a little bit of life and a little bit like, okay, I can do this.

We're also very careful when they come in with that because we also understand it can give them a little bit of energy towards, towards that. But so we, we assess that really carefully. Okay. But it can be really helpful for people who are in that state. And so it's a really great tool with really good follow up and assessment and making sure they have support and using it in that way too.

Chris McDonald: I was just curious what are specific benefits because I know, you know, maybe there's some decreased anxiety. Is there other things that you've noted from people?

Austin Francom: Like kind of said it, you can get pretty immediate results. So you'll, you know, and particularly with suicidal ideation tends to go away quickly.

I guess I was kind of. Theorizing, I don't know, maybe it scares it out of you a little bit sometimes, but, uh, whatever the internal process, uh, I'm only theorizing what the internal processes are that happen there, but it does seem to give you some idea that things can change and change very dramatically.

And, and, you know, I think with depression in particular, I think that loss of hope is the kind of the hard thing when you're,

Chris McDonald: yeah, for sure.

Austin Francom: Yeah, when you're in that state of depression, it's hard to see that, that things will change. And, and the truth with life and most things is, is it's transitory.

Everything is transitory and that includes depression. And for whatever reason, yeah, the pretty immediate results with depression symptoms, uh, good results of anxiety.

Candace Curzon: Yeah. What I hear a lot. Um, and what I've experienced personally is becoming less reactive, becoming more responsive, that chatter, that mind stuff that goes on, it gets a little quieter.

It's like, you're still you, you still have your stuff comes in, but it can pass that. It's like, you can look at it and then just let it go faster. I hear that almost every day from somebody just like, yeah, that just, it's just quieter. I still have it, but then I can look at it and just, they can just let it go.

And then the other thing is, People describing, I'm saying they just felt like a little bit of a reset to their brain. They felt a little bit here. Just so those, those are the two things that I hear frequently that are the immediate benefits.

Austin Francom: You know, some people don't like the idea of being on a, something that will alter your serotonin or your dopamine or epinephrine.

Um, because that does have side effects and having to, you know, with ketamine, you have an experience and you feel like your normal self usually. After the experience in a positive way. So the people like that, that they're, they feel like it's something that they could do as sessions and not necessarily be relying on a drug that's changing my neuro chemistry.

So, and I don't actually, it's nice to have a tool that's different than what we. What is kind of mainstream, but I don't also look at it as mutually exclusive. I think, I think you can be unconventional medication and then when life's events come up and you're, you're kind of fill yourself sliding. You can always, it's a tool you can utilize to kind of lift you out of a whole a lot of times and people find their own path as far as managing it and what works for them.

But we're, we're just here to support that and we don't see people. Yeah. I mean, people use it in the way that works for them and almost always in a way that's reasonable, I guess. I

Chris McDonald: don't know. Is there any side effects?

Austin Francom: The main side effect people get, obviously the psychedelic are, you know, potential for altered mental status, but that's kind of what we want to happen.

But the most common side effect we end up treating is nausea. So we'll get. It, uh, maybe 10, 15 percent of people get nausea and it's just their biology. There's, we, we do try to treat that with promethazine or Zofran. If, if they do have that issue, we can premedicate for it, but you never know until you try it, if that happens, um, it doesn't.

You know, there's not a lot of drugs that, you know, there's some drugs that kind of dampen the effects, but it, it's like I said, it doesn't tend to be respiratory suppressing. So it doesn't tend to interact badly with other drugs. It's fairly safe. It's just, um, the behavioral stuff is more of the side effect that can.

Candace Curzon: The nice thing about it too, is you don't have to come off your meds to do this. Oh, okay. Doesn't really interact with many, many meds. Like Austin said, it can dampen, like if you're on a. An SSRI, or like Lamictal, Benzos, uh, things like that. It can, it can dampen the experience, but you don't have to stop any medication.

At Benzo, we'd say don't take a day of, like an Adderall, we'd say don't take the day of, but you don't have to come off anything to, and if someone is on something like Lamictal, Austin will go change the dosing.

Austin Francom: We can adjust the dosing, but we don't want to, people are on maybe stabilizing meds. We obviously don't want to rock that boat if it's, If they are getting some benefit out of it.

Candace Curzon: Yeah,

Austin Francom: true. So it just, that's kind of, I guess that's why you come into us to, to kind of get some, you know, some guidance and, and feel safe, but no, I generally, the nausea is the main side effect besides some. The effects we're trying to induce, which I guess technically altering somebody's mental status temporarily is a side effect.

We look at it as an official side effect.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, no, that makes sense. So how many sessions do people have to go for, or does that vary?

Austin Francom: We recommend more than one. But usually, you know, some people it doesn't work for. So if they feel like after one or two sessions, it's not for them. We don't usually encourage them to continue, but we'll do up to six and then they need a drug holiday to see what they get out of the, out of it.

And occasionally we have people come up. Periodically for boosters after they kind of

Candace Curzon: the research has been done on a series of six, which is not a magic number, but six is a great number for us to see some changes. And if someone isn't seeing, we, first of all, let somebody try it the 1 time, make sure that they'd like the experience, see if there's something in their form, and then they convert that into like a package of 6 to give them a little bit of the price break.

But we, if it's, if they try it and they want to keep going, they think there's something there for them, we'll encourage six and then. And then do boosters as needed, but that, that looks like it's different for everybody. Some people come in once a month, come in like every six months, sometimes once a year, sometimes people like fall might be hard or an anniversary of some death might be hard.

You know, somebody we kind of, people kind of know their triggers and sometimes they just come in for a little boost before they know something's gonna trigger them to, to kind of just kind of get a little. Support and help during the harder times of the year. So we'll, we'll see them come in then. And, but everybody's just so different.

Chris McDonald: So what's the best way for our listeners to find you and learn more about what you offer?

Candace Curzon: Um, our website is ktherapyslc. com. That's the best way to get ahold of us. There's a link to. Make an appointment for consultation. It's a free 15 minute consultation with Angelina. She's very knowledgeable and can really help.

You know, she's, she's really knowledgeable. So there's a 15 minute consultation they can get to through our website. And then our phone number is also on our website. That number is 385685. That's one four one zero, but that's on our website, ktherapyslc. com

Chris McDonald: and we'll have that in the show notes too. So listeners can access that, but thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

This has been very interesting to learn more about this.

Candace Curzon: Thank you for having us.

Chris McDonald: Thank you. Yeah. Absolutely. And that wraps up another episode of the Holistic Counseling Podcast. As a gift to my listeners and to help support you on your holistic journey, I have a free 30 day Aura Meditation app guest pass to help you find peace and get some restful sleep.

Check it out today at hcpodcast. org forward slash better sleep. That's hcpodcast. org forward slash better sleep. And once again, this is Chris McDonald sending each one of you much light and love, take care. Thanks for listening. The information in this podcast is for general educational purposes only, and it is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are giving legal financial counseling or any other kind of professional advice.

If you need a professional, please find the right one for you. The holistic counseling podcast. This is probably part of the site craft network.

Gordon Brewer: Hi folks, Gordon Brewer here. And if you don't know me yet, I'm the person behind the practice of therapy podcast, which is part of the site craft network of podcasts. The site craft network is a collaboration of independent podcasters, just like this one focused on helping people live. More meaningful and productive lives.

This network of podcasts provides both self help and business building resources to create an impact in the world and change people's lives. And I'm so proud to be part of this network along with this podcast. And if you haven't discovered the practice of therapy podcast, you can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts.

I'd love for you to join us as we explore the business and clinical sides of running a private practice. Be sure to check us out, practice of therapy. com for all the great resources and free webinars to help you in your own private practice journey.

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