Somatic Ketamine-Assisted Therapy
for Transformational Healing in the Bay Area
Somatic Ketamine-Assisted Therapy (S-KAP) in the Bay Area is more than treatment—it’s a return home to yourself. By blending ketamine’s transformative effects with somatic psychotherapy, this approach fosters deep healing for trauma, anxiety, and depression.
Ketamine therapy opens new neural pathways—like soft earth after the rain, ready for seeds of healing to take root. Paired with somatic mindfulness, it offers not just relief, but a way back to your innate wholeness.
Why Choose Somatic Ketamine-Assisted Therapy?
For those in the Bay Area seeking a deeper path to healing, Somatic Ketamine-Assisted Therapy (KAP) offers another way—a path inward, toward healing that begins in the body and unfolds from within. This therapy blends ketamine’s neuroplasticity-enhancing effects with somatic psychotherapy, allowing old emotional patterns to soften and new possibilities to emerge.
KAP is especially beneficial for those who feel stuck—whether in old emotional patterns, nervous system overwhelm, or ways of being that no longer serve them. It helps dissolve barriers to healing, creating space for deeper self-awareness, resilience, and a return to your natural state of peace and presence.
Key Benefits of KAP:
🌿 Emotional Clarity – Clears emotional blockages and enhances self-awareness.
🌊 Healing Trauma – Gently supports the release of deep-rooted trauma, promoting emotional and physical healing.
🔥 Improved Emotional Regulation – Cultivates resilience in navigating stress, anxiety, and depression.
🌙 Relief from Mood Disorders – Offers lasting relief from PTSD, OCD, depression, and anxiety when other treatments fall short.
🌱 Body Awareness – Strengthens the mind-body connection and emotional attunement.
✨ Spiritual Growth – Supports self-discovery, intuition, and reconnection with your authentic self.
The S-KAP Approach: Healing Through the Body & Relationship
Most Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) focuses on the mind—expanding consciousness, shifting perspectives, and accessing deep insights. Somatic Ketamine-Assisted Therapy (S-KAP) takes it further by bringing the body and nervous system into the process, making healing not just something you understand, but something you feel and live.
S-KAP works by releasing stored trauma in the body, deepening self-awareness, and reshaping nervous system patterns that have been wired for survival. Many clients come in feeling disconnected from themselves, their emotions, or their bodies. Through somatic therapy, relational attunement, and mindfulness, we help the body move from states of protection (fight, flight, freeze) into states of safety, presence, and connection.
Healing doesn’t happen in isolation—it happens in relationship. Many of the wounds we carry stem from past attachment ruptures, relational trauma, or unmet needs. S-KAP helps repair these wounds by providing a safe, attuned therapeutic space where new relational experiences can form. When appropriate, safe, consensual touch can also be incorporated to help reinforce safety and connection in the nervous system.
Unlike traditional KAP, which may focus more on individual psychedelic insights, S-KAP is an embodied, relational, and deeply integrative approach to healing. This process allows for lasting transformation—not just a temporary shift, but a fundamental reconnection to yourself and the world around you.
How Does Ketamine Work?
Ketamine isn’t just a medicine—it’s a doorway. A doorway out of isolation, out of looping thought patterns, out of old stories that keep you feeling stuck. Unlike traditional antidepressants, which work by increasing serotonin, ketamine bypasses that system entirely, creating profound shifts in awareness and connection within hours rather than weeks.
At low doses, ketamine stimulates neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to rewire and form new pathways. It increases the production of glutamate, a neurotransmitter that enhances communication between neurons, helping break the grip of depression, anxiety, and trauma patterns.
But the real magic of ketamine is its ability to soften the walls between self and other, allowing people to experience deep interconnectedness, a sense of oneness, and a release from isolation. Many clients come into therapy feeling cut off from life, struggling to find relationships, purpose, or a place where they truly belong. Ketamine can open the door—but it’s in the integration that we help you walk through it.
S-KAP works with this expanded state by grounding it in somatic awareness, mindfulness, and relational healing, ensuring that these experiences aren’t fleeting, but become the foundation for lasting transformation.
Who is a Good Candidate for S-KAP?
S-KAP is for those who are ready to engage in a deeper healing process—one that integrates the mind, body, and spirit. This therapy is not just about symptom relief, but about transformation, self-discovery, and reconnecting with a sense of belonging.
You may be a good fit for S-KAP if you:
• Struggle with depression, anxiety, PTSD, or OCD and want to explore healing beyond conventional talk therapy.
• Feel stuck in emotional patterns or trauma responses that keep you disconnected from yourself or others.
• Are drawn to integrative, holistic, or spiritual approaches that go beyond just reducing symptoms.
• Want to explore somatic healing—connecting with your body’s wisdom and nervous system regulation as part of your therapy.
• Are seeking a therapeutic experience rooted in deep presence, relational healing, and expanded awareness.
If you’d like to see if S-KAP is right for you, I offer a free 20-minute consultation to explore if this therapy aligns with your needs.
The KAP Treatment Path:
Somatic Ketamine-Assisted Therapy (S-KAP) is more than a treatment—it’s a guided journey of deep inner exploration, healing, and integration. Each phase of this process is designed to support your mind, body, and nervous system, helping you move from patterns of trauma and disconnection toward a greater sense of presence, resilience, and relational connection.
1. Initial Intake & Assessment: Setting the Foundation for Healing
Your journey begins with a required intake consultation to assess your eligibility for KAP, clarify your healing goals, and answer questions about the treatment process. This session ensures that ketamine-assisted therapy is the right fit before moving forward.
2. Pre-KAP Relational Therapy: Building a Strong Therapeutic Relationship
Before beginning ketamine sessions, we engage in Pre-KAP relational therapy to build a foundation of trust, emotional safety, and therapeutic connection. In these initial sessions, we explore core themes, false beliefs, and past traumas, while practicing grounding and resourcing techniques to support nervous system regulation. This deep preparation ensures you feel safe, seen, and ready for the work ahead. (Note: Pre-KAP is different from Preparation Sessions, which are scheduled before each ketamine journey to set intentions for that specific session.)
3. Preparation Sessions: Getting Ready for Transformation
Before each ketamine lozenge session, we’ll meet for a Preparation Session to help you set intentions, deepen body awareness, and regulate your nervous system for the journey ahead. These sessions create a foundation for tracking sensations and emotions, practicing grounding techniques, and clarifying what you hope to explore during your ketamine journey. Preparation is essential in maximizing the benefits of ketamine-assisted therapy, ensuring that you feel mentally, emotionally, and spiritually ready for the experience.
KAP Lozenge Session
4. Ketamine Lozenge Sessions: The Heart of Your Healing Process
The Ketamine Lozenge Session is where deep transformation unfolds—a space for healing, insight, and reconnection. As the medicine takes effect, you’ll relax in a supportive, therapeutic setting—reclined on a chair or massage table, with the option to wear an eye mask and listen to carefully curated music to deepen your inward focus.
Ketamine’s effects begin within 5-10 minutes, peak for 20-30 minutes, and gradually fade over the next hour. While every journey is unique, clients often describe feeling a sense of spaciousness, emotional clarity, or profound connection to themselves and the world. Throughout the experience, we may engage in somatic mindfulness techniques, safe touch (optional), Internal Family Systems (IFS), EMDR, or Hakomi to help you explore the emotions, memories, and sensations that arise.
Unlike conventional ketamine treatments that focus solely on symptom relief, Somatic Ketamine-Assisted Therapy (S-KAP) works with the body’s wisdom, nervous system healing, and relational attunement to integrate these experiences fully. This is not just about accessing altered states—it’s about bringing what you discover into your life, relationships, and healing journey.
The Ketamine Experience
The Ketamine Experience can vary from person to person, influenced by dose, mindset, and intention. At lower therapeutic doses, ketamine has mild anesthetic, antidepressant, and psychoactive effects, helping to relax the body and mind while softening defensive mechanisms. You may experience a shift in perception, increased emotional access, or profound insights that help release long-standing emotional blocks.
At higher psychedelic doses, ketamine facilitates a deeply inward journey, where the usual sense of self and time softens, allowing for expansive awareness and deep personal exploration. Clients often describe feelings of profound connection, a release of old wounds, and transformative insights into themselves and their lives. These internal journeys may bring clarity, healing from past experiences, and a peaceful sense of relief.
Some find the ketamine experience exhilarating and freeing, while others move through challenging but valuable emotional material. My role is to help you navigate whatever arises with care, attunement, and support. Whether uplifting or intense, every aspect of your journey holds the potential for deep healing, integration, and transformation.
Making Your Ketamine Experience Last
5. Integration Sessions
The true transformation of ketamine therapy happens not just in the session itself, but in how you integrate the experience into your life. After each ketamine journey, we engage in a dedicated integration session to help you process insights, emotions, and any material that surfaced.
Through somatic therapy, Internal Family Systems (IFS), EMDR, Hakomi, art therapy, and Polyvagal-informed nervous system healing, we work to anchor the shifts in your body and psyche—ensuring that what emerges in your session doesn’t just fade, but becomes part of your growth and healing.
Many clients experience profound insights, emotional breakthroughs, and deep clarity during KAP. Integration helps you make sense of these experiences, explore their relevance to your relationships and personal patterns, and develop practices that sustain the transformation long after the medicine wears off.
Whether your experience felt expansive, challenging, or somewhere in between, integration is where healing takes root—allowing you to move forward with more ease, self-awareness, and connection to your true self.
The KAP Treatment
Path Summary
Step 1: Schedule a KAP Consultation
50 minutes (telehealth)
Step 1: Schedule a medical Consultation with medical pREscriber
50 minutes (telehealth)
Step 3: RECOMMENDED 3-6 PREPARATION Sessions (2 required)
50 minutes (telehealth)
Step 4: KETAMINE MEDICINE SESSIONS (3 hours, 3 required)
These sessions can be held in-person in my office in Oakland, CA or via telehealth.
Step 5: RECOMMENDED 3-6 INTEGRATION SESSIONS
50 minutes (telehealth)
For KAP Fees and Policies, click on the link below:
Interested in Learning More?
schedule a free 20-min KAP intro call or book a 50-min KAP consultation
If you’re curious about whether Ketamine-Assisted Therapy (KAP) might be right for you, I offer a 20-minute free introductory call. During this call, we’ll discuss your goals, answer any questions you may have, and explore if KAP is the right fit for your healing journey.
If you feel ready to proceed after our call, we can schedule your KAP Intake Consultation for $160, where we will dive deeper into your treatment plan and the steps for starting your KAP journey. If you’re already confident about moving forward, you can skip the introductory call and go directly to the KAP Intake Consultation.
Evidence-Based Research on KAP
Research on Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) and ketamine lozenges has shown promising results for mental health treatment. Below are key studies exploring their efficacy:
CURRENT RESEARCH ON KAP:
• Toward Specific Ways to Combine Ketamine and Psychotherapy in Treating Depression – Published by Cambridge University, this article explores how psychotherapy enhances ketamine’s effects in treating depression.
• Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy: Current Research and Applications – A journal article examining the therapeutic potential of KAP for trauma, depression, and anxiety.
• What I Wish I’d Known Before Ketamine Therapy – A first-person perspective on preparing for and integrating ketamine therapy, published by Psychedelic Support.
• Long-Term Benefits of Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy – A study on the sustained clinical benefits of KAP lasting up to six months.
• Ketamine Lozenges for Treatment-Resistant Depression – Research on the efficacy of sublingual ketamine in treating depression.
Note: Research on KAP and ketamine lozenges is evolving. Individual results may vary, and consultation with a qualified provider is essential before starting treatment.
Client Experiences with KAP