Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy · June 21, 2026 · 7 min read
Preparing for Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy: A Therapist's Guide
What preparation, dosing-day support, and integration involve in KAP - and where the psychotherapist's role ends and the medical prescriber's begins.
Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) is often described as if the medicine does the work. In practice, the medicine opens a window; the psychotherapy is what makes the window usable.
Two distinct roles
Ketamine is prescribed, screened for, and medically monitored by an authorized prescriber at a licensed ketamine clinic. As a Registered Psychotherapist, I do not prescribe, provide, administer, or source any substance. My role is the psychotherapy: preparation, supported inner exploration, and integration, in ongoing collaboration with the prescribing clinician.
Preparation
- Clarifying intention - what you are hoping to meet, not just what you want gone
- Building resourcing skills you can reach for if the experience becomes intense
- Mapping protective parts that may show up before or after a session
- Practical planning: transport, the rest of your day, who you will be with afterward
Integration is where change consolidates
Insight without embodiment fades. Integration sessions translate what surfaced into something your daily life can hold: a boundary, a grief that finally has room, a different relationship to your body. This is slower and less cinematic than the dosing session, and it is usually the part that lasts.
KAP is not suitable for everyone. Medical screening and clinical fit both matter, and it is completely reasonable to decide the timing is not right.
Written by Sarah Cushing, Registered Psychotherapist (CRPO #15706), offering depth-oriented psychotherapy in Ottawa and virtually across Ontario. This article is educational and is not a substitute for individual clinical care.