How Therapeutic Ketamine Supports Healing with Grace Lawrie, LPC

Welcome to Couch Time! To connect, visit catiaholm.com or call/text 956-249-7930.

In today's episode, we explore therapeutic ketamine through the lens of Internal Family Systems and somatic integration, asking what becomes possible when science and soul sit down together. Grace Laurie, LPC, shares practical insight on safety, structure, and why honoring protective parts is central to lasting change.

• how ketamine reduces rumination and opens neuroplasticity
• why IFS and compassionate parts work deepen integration
• who benefits most: TRD, PTSD, CPTSD, OCD, burnout
• postpartum depression potential and safety considerations
• dosing routes, timelines, and what a session looks like
• preparation, ritual, and the importance of a steady container
• cost transparency and realistic expectations for outcomes
• using novelty and small changes to reinforce new pathways
• hope, resistance, and inviting protective parts to the table

Show Guest: 

Meet Grace Lawrie, LPC – Therapist, Healing Partner, and Advocate for Neurodivergent & LGBTQIA+ Communities

Grace is a deeply intuitive and compassionate therapist who brings a holistic, embodied approach to healing. Rooted in the belief that the therapeutic relationship is the foundation of transformation, Grace creates a space of safety, curiosity, and collaboration where clients can explore their inner landscapes and reconnect with their inherent wisdom.

With training in Internal Family Systems (IFS), Gestalt therapy, somatic practices, and Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP), Grace supports clients in aligning their emotional, physical, and psychological selves. Her work is anchored in anti-oppressive, trauma-informed, and neurodiversity-affirming frameworks—making her a trusted guide for neurodivergent individuals, LGBTQIA+ clients, and those navigating complex trauma, identity exploration, and non-traditional relationships.

As a clinician for queer and neurodivergent folks, Grace brings lived experience, deep empathy, and authenticity into every session. Whether supporting clients through emotional healing, relationship dynamics, or psychedelic integration, she empowers them to move from surviving to thriving—on their own terms.

To contact Grace Lawrie

Email: grace@movingpartspsychotherapy.com

Psychology Today Profile - Grace Lawrie

Transcript

Welcome And Intentions

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to Couch Time with Cat, your safe place for real conversation and a gentle check-in. KWVH presents Couch Time with Cat.

Naming The Doorway: Ketamine + IFS

Speaker 2 0:10

Hi friends, and welcome to Couch Time with Cat, Mental Wellness with a Friendly Voice. I'm Cat, therapist bestselling author, TEDx speaker, and endurance athlete. But most of all, I'm a wife, mama, and someone who deeply believes that people are good and healing is possible. Here in the Hill Country of Wimberley, Texas, I've built my life and practice around one purpose to make mental wellness feel accessible, compassionate, and real. This show is for those moments when life feels heavy, when you're craving clarity, or when you just need to hear, you're not alone. Each week we'll explore the terrain of mental wellness through stories, reflections, research, and tools you can bring into everyday life. Think of it as a conversation between friends, rooted in science, guided by heart, and grounded in the belief that healing does not have to feel clinical. It can feel like sitting on a couch with someone who gets it. So whether you're driving, walking, cooking, or simply catching your breath, you're welcome here. This is your space to feel seen, supported, and reminded of your own strength. I'm so glad you're here. Let's dive in. What if the depression that won't budge, the burnout that sleep doesn't fix, the trauma that still lives in your body isn't because you're broken, but because a part of you is still protecting you. And what if there was a way to gently meet that part? Not override it, not numb it, but listen. Today we're talking about therapeutic ketamine, internal family systems, and what becomes possible when science and soul sit down together. There are moments in life when we've tried everything. The therapy, the books, the mindset shifts, the supplements, the long walks, and still there's a heaviness. Not dramatic, not always visible. Just stuck. It's the kind of stuck that whispers, maybe this is just how it's gonna be. And as a therapist, I've sat with so many people in that quiet despair. High functioning, capable, insightful, kind, but just exhausted from carrying something that they can't seem to metabolize. Sometimes what's stuck isn't a lack of effort. It's a nervous system that never gets to fully let go. It's trauma that lives in the body. It's parts of us frozen in time doing their best to protect us. And sometimes healing doesn't require pushing harder. Sometimes it requires a different doorway. And today we're talking about one of those doorways. Today's conversation is thoughtful, grounded, and deeply nuanced because it isn't about quick fixes. It's about reinclaiming your relationship with yourself. Today I'm enjoyed by one of my very, very favorites. Grace Laurie, LPC, is a senior therapist at Moving Parts Psychotherapy, healing partner, and fierce advocate for neurodivergent and LGBTQIA plus communities. She brings a deeply embodied and holistic approach to healing rooted in internal family systems, gestalt therapy, somatic practices, and ketamine-assisted therapy. Grace believes transformation happens in relationship. Relationship to self, to parts, to body, and to community. Her work is trauma-informed, anti-oppressive, and neuro-affirming. She supports people navigating complex trauma, identity exploration, non-traditional relationships, burnout, and depression that hasn't responded to traditional methods. Grace doesn't pathologize survival strategies. She gets curious about them. And that's why she's perfect for today's conversation. Also, I love her very much, and she is my dear, dear friend. So I am 100% biased in this conversation.

Speaker 4:27

Hi, Grace. Welcome back. Hello. I'm really happy to be here. I love you too.

Speaker 2 4:33

I'm so glad you're here. Thank you. Thank you for this.

What Ketamine Is And Isn’t

Speaker 1 4:37

Yeah, I'm so happy that I could be here and excited to talk about this because, you know, as you were describing these doors that we can walk through, ketamine is exactly that. Like I was like, oh, this is the metaphor that I use in my work. And we haven't talked about this.

Speaker 2 4:57

It is.

Speaker 1 4:57

I talk a lot about, you know what, ketamine is this doorway, and the therapy is me walking with you through it. Right. So really often people, you know, maybe have had psychedelic experiences that have been really impactful. And that question is, right, like, why do I need to do this in therapy? If I could do this on my own, or if I could go to music festival, or I can have this social experience, what's the difference? And that's the thing, is like it's a beautiful door. And how do we walk through that door? And that's the integration portion of it. So as you were talking about that, I was like, yes, this is it.

Speaker 2 5:34

Doors, doors, doors. Can I start at I mean basic level? Yeah. Okay. What is ketamine? What is that?

Speaker 1 5:45

Yeah. So um ketamine is a disassociative psychedelic. And so it has historically been used. It's been used since the 1960s. And it was used as an analgesic. So if people were having experiences like battlefield wounds, they would receive ketamine because it was fast-acting. Um, it doesn't affect your respiration. So your breathing isn't changed, and they were able to receive care on the battlefield. And so has been used for a really long time, has been used for adults, has been used for children. If a child experiences surgery, this is what's used really often as the analgesic in the hospital. So really pretty safe profile as far as drugs like this go. At higher doses, we do see the beginning of a psychedelic experience. So lower doses, also useful, higher doses, we see that psychedelic approach. And what was actually found was that when this was used as an analgesic, the experience afterwards was that they were better able to integrate what had happened to them in the injury, in the surgery, on the battlefield. So research began to happen specifically around people who had war experiences. And what was that relationship with ketamine? And that's kind of the foundation of the research that became what now is what we know to be the use of ketamine assisted psychotherapy.

Speaker 2 7:24

If people are driving and they cannot Google analgesic, what is that?

Speaker 1 7:32

Yeah, so uh yeah, like um very like anesthetic. So, right, if you are going to have something that is going to physically hurt your body, how can you separate from that experience in order to not receive the full experience of that pain?

Speaker 2 7:49

So it's like Tylenol.

Speaker 1 7:53

Um, it's like right.

Speaker 2 7:56

Morphine, give me like a something that is like a mainstream. Like somebody knows that they take this to not feel as much pain.

Speaker 1 8:06

Right. Um, yeah, so other analgesics are should we Google like Amy Polar?

Speaker 2 8:15

She just like pulls up her computer. We're gonna Google. Yeah, I love it. I mean, we all we have the you have the Google machine right in front of you.

Speaker 1 8:22

I have a Google machine. AcetamineFm is considered an analgesic. I didn't want to say that it was. Look at that.

Speaker 2 8:29

It sounded like the dumbest when it was true.

Speaker 1 8:32

Opioids. I was like, I don't know if if if Tylenol is an analgesic. Yes.

Why Grace Chose This Work

Speaker 2 8:38

Okay, okay, so a pain reliever. Painkillers. Painkillers. Love it. I love a painkiller. Okay, good. Okay, right. So the origin of ketamine is that it was used as a painkiller in lower doses, but they realized in higher doses, it helps people integrate what has happened.

unknown 9:00

Right.

Speaker 1 9:01

And so, you know, people who were having things like battlefield wounds were receiving high doses because they were actively bleeding, actively injured, it's a battlefield wound, right? Um, but they found that in using that ketamine, that those people were better able to integrate those experiences that they had versus people who had used, say, opiates or other types of analgesics on the battlefield.

Speaker 2 9:28

That's cool. I love that. What got you interested in working with ketamine? You had what made you think this is a route I want to take?

Speaker 1 9:39

So I've always been interested in psychedelic medicine. Um, I personally am a huge Ram Das fan. If you don't know who Ram Das is, many beautiful books, Google it. Uh, you will not be sorry. Um, but Ram Das really talked about, right? Uh, he was friends with Timothy Leary, a big name in psychedelics in the 1960s. Um, and they had had some of these psychedelic experiences together. And there was this awareness that he was able to get to this place with psychedelics that he was also able to get to with meditation, right? And psychedelics felt like he was able to get there immediately. And meditation, right, takes a lot of time kind of honing that tool. And so, you know, he talked about the healing that that brought him and also how attractive maybe it was to do the psychedelic versus the meditation and how for him it was really important to get to that place of meditation. Um, but hearing him talk about how that place isn't specific to the drug, right? That it's something that all of us have access to. This is one way we get there, right? This is one door, this is one doorway where we can get to this place, um, was always really, really interesting to me. And so I had an interest in psychedelics. I went to a conference where um I got to hear Richard Doblin, who's the head of MAPS, the psychedelic researching organization, um, speak about the future of psychedelics and about some of his experiences and what he'd seen. And when we have trauma, right, some of those doorways don't feel as accessible without a tool that can kind of drop you there in a more direct route than say years of meditation, right? And years of therapy. And so it was the treatment resistant part of ketamine that was so interesting to me. Um, and I don't do anything with my clients that I haven't done myself. Like if I practice a modality, I have gone to years of therapy of that modality. If I um use a tool, that tool worked for me.

Speaker 2 12:00

So you're not learning something on TikTok and then bring it into session.

Models Of Care And Integration

Speaker 1 12:08

That is not the type of therapist I am by any means, right? We there's a lot of pop psychology. Um, I know you recently talked about there's a whole lot of chat GPT psychology. Um, these are not these are not the spaces that that I'm kind of learning from personally. But uh I saw Richard Albin speak and I said, okay, I gotta go do some ketamine and I gotta see what this is about. And so I did, and I had such a lovely experience, also. I want to say, right, like I've done different psychedelics, and this is not for me, was not a scary psychedelic. So when they say disassociative psychedelic, what that means is that you have enough space from the experience that you can kind of mu it, like you are you become the viewer, right? So, really often in therapy, I work with people to come from the place of, right? If I say uh I am depressed, then we might move to I feel depressed, then we might move to a part of me feels depressed, right? So we become the viewer, and that spaciousness is really important to the healing process. The first time I did ketamine, I became the viewer in a way that I had not experienced with other psychedelics. It gave me enough space to see what was going on and to identify, oh, like there's a story here I'm telling myself, there's something here that's happening. Um, and I'm pretty woo. I had like a woo experience my first time too, right? A spiritual experience. And that's part of the meaning I ascribe to that experience, but many people do. Um, and I I loved it. I I thought it was really useful. It really folded into my own work that I was doing as a client and my own therapy. Um, I didn't find it scary or overwhelming. You know, there's always a little bit of um, I think curiosity and anxiety kind of are two sides of the same coin sometimes. And in my system, there was a little bit of anxiety of like, what did I sign up for? What am I doing here? Um, and that was this wage pretty quickly. And since I've done many other ketamine journeys and led many, many people on their own ketamine journeys, and um I've seen a lot of success, a lot of movement with my clients in ketamine.

Speaker 2 14:42

Is ketamine an injection, a pill, a lozenge? How do you ingest, how does one ingest ketamine?

Speaker 1 14:52

Yeah, that's a great question. So there are many different um routes of administration. So there is S-ketamine, which is a nasal uh spray. There is sublingual, which is which is a loginge or a troche, we call it. There is IV, which is an IV like you've had any other, and then IM, which is intermuscular. And so each one of those modes of administration have a different percentage of uptake, meaning that you take more in certain modes of um, I'm sorry, I'm gonna lose for words a little bit today, in certain administrative modes because your body metabolizes it in different ways, right? So if you're taking, say, I am or IV, it's going to be a lower dose because you metabolize it more directly and more quickly. Uh sublingual might be a slightly higher dose. Um, and then the nasal spray is completely its own experience. That'll be yeah, prescribed by a doctor, and they'll tell you dosage on that.

Speaker 2 16:00

So um a client goes to your office, and let's say, okay, you are this is a particular specialty and modality you've learned and you've trained in. So they decide are you their main therapist also, and their ketamine guide, or um are you both? Do they do ketamine with you therapy with somebody else? How does that work?

Speaker 1 16:31

Yeah, so there are a lot of standalone ketamine clinics in this town. That's you can go have that experience. You can go to the door. Oh, yeah, there are. There are a lot of those establishments. You can go right up to the door without someone walking with you through it. That is not the model that I practice. So for me, if you come see me for ketamine work, right, and that's specifically what you want to see me for, I want to work with you for a number of sessions before we get into the ketamine so that we can set intention, we can set the container, your nervous system knows me and feels safe. That's really important because you're going to a really vulnerable place, right? Like I don't want to ignore that that's what's happening and have it be purely right, a clinical or kind of hospital-like experience. So we would work together for a little while, uh, we would dose and then we do integration session within 48 hours. And I can talk a little bit about kind of structure and why around those things. There are times where if there is another trusted therapist that I'm close to that we collaborate on care, I would do the therapy dosing, I would do the ketamine dosing, and they would do the integration. Um, it really depends on how collaborative their therapist is, if that feels like the right fit. Right. So, um, but for the most part, if you're coming to me for ketamine therapy, we're doing some IFS, we're doing some gestalt, we're doing some somatic work to really get clear about okay, where are the stuck points? What are we hoping to achieve with this? And then also, right, what did happen in your ketamine experience? What is the meaning-making you're taking from that? What is the message? What is the movement? And how can we really integrate that into your system? So it's not just an isolated experience you had, but it is part of your overall growth.

Who It Helps And Safety Notes

Speaker 2 18:35

Who is ketamine appropriate for? And who isn't it appropriate for?

Speaker 1 18:43

So, you know, we talked about treatment-resistant depression. I think that's really that's a great group of people for this. Um, one of the amazing things about ketamine that is not true for other psychedelics is you don't have to go off of your antidepressant or your mood stabilizer in order to benefit from ketamine. Um, it is the only psychedelic that that's true for. Um so if you are at, say, a point where your depression has been improved somewhat by your antidepressant, but you're still feeling that persistent low-level depression, ketamine might be appropriate for you. Um, it's a great treatment for PTSD, for CPTSD or complex PTSD, anxiety, OCD, burnout, acute suicidality. Um, there's research to suggest that even one ketamine treatment can reduce suicidality in someone within 24 hours. So it's pretty impactful. Um, and then some of my favorite research is actually about postpartum depression because tell me, I haven't heard about it. Yeah. Oh, I went to an amazing, I went to an amazing presentation on postpartum research that I I absolutely loved. But uh, if you are breastfeeding and you're a mama, right, like very often you don't want to go on an antidepressant because of the complications with what that looks like for breastfeeding a child. Uh, ketamine luckily has a really short half-life. Um, your doctor will be able to speak to you more about that. But most people are able to, if they have a ketamine experience, be able to go back to breastfeeding within, I believe it's 12 to 24 hours. So you're not missing out on that really important time with your child. And you can have really lasting and impactful change to your postpartum depression.

Speaker 2 20:42

Whoa. Um that is pretty magical.

Speaker 1 20:46

It's pretty wild, and uh, I feel like it's gonna be like the next frontier of postpartum care for folks who are really struggling because yeah, your body's doing so much in the postpartum period. So much.

Postpartum, Suicidality, And Access

Speaker 2 21:01

Um so much pressure to get it all right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. As you're I'm thinking about okay, who it's right for, treatment resistant depression, uh PTSD, C PTSD, or listener, CPTSD means complex. Um, post-traumatic stress disorder, and the complex, the C in CPTSD really talks about it's really referring to relationships and rupture. So it's um it's a trauma based in relationships. And that is those are the trickiest of all to heal because at the during the intro we talked about, you know, Grace believes in healing in relationship. And that is the most vulnerable for a lot of us because we're healing in real time with somebody else. And That is scary sometimes for people. Um what is happening once somebody the ketamine is administered and they're lying down on the couch. Yes, couch? Yes. Okay. What happens in the brain? What does ketamine do to the brain? Can you share a little bit about that?

unknown 22:22

Yeah.

Speaker 1 22:23

So part of what happens is that it temporarily decreases activity in the default mode network, right? Which is where we kind of can get stuck in rumination and where we can get stuck in our self-concept, right? So like if we have an emotional experience, and that emotional experience has created a, I'm doing air quotes, truth about how we see ourselves, how we see the world, right? That creates a groove in our brain. Yes. And that is part of how we see the world, right? So there is confirmation bias happening all the time. So let's say I grew up and I struggled in school, and my parents said to me, Oh, you're just not good at math, right? And because maybe math didn't come naturally to me, I've now put this label on myself that I am bad at math. And so when I have a hard time completing something related to numbers, right, it goes through that network and I say, Oh, there's proof.

unknown 23:28

Right.

Speaker 1 23:29

As opposed to maybe if I had those same experiences, but I grew up in a household where the messaging was that new things are hard and sometimes things are hard. And that doesn't mean that we're bad at them. It just means they they require more effort, right? A more neutral tone uh approach. Sounds delightful. Yeah, sounds great, right? Um, if I was taking ketamine and my default mode network went off of line, right, and this was something I was maybe working on, I might be able to see some of those messages and see where that came from, and maybe in that experience, have some other alternative outcome, alternative um, you know, belief that came from what I am now seeing, right? So the way that I talk about this, or the metaphor that I give, is if there is a muddy road, right, and we're pushing a cart down the road, the more times we push that cart down the road, right? It's gonna create ruts, it's gonna create grooves in the road, and it's gonna get harder and harder to take that cart anywhere else other than point A to point B where I ride my cart.

Speaker 2 24:41

I have such a similar metaphor when I work with clients. Yeah, yeah.

What Happens In The Brain

Speaker 1 24:44

I love it. And what ketamine does is it creates something called the dendrites, new dendrites. It quite literally creates some new pathways off of that road and fills in in that moment those runs so that I can turn my heart and go to a new destination. Right. So maybe it's not that I am bad at math, right? Maybe it is that when things are difficult, I have a tendency to back away from them because I'm I'm scared of that. I'm scared about what that means. Okay, plenty of things are difficult, right? So being able to choose to go to a new destination or challenge what we have had as our fixed identities, our fixed beliefs about ourselves, our fixed positions on how we saw an event, right? Oh my gosh. One of my favorite things, right, is when we get to the point where we realize that when we've had a trauma, especially developmental trauma in that C PTSD, that we have encoded it from the mind of a child. And when we can update it, right, from the mind of an adult, it often looks really different. And ketamine is an amazing tool for that, right? For creating new grooves in the brain to be able to see things differently, to have different insights, to make peace with things, to forgive ourselves. It's really beautiful. So it promotes neuroplasticity. Um and an added bonus, right, is if you're doing ketamine therapy, great. We have some therapeutic advantages, but also outside of therapy, you're gonna experience more neuroplasticity. So, what does that mean? If you are learning a new language, if you are uh learning a new instrument, if you are doing things right that are creating new neural pathways, it also increases that plasticity in that period so that you are learning better and solidifying those new things better. So I talk to clients about trying to do novel things to create as much new brain space as possible that you're going to be occupying. So if I always sit at the head of the table at my breakfast table, I'm gonna sit in the middle. If I turn left when I walk my dog when I come out of the house, I'm gonna turn right. If I drive to work, you know, going this highway and there is an alternative, right? I might choose that alternative. So doing what you can to create novel experiences in the brain to also kind of create some new neural pathways.

Speaker 2 27:19

Wow, that sounds like whoa, so cool. Did you say dendrites?

Speaker 1 27:26

Dendrites, yeah. So dendrites are just these little uh, they look like spines when you look at them under a microscope. So these little moving spines that uh come off our neural pathways, and they're kind of some of the places where um some of those neural attachments can happen of ideas. Wow.

Speaker 2 27:52

So it helps a client. This may be two in the weeds, but the default network that goes offline during this experience, is that the amygdala? Does that is that the we don't know. We'll Google it later. It feels like maybe it's not even the amygdala, but it feels um listener. If you've ever said that's just the way I am, I'm just hardwired that way. I say all the time that is a bowl of baloney. You're not hardwired hardwired anyway. You're wired, but the wiring can change. And nobody is beyond hope. And so this is one approach where you can you can be hopeful. Like your brain doesn't have to stay in um the grooves that it is in. And sometimes when trauma is so deep and our experiences are so deep, those grooves are so very, very worn. And for those of us who've maybe had distressing situations, but not maybe completely traumatic, you can do your own neuroplasticity. Like you can rewire your brain in different ways. I do that a lot with clients. But sometimes it's uh so it's so extreme that it needs another support. So imagine like somebody pushing you up from the bottom up, like lifting you up into that space of hope. Imagine like a like a dark well, and your groove is just this dark well, and that's where your thoughts are. And I imagine the ketamine like pushing you up into air so you can see different possibilities. Does that feel good, Grace? Yeah, that definitely feels good. Let me let me double check with the that's my experience as a lay person about ketamine. That's what I think it is, but you can confirm or deny or edit.

Speaker 1 30:04

I would say that's pretty accurate. And then the integration piece, right? The therapeutic piece within 48 hours is okay, so now you have access to new points, right? New places you can take your thoughts. How can we go there, right? So if I've always gone from point A to point B, right, on my own, I might see point C, but not even know how to get there, right? Or not know how to utilize turning my cart to get there. So the integration part can also be really making sure we make the most use out of that neuroplasticity, make the most use out of that default mode network going offline, right? So that we can make change. And then it can begin to solidify with the therapeutic repetition of going back to that space, right? That new belief space, integrating it.

Neuroplasticity And Novelty

Speaker 2 30:56

When does the default network come back online? Is it right after the ketamine metabolizes through the body? Is it after the eight weeks? Well, actually, let me go back. How many sessions of ketamine?

Speaker 1 31:13

Yeah, um, it's different for each person, I will say. So sequence typically with me looks like eight sessions, but it is different for each person, right? Some people get to the point of eight sessions and need a bit more. And so they would go back to a prescriber, and I work with a prescriber, I'm partnered with a prescriber, and the prescriber would give them a certain number more doses, and we would keep going. Some people, you know, do their first two and take a pause before they keep going. But generally, yeah, about eight, six to eight is is pretty typical. Um, that default moon network going offline. We know that it goes offline when they're actively using the ketamine, right? But the neuroplastic window is the 48 hours after use. So you get the benefit of that of that experience. And that's when we really want the therapy to happen, right? The integration.

Speaker 2 32:14

So you it's like a fresh set of play-doh, like you get the most out of it 48 hours after to really maximize the ketamine experience.

Speaker 32:25

Right.

Speaker 2 32:26

And is ketamine once a week, once a day, once every two weeks? What's the frequency?

Speaker 1 32:32

Yeah, so that also is pretty person-dependent. Um, the most frequent I have dosed with a client is once weekly. There are programs where you go and you do retreat style and you have a couple of ketamine experiences within a matter of a week. That's just not how I practice. That doesn't mean that it's not, you know, a valuable experience for some people. Um, typically we do about every two weeks. So the first session, I like to do a dosing session, and then we'll wait three weeks, and I'll have them look at where's the drop off of the feeling of benefit because you're gonna also feel for a lot of people, increased um uh mood. So feeling an elevated mood from where maybe they were previously depressed. They feel a bit lighter if they experience anxiety, feeling a bit of release from that. So uh noting where the drop-off is is important for some folks, right? They're metabolizing that more quickly. For some folks, it lasts close to the three-week mark. And then that can kind of be an indicator for what our dosing schedule will look like. Um, for a lot of people, it's 11 to 14 days, is the drop-off, and then two weeks kind of works for them.

Speaker 2 33:54

What is investment in ketamine therapy look like? What's a ballpark range for that?

Dosing, Frequency, And Cost

Speaker 1 34:03

So it's really different all over town, like it is very, very different all over town. I will say um sublingual is less expensive. So I think for all eight sessions of you pay the medical fee separate from the therapy fee. I say I think for all eight sessions of the medicine itself, it's in the ballpark of $600, I believe. And then each time you come see me, it's about $450 right now. But it's a three-hour therapy appointment. So you're with me, we're doing preparation, you're having your experience. We're having an hour where we just talk about what happened. We're not interpreting it, we're just kind of, I'm the scribe and I'm recording it all. We have a tea ceremony, we do a little bit of aroma therapy. There's a little bit of the woo and the science in that as well, right? We're really wanting to ground into a consistent container that your nervous system kind of knows what's happening, knows where you're going when you come see me for academy therapy.

Speaker 2 35:22

Listener, often Grace just said there's some woo and I'm all woo. So welcome to the woo. I could have named the show welcome to the woo. So um when you're working with a therapist in whatever modality, if they are good, they are thinking about what's happening on the ground level, but they are also thinking about several other levels. What's happening in the room, what's happening with your nervous system, what can you handle? How are they comporting themselves to give you the most consistency so that your nervous system feels safe to release and whether it's aromatherapy or textures or sound or light or even how they are the how they themselves are presenting. Like today I spoke with a client and she's several months in and we were just kind of doing a recap, like, okay, how's this going? How do you feel? And so we talked about the work that we've been doing, but also the sub work. And she said, Yeah, like if you were to come in here with a completely different vibe one day, she said that would really throw me off. She said, I'm so grateful that you're consistent. Like it smells the same in here if it's clean every time. You know, like these these things and they feel small. But it is a therapist like Grace is very deliberate about that container because that matters. That helps that ultimately helps you release more, which ultimately helps your healing. Bravo, Grace.

Speaker 1 37:19

What a self-aware client. I want to just give props to that client to even identify, right? That it would weird them out if you presented differently one day.

Speaker 2 37:29

Yeah, yeah. I think, yeah, she is very self-aware. I'm very proud of her. Let's talk about what should they expect? Is there an expectation? Is there, okay, I've done ketamine therapy therapine? That's not a word. I've done ketamine therapy, and now abracadabra, I'm healed. I'll never deal with this again. I can deal with it better. What is that expectation post-therapeutic experience?

Expectations And Outcomes

Speaker 1 38:04

I feel like uh maybe the phrase of our profession is it depends, right? Like I think that that could be maybe on one of those live, laugh, love signs in all of our office. Um so it depends on what you're working on, what you came in for, um, and what your experience was like, right? For some people, there is a lot of content in their work, right? So when I say that, I mean some people have a psychedelic experience where there are visuals or they see their grandparents or they get a message, right? And for some people, they're like, I saw colors, that was it, right? But I felt a deep sense of peace, or I felt an ability to be more self-compassionate than I've ever felt before, right? Or, and so even if someone is not having a major psychedelic experience, there is still so much benefit happening in the brain. And that's why the integration piece is so important, right? So if you were say doing a psychedelic at a festival or hanging out with your friends and you didn't hallucinate, you'd be like, oh, that was a dud, that didn't work, right? Or you might have some disappointment about that experience. The point of this is not to get to any one specific place. It is so person-specific. How you metabolize, the meaning that you make, the spirituality you bring or don't bring to it. And so to say, right, this is what you can expect is really hard to say. Um, the hope and something that many people do experience is if you've come with treatment-resistant depression, that you feel some amount of relief from that low level of depression, right? That consistent kind of um apathetic low-level depression that you feel some movement. So your container is a bit bigger, you can feel um a capacity for more joy, right? And then we have all that space. If the ceiling gets bigger, we have a bigger room to work in, and then we keep working in that bigger room. And there might be a time in the future where it would make sense to do ketamine again, to have a booster session or a couple more sessions to see if we can make the room a little bit bigger with the work that you've then done. If you've come for anxiety, and maybe there is an insight that you receive through that work, or that your brain gets that time offline to feel that relief, and that we can do work in that neuroplastic window and that something can shift. Um, but it it's so it's so person-specific, right? Trauma patterns can shift, attachment wounds can shift, chronic depression can shift, existential dread can shift. Um, but can and it depends are key words in that.

Speaker 2 41:08

Do you think that a client's hope plays into it? Like, do you think that if somebody goes in resistant, that they that would have an effect on how I'm how good it is? I would think so. I know I know you don't, I know you don't there is no answer, like there's not a encyclopedia that has this answer, but I'm thinking like if somebody is hopeful and open and expecting, I would have to think that that has that that gives it some inertia. But I don't know. What do you think?

Speaker 1 41:45

So I would say again, it depends. But what I would say in in actuality is that right from an IFS perspective, internal family systems or a parts lens, I would say, okay, this person has a part attempting to keep them safe by not allowing them to access hope. So what is so scary about being hopeful? What would being hopeful potentially do that's dangerous? Right. And so there's a story there, right? Like that part of them that keeps them shut down in that way at some point was necessary. So when in your life was being hopeful too painful? Right? Was dangerous. Okay. And so what we might set as intention on that session is I want us to get to know that part that won't allow you to feel hope. I want to get to know that block. What would it be like if we invited that part into the candomene space? And that person might say, okay, sure, right? And do that, and then see a bunch of colors and they don't think anything happened, and they think that that's proving their point. And that doesn't mean that there's not going to be movement next time where that part now feels like, oh, I got an invitation. I'm allowed to show up. I'm not being shamed for being air quotes again, listeners, for being resistant, right? I love IFS because we see that everything at some point was necessary. Right. Even if you have been categorized right as difficult, resistant, a pain in the ass, right? Whatever that label is, I don't care about that label. I don't care about that at all. Right. I am curious about what happened, that this is necessary to keep you safe.

Hope, Resistance, And Parts

Speaker 2 43:35

Listener, and earlier Grace was saying how before you have the ketamine, you really you, whether it's a lozenge or however you ingest it. So the setup sessions, this is what she does at during the prep is really get to know you, really get to know your parts so that you get the best integrative experience. You're kind of your oven is preheated. You've connected with her, you feel safe with her. She has your parts are or some of your parts at least are are seen. And when your parts are seen, they they loosen up a little. And sometimes they don't have such a stronghold. Sometimes even just acknowledging our parts, they're like, okay, somebody sees me. Thank you very much. Like I'm getting the credit I deserve. Maybe those are just my parts, but mine too. Mine too. And then as we see them and acknowledge them, they can update. And they don't have to be so staunch in their um presentation. I'm thinking of Jack Nicholson, A Few Good Men. Do you remember that movie? So he Grace is like, no, friend. Okay. So for those of you who love intense war movies like me, um, A Few Good Men is Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise, and I'm sure um Kevin Bacon, I think, and I don't know who else. It's an excellent movie. And Jack Nicholson is this hardcore army guy. And I'm so sorry if I mess up the branch. Uh maybe he's a navy, I'm pretty sure it's Army. And he's behaving in not that great of a way. And he is on trial for doing some not great things. And they are examining him or cross-examining him, and he loses it. And he says, You need me on that wall. Like he's like, you need me to do the bad things to keep you all safe. You don't want to know what I have to do, but you need me there. And sometimes I feel like our parts are like, you need me to keep you safe. You don't know what's on the other side if I if I release, if I go to woo land, even your lavender. So sometimes that automatic default is that what the automatic default network is they are your fierce protector, and they're just trying to keep you safe so that you don't experience the vulnerability or the hurt or what have you. But ketamine gives Jack Nicholson like a little chill pill so he can sit down and you can access the other parts of you and possibility.

Speaker 1 46:32

I love the idea of your part specifically being Jack Nicholson on the inside.

Speaker 2 46:38

I'm pretty sure I just had a revelation. I want to watch that movie tonight. Grace, is there anything else you want to share with listeners about ketamine therapy or specifically how you practice as a practitioner?

Speaker 1 46:57

I mean, I think, right, like the parts work is an important um piece of all of this, just that you know, there's no part of you that is bad. It served a function. Even the things that we detest about ourselves at some point served a function. And so our job is just to get really curious about when was that? What were the conditions where this was needed? Does this part know who you are now? Right? How old you are now? So a lot of this is the updating, the working on old narratives, old roles, old shame, and just bringing all of that into a loving container. And if it is difficult for you to access that for yourself, if the default default mode network is able to go offline, there might be an ability to access more self-compassion in that place and to see it with more distance. Um, yeah, that's kind of that's a lot of it. That's how it works.

Speaker 2 48:05

You're the best. Listener, if you ever get a chance to work with Grace, you are a lucky ducky. She is, she is awesome. Grace, where can people find you?

Speaker 1 48:16

Yeah, so I'm a part of a group practice called Moving Parts Psychotherapy, located in South Austin. I'm a senior therapist there. Um, I work both in person and I serve clients across the state via telehealth. You can give me an email at Grace at movingpartspsychotherapy.com.

Speaker 2 48:33

And I'll put all her info in the show notes so you can run, not walk. Thank you, Grace. I love you.

Speaker 48:41

Thank you for having me. I love you too.

Speaker 2 48:44

You've been listening to Catch Time with Cat. If you have any questions you'd like to ask, you can call or text 956-249-7930 and I'll answer it anonymously on the show. Listener, thank you so much for being here. I value you and your time and your willingness and your curiosity. And um you are helping make my dreams come true. Thank you, and take good care of yourselves. Thank you for spending this time with me. If something from today's conversation resonated, or if you're in a season where support would help, visit me at gattyahollam.com. That's C-A-T-I-A-H-O-L-M.com. You can also leave an anonymous question for the show by calling or texting 956-249-7930. I'd love to hear what's on your heart. If Couch Time with Cat has been meaningful to you, it would mean so much if you'd subscribe, rate, and leave a review. It helps others find us and it grows this community of care. And if you know someone who needs a little light right now, send them this episode. Remind them they're not alone. Until next time, be gentle with yourself. Keep showing up and know I'm right here with you.