Dr. Signi Goldman, MD, is a board-certified psychiatrist and the Co-founder and Medical Director of Living Medicine Institute, which offers psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy training programs. As a certified provider for psychedelic-assisted therapy and research, she has practiced in various clinical settings, including hospital systems and alternative treatment settings. Dr. Goldman also serves as a Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist for Concierge Medicine and Psychiatry’s Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy Program for Mental Health.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- [2:12] How ketamine-assisted psychotherapy enhances the therapy experience
- [7:29] The positive impact of ketamine on depression
- [10:56] A Living Medicine Institute client talks about experiencing a spiritual awakening with ketamine
- [16:41] Combating dissociation and triggers with ketamine-assisted psychotherapy
- [20:58] How using ketamine helps to overcome anxious thoughts
In this episode…
Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) is a promising treatment for mental health conditions, offering profound emotional and psychological healing through altered states of consciousness. How have patients suffering from PTSD, depression, anxiety, and unresolved trauma experienced transformative benefits from ketamine therapy?
Five of Living Medicine Institute’s clients describe experiencing profound emotional shifts and self-actualization. One client recounts overcoming intense PTSD triggers and gaining emotional stability, while another explains how KAP helped her move past persistent depression after years of conventional therapy. Several clients mention having profound spiritual experiences, including vivid visions, feelings of universal connection, and symbolic encounters that provided comfort and understanding. These experiences often facilitated emotional release and helped them reconnect with a sense of purpose and self-worth.
In this special episode of Living Medicine, Dr. Signi Goldman shares interviews with clients who have transformed their mental health through ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. These interviews demonstrate how ketamine helps patients maintain an active presence in therapy, its positive impact on depression and anxiety, and how patients have combated dissociation and emotional triggers.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Quotable Moments:
- “Ketamine has helped me lower the curtain, revealing a new paradigm and a more authentic version of myself.”
- “I can pinpoint on a calendar three times that I would be dead without ketamine. It’s given me such hope.”
- “The main thing about ketamine is letting go, which I feel is letting go of your ego.”
- “I’m so glad that it’s available in a therapeutic way. I had no regrets at all.”
- “I have gone there, and I’m okay with that. I’m not afraid of that now.”
Action Steps:
- Practice mindfulness and presence in therapy sessions: Cultivating the ability to be present in therapy sessions has been shown to significantly enhance individuals’ capacity to process and reflect on their experiences. This practice helps address the challenge of being overwhelmed by intense emotions, allowing for more effective therapeutic outcomes.
- Set clear intentions before therapy: Setting intentions before engaging in psychedelic-assisted therapy can guide the therapeutic process and align the individual’s mindset with desired outcomes. This approach helps individuals move beyond surface-level interactions and access deeper, more meaningful insights during treatment.
- Explore and embrace spiritual experiences: Embracing the spiritual and mystical aspects of psychedelic experiences can provide a sense of connection and peace beyond the material world. This allows individuals to find comfort and meaning in their experiences, reducing anxiety and existential fears.
- Develop a supportive aftercare routine: Engaging in debriefing sessions with a therapist after psychedelic experiences ensures that the insights gained are integrated into everyday life.
- Allow space for emotional release and acceptance: Recognizing and accepting emotions and past traumas without judgment are key steps in healing. This process allows individuals to move forward with a greater sense of peace and acceptance of their experiences.
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by the Living Medicine Institute.
LMI is a training, resource, and membership program educating providers about the legal and safe use of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.
To learn more or participate, visit https://livingmedicineinstitute.com.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:03
Welcome to the Living Medicine podcast, where we talk about ethical medical use of psychedelic psychotherapy, teaching skills, examining the issues and interviewing interesting people. Now let’s start today’s show.
Dr. Signi Goldman 0:16
Hello and welcome. This is Signi, your host of Living Medicine today. This is the podcast where we talk about ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, and we thank you for joining us today. Today, we’re doing something a little unusual. Instead of having a guest, we’re sharing with you actual interview excerpts with ketamine-assisted psychotherapy clients, so actual patients who have been on the receiving end of this treatment describing their experience, we have consent to use these anonymous excerpts, and we have disguised their voices for further privacy. The first thing I want to say is how grateful we are for these five participants for agreeing to be interviewed. We hope that these interview excerpts demonstrate the variety of types of experiences that can be had under ketamine, the positives, the negatives, and a bit of sort of full perspective, full spectrum perspective on the work. As always, this episode is brought to you by the Living Medicine Institute. You can find more information about our training and educational opportunities at LivingMedicineInstitute.com, let’s listen in on these interviews. the following audio excerpts are from client interviews conducted by a third-party interviewer about the experience of participating in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy over a year after treatment ended, these clients describe their varying experiences in their own words, we are deeply grateful for the generosity of these participants and being willing to be interviewed,
Client 1 2:12
but I do believe that it’s changed my ability to be president in my therapy sessions, which doctor going to write attest to you how I would come in and just be like, on volume 10 out of 10, in 10 c and just, I mean, there was no opportunity for me to process what I needed to process. And that’s changed. Now I actually am able to listen and think through and reflect on it later and get you know be all right with it. I’ve noticed more and more that I’m able to just function in a better way. If that answers your question, yeah, especially in therapy. Yes, I remember my therapy sessions, with or without it, and it just seemed to have, I think it’s allowed me to let my brain and my my whatever you would call it, change enough where I don’t. I’m not relapsing back into my old my old patterns, my emotional patterns, because things still, I still get trigger. There’s still things that go on or triggers occur, obviously, to all, for all of us, and they don’t have, they’re not having the same they don’t have the same effect on me now, and I don’t know what else to attribute to besides what I want, what I’m doing, right? But, yeah, I actually had very spiritual experiences with kind of me, very old journeys, if you want to call it, and just that I I heard this. It’s happened to a happy side, my myself, spiritual side of myself. It’s allowed me to be okay with all those things I’ve always been but, you know, it’s, it can be found on our society and then, and I, that was the thing I think I enjoyed the most about is what I would close my eyes and just be able to enjoy music better see, you know, colors and designs and and think about where I’m at in the world, and where I’m going in the world more and everything just all kind of rolled into one. I’ve had times where something that would have normally seemed very obvious to me that hasn’t will, just like all the dots will connect and like, you know, it’s just like, you know, it’s sort of, you know, benefit, I guess. And had some interesting, like, what seemed like flashbacks to me, and I know, since we’re dealing with mystical and everything, it. Won’t sound crazy telling you guys, but I’ve actually thought that. I’ve had some prior life connections, and I’ve had stuff just come into my head and like, where’s the stuff coming from? Going back a long time, and I can’t tell anybody, because they think I was crazy. Yeah, and it was one of those kind of things, like, you know, I don’t have to sit here and just stay quiet about which is I tend to do. I will bottle things up, as Dr. Goldman knows, I have a tendency to do that, and then it blows out in PTSD style, so that that’s gotten much, much, much better. Yes, definitely you’ve had the out of body experiences, even, like the time in that place where I saw the angels I was definitely there was a disconnection of me, like, was I really in the room or not? I mean, I still remember it that I tend to be a bit controlling, and so i i I’m careful as much as I can be about not letting that happen too much, because it’s a little scary for me. Just like, totally I’m not always people would drop acid and like, I’ve heard the stories and go on some trip and knows for 10 hours they’re totally either seeing colors and things are coming down the walls. I’m like, I don’t, I don’t like that kind of out of body experience. I thought it’s like, no, I like just the light, creative, spiritual disconnect, connect, feeling that I get from ketamine. I think it’s at least for me, it’s really been wonderful and life changing since the beginning. I The first time I ever did it, and since to the continuing therapy, i i It’s all positive for me, there’s really been no negative. I’m so glad that it’s available in a therapeutic way, because I didn’t have it for a long time, and when Dr. Goldman offered it to me under the right you know, certainly being properly monitored, I was ready to jump on board, and I had no regrets at all
Client 2 7:29
then, and I had had years of of therapy, and I was still really struggling. Long story short, I just wanted to feel better. I just I was at my pretty lowest level of depression, and I felt really hopeless. So I wanted, at that point, I had had a couple of out of body experiences and pretty transformative experiences. And I wanted to delve into that further, and I wanted to understand more of what was going on in my mind, what was going on that maybe I couldn’t remember. And what was making me feel this way? Yes, I feel like I have gotten clarity in many different ways. They were eye opening. They were just pretty profound things that I didn’t expect at all. I’ve had nothing but positive experiences, and I’m fully grateful because I’m in a completely different place completely than I was when Dr. Goldman first met me. I feel like I’m able to look at things in a much different way, in a more positive way. Just in regards to the ketamine, I’m able to have my life back again.
Client 3 9:14
Oh, I wanted to do it because I I was curious. I The information that I had read and on the research I felt like I might benefit from it just because of my background and my upbringing and the things that I had tried before that weren’t working for depression, anxiety, stress, those kinds of things. Dr. Goldman has always asked me to set my intention so get your mindset in the right area. In my life, I’ve been a very surface T kind of person, and it’s like a. A real part of me, and then there’s a false or a fake part of me. And so in order to prove yourself and who you are, you have to dig down a little bit deeper, and you have to strip away the things that are getting you know, like you know, like you step on your own cape and make it out of your own way. And I was kind of like that, of not being able to get out of my own way. I guess I was a desperate, a little desperate and and feeling like I had tried other things, and I just wanted to see if it would see if it would work. I was just some I was something that was part of something that was much bigger. And it makes you feel, it made me feel at least. It gave me a level of spirituality, or is I’m not really a religious person, it gave me the feeling of like God and love. And Dr. Goldman certainly say this about, I mean, I don’t really, I’m not really a religious person, but just the belief in God and the belief in a higher power, the belief that I’m part of something else, sort of been when I’ve been in deep in the state of, you know, the infusion, I felt as though I’m watching things happen rather than being I felt like I’m part of it, no control over it, but I felt peace. I almost it’s I won’t say I hadn’t near death experience, but I felt what it could be like to be on the other side. Just were. I mean, that’s my interpretation. My mind didn’t try to go there. It just went there. I didn’t set an intention to go to the other side. I just but then, long term, after the infusion, after the spray, I can just tell you that my wife, I’ve known for 17 years, she’s just seen a difference in me, and I’ve seen a difference in my self. I mean, I still have my shortcomings and all, but I just feel like I’m calmer. I feel like I don’t get tripped up by the things that used to make me, that used to it’s helped me not to have a hair trigger. Yeah, I’m a little bit more genuine, a little bit more what would you call it? Not genuine, but authentic. I don’t want to use say the word rewired, but it kind of has given me a different paradigm or a different way of thinking. Did that make sense? While, while I’m in the session, I feel in a safe and secure place, and then the next day, or the day after that, Dr. Goldman and I meet, we’re able to talk about the things that I spoke of during the session, or see how I felt afterwards. I find the whole the whole experience. You know, if you took away the before meeting, or if you took away the after, you know, afterwards, you know it would, it would not have the same experience. It needs to stick with you. What I’m what I’m saying is that what the ketamine has done for me is help lower the curtain, or push the curtain aside a little bit when it gave me something. Maybe because I didn’t, my brain couldn’t produce the dopamine or whatever I needed, but I felt like I was a new and different person. In fact, you could if, if I was to leave this earth and go to that level of spirituality that I’m in, where that white light is, where you’re no longer skin and bones and flesh and you’re just a spirit, I have gone, I have gone there, and I’m okay with that, and and like, I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid of that now, I we get really nailed down by the trappings of of life and all the things that are important. You know, the food we eat, the car we drive, the home we live in, where we how we grew up, where we came from. None of that shit matters really. From the ketamine, you lift yourself up from that, you pull yourself away from that, and it strips all of that away. So I do felt the molecular level on it, on a cellular level, that there’s peace, if you let it, if you let yourself go there, because that stuff that the ketamine is bringing out of me, in my head, that’s me still, that’s still me. What the ketamine has done is helped me realize it’s okay. It’s okay. Nothing. The world’s not gonna fall apart any one of these things, you know, Jenga, if you pull out the things, it’s not gonna all tumble over like a tower, like a, you know, you know, a tower or a house of cards. And if it does, no big deal, you know, you just have to. It’s, it helps. It helped me to be more accepting and understanding of when the shit hits the fan, it’s, it’s, it’s not so bad. The sprays were one thing, but when I went through the sessions, that’s where I really felt like the rewiring, that’s where I really felt like it wasn’t the next day or the next day after that, but it was just going forward. I feel like I’m better. Yeah,
Client 4 16:27
I didn’t really think it would do anything, but I didn’t have anything to lose, and that was enough for me. I didn’t go in thinking it was going to be some saving grace. Both of my I don’t really know how personal I’m allowed to get in this both of my parents died when I was young, and it made that seem a lot less like about me and just luck of the draw. So it made everything seem less connected and less personal. And even when I was coming out of it, I was like, Oh, that would be really upsetting to other people, that nothing’s connected and nothing has purpose. But to me, that was actually really helpful. A lot of the things that I want to deal with in therapy I can’t do because I dissociate without choice, and then ketamine makes it so I don’t do that. And I feel like I get to heal a lot because I can think about the things I need to think about without going away and been in therapy. I’m 33 so I’ve been in therapy for 23 years, and I’ve gotten more done in like three years than I have in the previous 20. Like, I still can’t explain what I saw or felt when I was in some other universe High as a kite, and like the images that I saw, because it doesn’t make sense, I could just be like I felt like sand, but there was music. But like, that doesn’t make sense to anyone. But like, I know what I thought, and also I know that I was really high and on drugs, but like, at the end of the day, does it matter that I was really high in on drugs and felt like sand. If you know, 14 months later, I can realize that I didn’t cause cancer and disease as a child. Like that doesn’t really matter. And like I knew those things intellectually good childhood trauma doesn’t care what you know, if I’m in therapy or we’re talking about big stuff, the second I get triggered, I just stop and nothing anyone says matters. But with the ketamine I can not get so triggered and not have such, like, I know I still have PTSD and CPTSD, but like, I don’t have to give in to those reactions with it, and so I can actually do the therapy and hear what the therapists are saying and like, I mean, I can still be a complete jerk and just be like, No, you’re wrong, and I’m not listening to you, and I hate everything. You’re saying, and I’m done now, but like, it’s not so much a gut reaction, and I don’t spiral the same. I am alive because of ketamine. I can pinpoint on the calendar three times that I would be dead 100% because if I didn’t have ketamine, there wouldn’t have been another option. And I think that is ketamine. And Dr. Goldman, you say it gives me like that 32nd pause, because I’m able to have a feeling that’s not stuck in trauma with Academy. And so I’m like, Oh, I can think something else, and then I can realize that it is just trauma and it’s not who I am. And that gives me such hope
Client 5 20:58
my intentions were hoping to relieve the anxiety that I feel on a daily basis with helping with my PTSD and the sexual assaults that I dealt with as a Child, as well as the physical and verbal abuse and learning to let that go alongside with all that anxiety. Or in, no, no, of course, I was a little anxious. Of course I was a little hesitant. I mean, I think those are natural feelings that we that we all experience when, when going into a new type of therapy that that you know helps you reflect within yourself and helps you acknowledge the fact that you know majority of us are Not okay and it’s okay to not be okay, you know? So, yeah, of course I was hesitant, and of course I was nervous. It’s a new type of therapy. It’s extremely effective, and it’s extremely positive, which it has been in my life. You know? I can only speak about myself. The ketamine, it feels like it’s putting together, I want to say the neurons in my brain. It’s helping me be more open with myself and honest with myself. It’s helping me with my anxiety, just overall, helping me face who I am, what I’ve been through, and being accepting of it. Yeah, I don’t think I could have or I would be where I am today without it. I’m not afraid of my own mortality now. I’m understanding of my mortality, and I’m not afraid to to to move on when that time arises. You know, like I said, I’ve had, you know, a couple of spiritual experiences, and a lot of it is just losing the ego within yourself and to really be accepting of of the moment, because I am at a place in my life now where I live moment to moment. I don’t live day to day when my surroundings change. I am accepting of my surroundings. If I’m in a different room, I’m not thinking of anything else. I’m in that room, I’m in the here and now, as opposed to where I was, where my mind was constantly like a hamster in a wheel, and it was just constant. It was a constant battle of negative thoughts of my childhood and my past experiences, I couldn’t get out of that. I was stuck. I was stuck with this PTSD. I was stuck with these thoughts. They never let me go. They never let me go to sleep. The nightmares were horrible. I can’t even express to you the years and years and years of nightmares, of absolute, ultra violent nightmares, and since treatment, I no longer have those ultra violent nightmares at that’s just one of the many things that this treatment is. I benefited from this treatment, you know, I’m I’m okay and accepting of the next day, that the next day is coming, you know what I mean? And then I used to be afraid of the following day, I mean, the day to come. You know? Yes, that was my main spiritual experience, the one I explained. Rest, the coming together of all our souls and how we are all one. I think that truly was a pivotal point in my life and my acceptance of of just everything around me and my feelings. I had never experienced anything like that, but it brought me comfort to know that, that we’re all one and and that, you know, my experience may have come in in the shape of a hammerhead shark. You know, tribes and tribes, and you know, 1000s and 1000s of hammerhead sharks, you know, going up to the sky. I’m sitting on a houseboat in the keys and and I’m just watching them, and they’re just going around the moon into infinity. And the sense of comfort that I had being able to let go of my ego, you know, and being truly at one with with my spear. I mean, you said it with my spirit. I had the true experience and the true understanding that whatever your tribe is, we’re all together as one, and we all go to the same place. And that brought me such comfort. It brought me such knowing and understanding that, you know, it’s okay to not be okay, and it’s okay to learn every day how to be a better person and how to and how to show a more positive energy rather than a more negative energy, because that’s how I was for 40 plus years. It’s a it’s truly an enlightening experience, and until you do it, you’ll never know you can. You can sit back and guess what it would be like, but everyone is different, and everyone has different experiences, and that’s okay. The main thing about ketamine is letting go, which I feel, is letting go of your ego, because once you let go of your ego, you let go of yourself your selfishness, and once you let go of your selfishness, you’re able to go To the next spiritual level that is manifesting in any thing that’s in your mind, your personal mind. So So everybody’s different, but yet everyone’s the same. If that makes sense, that would have never happened without the the ketamine, that would have never come to me, that would have never helped me understand who I am as a person, and who I am mentally and how good I can be in the future. I was a very negative person. I was not spiritual whatsoever. And you know, today is a new day, it’s a good day.
Outro 28:32
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