Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy and Complex Trauma: The Client Experience

Many people struggling with trauma feel stuck — trapped by memories they can’t fully recall yet deeply affect their daily lives. Traditional therapy can take years to untangle the layers of emotional pain, and even then, some wounds remain deeply buried. How can you unlock those hidden experiences to begin healing?

After enduring childhood and institutional trauma, today’s guest accessed years of suppression through ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. This healing process requires more than engaging in a few ketamine sessions; instead, you must navigate resurfaced trauma through self-awareness, a strong support system, and body-based healing techniques to process the body’s response to trauma. When considering ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, the guest recommends keeping an open mind and building relationships with trusted professionals. 

In the latest episode of Living Medicine, Dr. Signi Goldman hosts an anonymous client to discuss the impact of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy on healing trauma. Together, they share misconceptions about ketamine therapy, the guest’s experience revisiting trauma during altered states, and how she developed resilience through integration work. 

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.

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 0:18

Hey everyone. It’s Signi. This is the beginning of a podcast series that we’re putting together where we’re interviewing actual clients who went through ketamine assisted psychotherapy in my practice, or in some of my colleagues practices. So you guys are really fortunate today to hear from the voice of an actual participant, and we’re planning to do more of these. So today I’m joined by a client that I saw a couple of years ago. I’m interviewing her now, about two years after she completed ketamine assisted psychotherapy as part of her psychiatric treatment through our clinic. This client is someone with complex trauma who is a childhood abuse survivor. She also is a survivor of institutional abuse that occurred during a residential treatment stay when she was a adolescent, and you will hear her referring to that in the interview. So I just wanted to let people know if that is heavy content for you as a listener, we, although we will not discuss her trauma in detail, she will make references to that this residential treatment trauma abuse happened in a treatment center that was later sued for this very thing by other young women and has since been closed down. This was not a wilderness program, but a residential stay center. So she experienced childhood trauma, in addition to to this experience as a child and an adolescent, and had a diagnosis of complex trauma. So you will hear her referencing those things in the conversation. So I am talking about her in the third person here, because we’ve agreed not to use her name, and we are also going to blur her face for privacy. By the time this episode airs, she will have had the opportunity to review the footage, so any references she makes to other aspects of her life that you hear that maybe somewhat identifying, are things that are okay with her and she’s agreed to include. So I want to thank her for for being part of this. It’s a, it’s a, really a privilege to have these conversations, and it’s a privilege to offer these to you as the audience. So without further ado, let’s start and get her on.

Anonymous 2:43

Hello, hey, hi. I know this is it’s

Dr. Signi Goldman 2:47

recording, but we’re going to talk about later, what parts you want to use. But yes, how are you like? Do you have your needs, like your body, your hydration, your food, your rest, all those things. Okay, yes, all right, so what we’re going to do, I basically just want to ask you about your experience. And what I’ll do is I’ll chop out pieces of this conversation and put them together for a podcast, or maybe you with some other clients, or maybe just you will, you know, it’ll be, it’ll be put out in some kind of form. So yeah, if when we get to the end of this, I’m going to ask you, is there anything that we shared that now that you’re thinking about it, you would like me to cut out. You can let me know. And then also, if, afterwards, if you think of something,

Anonymous 3:33

I mean, like, and you know this about me, obviously, we’ve been working together for a very long time, and my entire life, I’ve been incredibly transparent. Certainly, there are, right, like, I’m a very transparent person. Certainly there’s more, like, private things that I certainly, you know what I mean, that I, like, Wouldn’t want floating around a ton. But at the same time, I think that at least, like, my perspective, and what I’ve always told people about why I always have been so open, besides the fact that, like, I just knew that it was helpful to talk about was because, like, I don’t look like the picture of mental health, you know, like, of a true like, of what people consider somebody is mentally ill, or like, because I see high functioning or things like that. Like, I feel it’s not more important, but certainly important to make sure that people know that, like, the representation exists, like, there are very high functioning people that really struggle in their own head, right, you know. So I don’t really have much reservation per se about, like, having a lot of my identity, you know what I mean, like, I’m kind of, like, as long as people can’t really tell it’s me, you know, or, like, really identifying stuff, I don’t really care. Okay,

Dr. Signi Goldman 4:31

so it’s okay if your voice sounds like you, yeah, if I listen to you like that is my voice, okay, yeah, I, I think that’s actually really important message exactly what you name is one of the reasons that we are sort of doing this project is because, like you and others, you’re kind of some of the first generation of clients to experience ketamine assisted psychotherapy. And wouldn’t it have been nice if you could have listened like had some of. People to talk to about it first, like, what was that actually like? Or, you know? So the idea is to kind of put that resource out for people, the good, the bad, the parts that were comfortable, the parts that were not like, just whatever you would want to tell a friend, yeah, about it, and just to have more of those voices out there so that other people who are interested in it or are considering it, have that resource, of course, and I hear you that part of like, what you’re naming is there’s an assumption that people doing this are like, maybe I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but maybe, like, really low functioning or, and that is not all, what’s going

Anonymous 5:38

on, right, right? Yeah. Or just like people that are, like, seeking drugs, or, you know what I mean, like things like that. Like, I think that, I think that ketamine, I will say that in a positive note, like most of the people that I talk to, because I talk to my co workers, quite a bit about, like, my ketamine therapy and things like that. And most of the people that I talk to seem to have some understanding that this is a true, like, medicinal value, and I do hear mostly interest, rather than kind of, like, adverse things, when I, you know, like, explain that I’ve done this with people and stuff, and I feel part of this, why I want to do this is because I feel very passionately about what you’re doing and how this drug really impacted and, Like, changed my life. So for sure, like, I

Dr. Signi Goldman 6:22

would love to be able to, we start with that then, like, what? How do you feel? Like it impacted you in your own words. Like, if you were explaining this to a friend or a colleague that was just not understanding what it is at all, because it’s kind of weird stuff.

Anonymous 6:39

Yeah, I mean, it’s so like, I think about the two like, major things that stand out to me about it, per se, like, so the first thing I think about the depression protocol that I did, and in some ways, you know, that was slightly aversive, right? And it was, it was painful. It really was. It was actually not, per se, the most pleasurable experience that being said. It completely changed my life, because it allowed me to go back and actually think about what had really happened to me, and I had been suppressing that, and my body had, my brain had convinced myself and my body that that was irrelevant and like gas at myself, and that was not the truth. And like granted my brain and my body, like protected me and saved me from the grave depravity of like, the situation that I was in and that I had I like, I couldn’t have survived that situation if I understood to the extent what was happening to me. And like, I think even like, I don’t know if we’ve ever, like, directly talked about this, but you know that, just like, the degree of like, I think my body just couldn’t make sense of what was happening to me. And that’s when I first started taking, like, those thyro tabs and everything like it was prescribed to me by the physician, by the psychiatrist there, because I was blacking out when I was standing up. And that’s when it all started. And, like, I just think that I would not have survived that time if my body did, and my brain did whatever it could to keep what was really happening away from me. And I’m so glad that I did the ketamine when I did, because, like, I needed to get over that. I really think that on some deep level, it was, like, it was disturbing me. There was, there was a great like misalignment, and it just wouldn’t have worked out any other way. 

Dr. Signi Goldman 8:27

Yeah, that’s powerful, as it sounds like you’re, let me ask you, but you’re making a connection between physical symptoms you were having in your body, in trauma, but that you are not really conscious of that trauma, or not really allowing it to bubble up to the surface at all. And I think what I think I hear you saying is ketamine was painful because it sort of dredged that up. And that is not pleasant at all. Right? It’s like an understatement, yeah,

Anonymous 8:57

no. I mean, it was like I, you know, for somebody who generally doesn’t feel a lot of anger, the rage at which I felt at the time that it had, like it was, like it was, it was amazing. I just like I was so beyond irritated. And I, the only explanation I have for that is just the the true frustration that I felt at being a be, you know, just, I guess in another institutional abuse situation, you end up at the exact same situation again where something is not right. But I knew nobody would listen, so I didn’t even, you know what I mean, like, why would I even try? There was no way for me to survive without putting it away somehow. What

Dr. Signi Goldman 9:39

was your experience of how that showed up on ketamine. I know it’s hard to put those things into

Anonymous 9:44

words. I’m trying so, like, I remember the first so it was, it was like the six, the six infusion protocol is that correct? It was like three per week.

Dr. Signi Goldman 9:57

You would did two a week for three weeks. That’s in what we call an induction series, and at that point time, like you said you were on it for symptom, yeah, not, yeah, psychedelic assistance psychotherapy, yeah, right, which ended up happening kind of anyway, like we moved you over into that model after that.

Anonymous 10:16

Um, so, yeah. Like, it’s so I remember the very first infusion I ever had, right? Like, they went kind of, I think the drip was really slow, and they went kind of easy on me, and I remember, like, it’s weird, like, whenever I go, especially when I’m on IV, I can’t say that I feel this, that I felt this, like on I am, per se, but like an IV, because it’s kind of a little bit of a slower, like, drop into it, like I felt pretty like, safe and comfortable, like I felt kind of like wrapped in a warm cocoon, and I had a weird awareness of, like the room around me, which I think I kind of talk about, generally, like, when I do kind of mean or like, I have a weird awareness of the building around me. And kind of like you get this weird awareness of, like, the impertinence of it all, and like, kind of how it’s just a little bit of, like a, you know, it’s not as straightforward, right? You start to begin your like perception of what is reality, kind of, you know, like, kind of begins to become more fluid. And I liked, like, my first trip, like, it was like, Oh, I like this. This is kind of comfortable and safe and whatever. And then it was after we discussed that protocol, I think is when we decided to increase it. And I think about maybe halfway through the drip, or like, towards the end of the drip, like, I just started to feel rage. Like, just so much rage and like, I remember just kind of, like, trying to keep myself even, and like, not like, kind of like I came out and, like, not trying to, like, lash out and stuff. And I was like, something is wrong. And you were like, Oh no. Like, this happens, and then

Dr. Signi Goldman 12:05

that’s interesting, like, oh, go ahead. No

Anonymous 12:08

one just that. So pretty much, like, I remember finishing out the series, and then I think the like sadness of it started to set in, like, once, the actual like rage. And I think that just like it kind of it felt like it dropped the subconscious door between what had actually happened and then my like, conscious understanding of

Dr. Signi Goldman 12:26

it, yeah, that’s fascinating. And also, just to honor the fact that that’s like, super painful to go through, yeah, yeah. And I remember it being just regulating for you and and so it’s interesting. I haven’t, you know, like you said, you and I haven’t actually had this conversation, kind of like in this way, and all of this was a while ago now, like we’re talking, we were talking, yeah, years later now. But it sounds like you look back on that as kind of like maybe reopening that wound. Or some and then it’s sort of forced to you, is that to work on that wound in a different way, or you almost it just brought it to the surface. What I think it was, I think

Anonymous 13:14

it was part of it, like it was a wound that I didn’t really know that I had, was what was kind of so sad and so scary about it. Because, like, I said, like, I think that when I got there and I re and the part and, like, the real part of me realized this is really fucking bad that had to go, like, hide far away, because if I were to recognize the great magnitude of what I had been experiencing, like, I don’t think I would have mentally survived. And I don’t think that like that part of me that went away that knew what had happened would never have come up like that is, truthfully, how dead and buried and like tucked in the far corner of my brain it was I had no idea that I really had these terrible feelings about what happened there? Yeah,

Dr. Signi Goldman 14:01

no idea. Wow, that’s big.

Anonymous 14:08

That’s pretty good. I couldn’t accept it. How could I accept that I had then just spent another few years of some of the most like important developmental years of my life trapped in this horrifically abusive situation where I knew nobody would listen to me, then I get out, and you know, on top of it, I had plenty of reason to believe putting people and listen to me like when I was in step down, and I was telling them that my house family was abusing me. I was telling my my therapist that my house family was abusing me for weeks, and it wasn’t until I had physical proof of text messages of voice mail she had left me that they finally believed me and pulled me out of that house. Nobody believed anything that I ever said. So how could I have said why would I have said it? Why would I have named it? Why would I have acknowledged it?

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