Director of Patient Care & CEO of CIT Clinics shares "Your Roadmap To Wellbeing"
One of the most important things to understand about what we do is that this is a journey. Based on many years of experience spending literally thousands of hours supporting patients through their healing process, we have created a kind of roadmap that seems to best support our patients’ healing.
Phone Consultation
The journey begins with a phone consultation. This is a free, 30 minute phone call with a patient care coordinator where we want to hear your story. Who are you? What are you struggling with? What treatments and medicines have you taken in the past? What are you taking now. Most importantly we want to get a sense from you what your hopes are for possibly engaging in this healing journey with psychedelics. What does healing look like for you? We will answer any questions you have about the process. About us as providers. Our philosophy and approach. By the end of the consultation call, you’ll have enough information to decide whether or not you want to move to the next step which involves filling out our medical intake form, completing our wellbeing assessment along with other questionnaires about trauma, anxiety and depression. Our goal in collecting this information is to get an accurate picture of where you currently are.
Safety Assessment
Within 24 hours of receiving your forms, our clinical team meets and reviews your information. If we need clarification about anything, we’ll ask. If we need to speak with one of your current or past healthcare providers we’ll ask. The goal of this clinical evaluation is safety. Basically it boils down to asking the question, “is there any reason to NOT give you ketamine?” Is your body healthy enough to try. Are there any mental health concerns that may preclude you from receiving treatment? As health care providers, your safety is always our primary concern.
Evaluation Treatment
If the safety screening checks out, we then quickly move to scheduling your Evaluation Treatment. We’ve learned from years of experience that there is no accurate way to predict how you will respond to ketamine. Even if you have experience with other psychedelics, intravenous ketamine is a whole different matter. The evaluation treatment gives us the opportunity to see how you respond to ketamine and it’s psychedelic effects. What dose will you need in order to have the desired effect? Since we are doing intravenous ketamine we can adjust the dose up or down depending on how you respond. Ultimately our goal, is to find the dose that is right for YOU. The evaluation treatment also gives you a chance to assess whether or not we are the right provider for you. Do you like the space we’ve created? Do you connect with the anesthesia provider? Your psychedelic guide? The other clinical staff. Do you connect with us as human beings? Given the nature of psychedelics it is really important that you feel safe, trusting and willing to be vulnerable with us as your providers.
Care Plan
The day after your evaluation infusion, you’ll receive a call from one of our patient care coordinators to process your experience and explore an ongoing care plan. What was the infusion like for you? What did you learn? Was it scary at any point? What did you notice? In our experience, nobody walks out of their first ketamine experience feeling ambivalent about it. You’ll have a pretty strong feeling about it one way or another. We do have a small percentage of first-time patients who experience a clear ‘no - this is not for me’. The majority of patients, however, walk away with a very clear ‘yes - when can I come back’. At this point we begin to formulate a care plan - which is essentially a healing journey designed specifically for you. Your healing journey. How many more treatments should we shoot for? At what dosage? Who is guiding them? What kind of integration work will you do in between infusions? The trick here is to articulate a clear plan while remaining flexible about the details. This is really personalized healthcare.
Guided Psychedelic Sessions
We have a saying that goes: “An experience without reflection, is simply a happening.” Our goal is to give you a lot more than just “ketamine happenings” or psychedelic experiences that you’ll look back on some day and say “oh yeah, I once tried ketamine…” The goal is to leverage the uniquely psychedelic, analgesic and dissociative properties of ketamine as a catalyst for profound personal change. In this sense, ketamine is a lubricant for insights and “ah ha’s” that may otherwise remain locked away and unconscious. Having a skilled guide accompany you on your journeys is a game changer. That isn’t to say that sometimes you’ll want to be on your own, not talk, just be with your experience without interacting. But knowing that there always is someone with a deep personal experience and expertise in helping you navigate these psychedelic experiences is core to our approach and philosophy.
Integration Coaching
Integration coaching is all about figuring out how to integrate your experiences into your day-to-day life. Integration is such an important part of the healing journey. Simply taking ketamine without guidance and integration is missing half of the process. Its like planning an adventurous trip to Hawaii and then just staying in your hotel room watching promotional videos about the beautiful and exciting experience you could be having. Your healing process doesn’t just take place in the clinic while your experiencing ketamine. In fact, most of it happens outside the clinic. The next day. The day after. How well you are able to integrate and absorb your experiences and leverage them into living your life fully and with vitality and love. Every day.
In Summary
At the end of the day, these treatments are not simply procedures. You’re not simply coming in for a tune up. To get fixed. This process is a journey, and like any journey it requires a vision of where you want to go, support from experienced travelers to help you get there and a flexible and open mindset to things being different than planned. The key is having a roadmap and trusting the process. We’ve done this before. Many times. And we look forward to accompanying you on your journey.
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Want to learn more?
If you would like to explore whether or not Ketamine may be an appropriate treatment for you, please set up a free 30-minute consultation with a CIT Clinics Patient Care Coordinator.