Ketamine Therapy for OCD
Obsession | Compulsion | Rumination
in Oakland & Berkeley, CA
OCD
Unwanted thoughts or urges keep running through your mind.
You feel a rush of fear, doubt, and tension.
You ruminate and can’t stop thinking about something; you can’t make a decision and the constant worry gets you nowhere.
You feel overwhelming pressure to do something, fearing something bad will happen if you don’t.
You know it’s not rational, but you can’t stop.
There is a war between the logical part of your mind and the fear-based “OCD voice.”
Living with obsessive-compulsive disorder can feel overwhelming, especially when mainstream approaches hardly help.
How does Dr. Zeus treat OCD with ketamine-assisted psychotherapy?
Treatment starts where you are. First we listen to your story. We learn what triggers your OCD response and make a plan. We design an experience using ketamine that will allow you to learn a new way of being.
Fear plays an important role in the development and maintenance of obsessions and compulsions. Ketamine therapy gets to the root of the problem by rewiring the fear response. We intentionally activate your OCD in the office and use ketamine to reprogram your nervous system.
You learn to do this for yourself and receive a prescription to continue ketamine treatment at home on a schedule that fits your needs.
Published research - Rodriguez et al, 2016: Can exposure-based therapy extend IV ketamine’s effects in obsessive-compulsive disorder? An open-label trial.
https://doi:10.4088/JCP.15l10138
All ketamine is not the same for OCD
Research from Columbia and Stanford shows ketamine eases ruminating thoughts and the effect is greater and lasts longer when therapy is used to activate obsessive thoughts
placebo
ketamine
Published research - Rodriguez et al, 2013: Randomized controlled crossover trial of ketamine in obsessive-compulsive disorder
https://doi:10.1038/npp.2013.150