If you are familiar with our content and blog, you know that we are all about how effective ketamine infusion treatments can be for mood and pain disorders. But more importantly, we believe and witness how it is only a catalyst. Ketamine alone doesn’t transform a patient’s life, it’s the changes that they make in their lives during and after the treatments that really move the needle.

This is where integration of our patient’s ketamine experience in their daily life is key. Sustainable and powerful change comes from the small adjustments and choices your patients make.

In this blog we share the importance of integration for your ketamine infusion patients, the Wheel Of Life integration tool, and how to use it.

Woman holding a notebook to her lap while holding a pen — We truly believe that integration is essential in creating a life-changing experience for your ketamine patients.

A Key To A Successful Ketamine Experience: Integration

What is integration? It is reflecting and acting upon the insights and lessons learned during the ketamine infusion. Now, for some of you reading this, you are all for this holistic approach. You embrace set and setting and provide post-infusion integration to your patients. If this is you, then this post and tool is for you!

On the other hand, if these aforementioned ideas are foreign to you or something you’re uninterested in, we urge you to reconsider. We suggest you at least partner with someone who can help with creating a healing and supporting experience during and after the infusion. From a patient-centered perspective, this is the right thing to do. It gives a structure from which the patient can make sense of their psychedelic experience and take action.

If that’s not reason enough, from a business-perspective it’s also good business. Patients who have a great experience and trust you will keep coming back! This is real-world experience talking!

Someone drawing a circle on the sand with a toy shovel — By using the Wheel of Life tool, your patient will be able to draw a picture of which areas need more focus and which are doing well.

The Wheel of Life: A Tool For Your Ketamine Patients

There are many ways to go about integration, and we encourage you to learn more and even consider undergoing integration training. For now, we will share a tool that we use in our clinic: The Wheel of LIfe.

The wheel of life organizes life into 8 areas:

Fun & Recreation
Friends & Family
Health
Money & Career
Personal Growth
Physical Environment
Romance / Significant Other
Spirituality

Each area is then ranked from a scale of 0 (worst) to 10 (greatest) on how satisfied or happy your patient is. Then draw a curved line to the number selected to create an outline of a circle aka wheel. Once this is done, ask your patient, "Is this wheel that you've created balanced or is it jagged?" Feel free to come up with terms you feel more comfortable with or will resonate better with your patient.

It comes as no surprise that the “ideal” is to have a round symmetric wheel. However, the goal here is actually reflection and identifying areas that may need more focus and attention as well as areas that can be celebrated. This tool is a poetic visual representation of your patient's life!

How To Utilize The Wheel Of Life

The Wheel of Life can be used before the infusion treatments or after. Utilizing the wheel before treatments can provide insight and guidance in helping your patient select an intention or be a record on how they feel about the various areas of their life.

Filling out a wheel after a treatment can help give insight to what they experienced during their infusion. For example, perhaps you have a patient who feels a lot of anxiety going into the infusion but can’t identify why or where it is coming from. Completing a wheel after may give a hint that a lower-ranked area could be a cause for those anxious feelings.

Various tools lined up on a wooden shelf in front of a green wall. — Integration is a game-changer in your ketamine patient’s treatment that it holds the same importance as keeping them safe throughout the infusion.

Another Tool in your Ketamine Integration Tool Belt

There are so many ways you can help your patient during integration and the wheel of life is just one of them. Whether you provide integration services or outsource them, integration is a must! It’s a game-changer. You can’t just leave your patient hanging. Yes, keeping them safe during the ketamine infusion is no doubt. 100% important. But what is equally as important is also giving them a structure to make sense of what they experienced.

Want to have your own Wheel of Life? You don’t need to do a ketamine infusion to do a wheel on your own life! If you want to get a wheel for you and your patients as well as get insights on how to create healing transformative ketamine infusion experiences, sign up below to get your copy.

Are you ready to start your journey as a soon-to-be ketamine clinic owner? Join our email list and be notified about the next free webinar and open registration for Ketamine StartUp.

If you enjoyed this blog post, you might want to check out these as well:

How To Help Your Patients Integrate After Ketamine Infusions

Did you know that integration is a crucial part in treating your ketamine patients? In fact, what is integration exactly? Read our blog post to find out.

How To Perform Transformational Ketamine Infusions: An Introduction

There is no doubt that ketamine infusions are effective in treating mood disorders. However, this shouldn't be treated as just a medication, but something that can transform your patients too. They simply don't heal, but their lives completely change as well. Head over to our blog to read about how you can perform transformational ketamine infusions.

Why Your Patients Should Set An Intention Before Their Infusion

Did you know that tea intentionally treated by Buddhist monks was found to improve one's mood significantly? Like tea, setting an intention before a ketamine treatment is also impactful! Learn more at our blog.