Does your patient need to remember their ketamine infusion experience?

In this blog you will learn whether it is important for your patient to remember their ketamine infusion experience, and how to encourage, prepare, and advise your patient in regards to having a therapeutic ketamine therapy experience.

Sometimes your patients may be pressured to have a psychedelic ketamine infusion go a particular way, or feel the need to remember the experience. They can experience so much and get discouraged that they don’t remember. But does it really matter whether they remember their experience or not? Let’s explore this topic and more in this blog post!

For some patients, remembering their ketamine infusion experience matters. However, in the grand scheme of things, getting too attached to an outcome may make healing more difficult.

Does it matter if they remember their ketamine infusion experience or not?

You may be asking this question, especially if your patient is seeing you just to address their chronic pain. Or how about for patients that don’t care if they don’t remember their experience and are simply happy they’re getting better? The answer to that is that it probably doesn’t matter whether they remember or not. 

However, you’ll have some patients that come in with a lot of expectations. If they don’t have the psychedelic experience they hoped for or don’t recall what they saw, this could disappoint them. So for these patients, it does matter since it matters to them. 

In the grand scheme of things, is it really supposed to matter? Perhaps not, especially if they are getting better with their treatments. Problems, however, may arise if the patient is getting frustrated by not remembering. Some patients may also get hung up on having their ketamine experience go a certain way. If this happens, their healing process may be a lot more difficult. It's good to have a couple strategies to help your patients during these types of situations.

Remind your patient to let go of their worry, and to relax and trust themselves.

Encourage Your Patients To Trust The Process

If your patient is concerned they didn’t remember enough from their ketamine infusion experience, encourage your patients to trust their unconscious mind. Remind them to trust that everything they need to know is stored in their mind and body. Their unconscious mind stores every experience that has happened to them in their life, similar to traumatic events in childhood. This also includes their ketamine infusion experience! Have them trust and know that the information is stored within them and that they will remember if and when the time is right.

By encouraging good lifestyle practices before their ketamine journey, they can build confidence in themselves and trust that the experience they had is what they needed.

Have Your Patients Prepare For Their Ketamine Infusion Experience

One way to increase their confidence in trusting the process is to have them prepare for their infusion. Consider having your patients do one or all of the following in the days prior to their treatment:

1. Avoid violent and graphic media

2. Meditate

3. Journal

4. Set an intention for their infusion

Doing some or all of these suggested activities does not guarantee they will remember everything. But the idea is by preparing for the infusion, your patient can trust that during and after the infusion, they know they have put in their effort to optimize having a healing experience. 

Sometimes our patients can have a difficult experience, learn more about ways you can help them in our How To Help Your Patients Through Challenging Ketamine Infusion Experiences blog post.

Encourage your patients to speak with a therapist or integration coach, journal, and do other integration practices after their ketamine infusion to process what they experienced.

Suggestions Of What Patients Can Do After Their Ketamine Infusion

Having your patients integrate their experience, remembered or not, after their infusion is key. You can suggest they journal afterwards to write down what they noticed, how they felt or any details they can recall. Encourage discussing their experience with a therapist or an integration coach. Some clinics have therapists or integration coaches in-house, and some don’t. Regardless of what you will do, having this type of support can be very healing and supportive for your patients who may be struggling to process their experience.  

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

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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.

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.

Sometimes your patients may be pressured to have a ketamine infusion go a particular way, or feel the need to remember the experience. They can experience so much and get discouraged that they don’t remember. But does it really matter? Let’s explore this topic and more in this blog!