Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)
Hakomi-informed Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP)
Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy at Hakomi Austin is provided by Jon-Eric Steinbomer, MA, LPC-A, CHT. His approach brings together ketamine-assisted psychotherapy with Hakomi's grounded, mindfulness-based and body-centered approach to therapeutic work.
What is KAP?
Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) brings together the neurobiological effects of ketamine with the psychological, relational, and embodied dimensions of psychotherapy.
Ketamine can temporarily increase neuroplasticity—the brain's capacity to form and reorganize connections—and may create a period in which familiar patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior become less rigid. In this more flexible state, people may encounter emotions, memories, bodily experiences, perspectives, or possibilities that are less accessible in ordinary consciousness.
The medicine can create an opening. Psychotherapy provides a supported space for exploring and working with what emerges.
Potential Benefits
While results will vary for every individual, there are many potential benefits of KAP, including:
Alleviation of Depression and Anxiety symptoms
Greater flexibility when feeling “stuck” in familiar patterns
Increased insight, self-understanding, and resilience
Why Hakomi and KAP Work Well Together
Hakomi is particularly well suited to ketamine-assisted psychotherapy because both can invite a shift away from habitual ways of thinking and toward a more direct experience of what is happening in the present moment.
Mindful, somatic attention. Hakomi uses present-moment mindfulness and careful attention to the body—sensations, impulses, movements, emotions, images, and other subtle aspects of experience. These can provide pathways into beliefs and patterns that may operate outside ordinary awareness.
Working with an expanded state. Ketamine can temporarily soften familiar patterns of thought and perception, sometimes allowing emotions, memories, bodily experiences, and new perspectives to become more accessible. Hakomi provides a gentle way of staying close to this material as it emerges rather than immediately analyzing or interpreting it.
Following rather than directing. Hakomi is fundamentally non-coercive. Jon-Eric does not attempt to steer the ketamine experience toward a particular outcome or breakthrough. Instead, he follows the client's unfolding process—supporting curiosity, safety, and awareness while allowing the experience to develop in its own way.
From experience to embodied change. Insight can be powerful, but Hakomi is interested in more than insight alone. Attention is given to how something new is actually experienced in the body and nervous system, creating opportunities for new ways of relating to oneself and the world to become more deeply felt and integrated.
What Does Ketamine Feel Like?
Ketamine affects people differently, and no particular kind of experience is required for the therapy to be meaningful. Many people describe the experience as dreamlike, expansive, or deeply inward. You may notice changes in your sense of time and space, vivid imagery, unusual perspectives, or a feeling of greater distance from your body and ordinary stream of thoughts.
As the medicine takes effect, you'll recline comfortably, typically wearing an eye mask and listening to music through headphones. Speaking and moving can become more difficult during the strongest part of the experience, so much of this time is devoted to inward attention.
Jon-Eric remains with you throughout the medicine session. At times, his role may simply be to provide a quiet, grounded presence while you follow the experience internally. At other moments, something that emerges may benefit from therapeutic contact or exploration. There is no expectation that you explain or make sense of the experience while it is happening.
As the effects of ketamine subside, there is time to begin exploring what arose. Experiences in non-ordinary states can sometimes be difficult to put into words immediately. Rather than forcing an interpretation, the work remains curious about what feels meaningful and what may be useful to continue exploring in subsequent therapy.
How Is the Ketamine Administered?
KAP sessions either take place in person at Hakomi Austin, or remotely, with Jon-Eric remaining present throughout the experience in either modality.
Ketamine is prescribed by a separate medical provider (Journey Clinical) who evaluates whether treatment is medically appropriate and determines the medication and dosage. For KAP sessions, ketamine is provided as oral rapidly dissolving tablets (RDTs) that are self-administered in the office according to the medical provider's instructions.
Jon-Eric does not prescribe ketamine or determine dosage. His role is psychotherapeutic: preparing clients for the experience, providing therapeutic presence and support during the medicine session, and helping clients explore and integrate what emerges afterward.