Shannon Starr sits down to discuss her upcoming Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy immersion with The Alchemist’s Kitchen on Saturday, March 20th. The workshop is designed to optimize your experience and treatment and allow for lasting transformation.
Ketamine is a safe, well-known medication that is currently being prescribed off-label for depression, anxiety, PTSD, trauma, OCD, addiction, and other mental health concerns. In the heart of NYC, you will be nurtured with a sense of wellbeing as we explore non-ordinary states of consciousness with sound, intention, and integration. Watch her full interview on our Youtube Channel and we hope you can join us on Saturday, March 20th. Space is limited, reserve your spot today.
How Did You become a Practitioner of Ketamine Therapy?
My journey into becoming a psychiatric nurse practitioner that’s specializing in psychedelics and Ketamine therapy started mostly in studying meditation and consciousness, nutrition, yoga teaching, personal training, and just doing overall wellness coaching. I’ve been a seeker just looking for things that really optimize well-being and take a spiritual consciousness-based approach and I started understanding and working with plant medicines and seeing the beauty and value of that. Working with Ketamine therapy now for several years, I’ve witnessed a transformation with my clients and friends, and people I know. Psychedelics create quantum leaps through the healing that is created and the change that is created with those medicines especially in the realms of mental health.
What are the Benefits of Ketamine Assisted Therapy?
There are a couple of different pieces. One is being in the group setting — I work with a lot of clients where we do one-on-one and group settings and I really love this retreat-like approach — while you’re in a group it’s very dynamic and everyone’s co-creating together. My clients have reported the group experience is really potent and powerful. Then, of course, there’s the medicine.
When we’re working with ketamine, it’s rewiring the brain through enhancing something called BDNF, also known as a brain-derived neurotrophic factor, and what that does is it actually allows the brain to rewire and fire much more quickly so for someone who’s thinking about something in a similar way it can allow things to be perceived much more quickly in a whole totally different new way. Instead of thinking about something in a repetitive fashion, the brain will now have all these different ways that it can think and create. For someone who’s maybe having a hard time getting out of bed or feeling motivated or excited or has a lot of anxious thought patterns, it can really help.
What can we expect in your Ketamine Workshop?
The way that I like to facilitate is a blend of having all the tools in the toolbox and then really seeing what’s present with the group. Once everybody steps into the space, the creation of what’s going to be created starts. I’m perceiving what’s going on in the room and what’s going to be created. There’ll be a level of checking in with everybody. I’ll start with setting intentions, dropping into our bodies, dropping into this space, typically some type of guided relaxation or meditation or intention setting process, and then we’ll all move into receiving the ketamine medicine.