Journeys into the bright world

The article describes a study conducted with one hundred patients in a psychiatric unit of a university hospital in southern Iran. The patients were given 0.5 mg of atrophine intravenously with subsequent intravenous doses of ketamine ranging from 0.2 to 1.0 mg/kg body weight. Mind expanding effects of the drug were then determined in follow-up interviews. Patients were evaluated in terms of facilitation of psychotherapy and symptom relief.

Typical of the comments quoted were, "The injection took away the discomfort in my chest," "Heavy burden of sin is gone now," "I feel carefree with no worries," and "As a child I always wanted to shout but they did not let me."

Other statements categorized as psychic changes included, "I was in a different world and with flashbacks I was seeing vividly events which led to my illness," "Colors disappeared and I saw only in black and white," "I was talking to the Holy Family," "I was walking everywhere and seeing everything," "The blue sky was squeezing my chest," "I was flying and chasing my own life," and "I was facing the forgotten memories and was ashamed of them."

In conclusion, the authors state:

One hundred patients with a variety of psychiatric diagnoses have been part of our study. Three different dose schedules of ketamine were used and it was noted that a minimal anesthetic response was required for the expected abreactive effect. In all, ketamine at 0.4-6 mg/kg body weight led to minimal anesthetic effect and the abreactive response in nearly all of the subjects. The abreactive effect correlated well with the ketamine's mind expanding effects.

Ketamine was found to be a fast-acting drug with a short duration of action. It induced regression, introversion, lability of mood and perceptual disturbances. Moreover, it led to a loss of time sense and detachment from the environment. It activated the unconscious and repressed memories, while it temporarily transported the patient back into childhood with frightening reality, reviving traumatic events with intense emotional reaction. Some had recall of events leading to their illness. Interestingly, patients showed a good degree of verbosity and inhibitions were gone.

Within one year of follow up, nearly all patients had remained well, though two required a second injection. The complications were very minimal and included apprehension (two subjects), nausea (three subjects) and vomiting (two subjects). In conclusion, ketamine was found to be a safe psychotomimetic agent.

Ketamine has also been used in psychotherapy by Dr. Salvador Roquet, the founder and director of the Institute of Psychosynthesis (unrelated to the psychosynthesis of the Italian psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli) in Mexico City. Until this institute was forcibly shut down by the Mexican police early in 1975 Dr. Roquet treated over 600 patients with therapy involving hallucinogenic substances, including ketamine. Since he was using seven different psychedelics including LSD, mushrooms and morning glory seeds his work was rather different from ours. However, the essence of the therapeutic procedure was the same. That is, the patients were forced to fall apart in order to reintegrate on a higher level. As with atomic energy, fission precedes fusion and the consequent release of radioactivity.

In the last few years the use of ketamine in psychotherapy has been spreading without fanfare and it can be assumed that once this method is fully legitimized the public will become aware of how much work has already gone on in this field.