Hold On, What Exactly Is Ketamine Therapy?

You may have heard of ketamine therapy from the second season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives which was released last week.

In the first episode, Jen and Zac Affleck opened up about struggles within their marriage and decided to explore different methods to help them heal their relationship. This included trying ketamine therapy.

“Zac and I will definitely have a lot to work on, and ketamine therapy is supposed to reset a lot of past traumas or habits you’ve created,” Jen said during the episode.

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So, what is ketamine therapy, and does it actually work? Here’s everything you need to know.

What is ketamine therapy?

Ketamine therapy is a treatment used to manage mental health conditions including, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression and anxiety disorders such as treatment resistant depression (TRD).

The treatment includes attending one or more in-clinic dosing sessions.

The ketamine works by blocking activity to a receptor in the brain. The receptor is called N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) which regulates mood, cognition and pain perception.

Does ketamine therapy work?

Many studies have found benefits from ketamine such as improving depressive symptoms including mood changes and anhedonia.

In 2019, a new prescription ketamine nasal spray was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat TRD. This came after a study found that there was a decrease in depressive scores from participants who received the nasal spray compared to those who received a control.

According to Peter Grinspoon from Harvard Health, ketamine can give people suffering with TRD relief in a very short space of time.

“Instead of waiting for an antidepressant medicine to hopefully provide some relief over the course of weeks, people who are suffering under the crushing weight of depression can start to feel the benefits of ketamine within about 40 minutes,” he said.

However, he reinforced that, “ketamine doesn’t offer a cure; rather, it improves symptoms of depression for a certain amount of time.”

Ketamine is still currently illegal in Ireland (apart from that one day in 2015).

So, could ketamine therapy help Jen and Zac?

After showing up to the facility and being given a dose each, Jen shared that she was feeling the effects.

“Oh, it hit me. It’s hitting me right now. The room is spinning”, she said. She later admitted that it was the hardest thing she’s ever done.

After the IVs were removed, Jen told Zac that throughout the process, she thought about when they first got together. She said, “I’ve just had some memories of when we first started dating. I truly felt like you were like my missing piece”.

Zac had a similar experience which made him realise how important Jen was to him.

He said: “Jen and I do love each other, and we are a team. It’s easy when you get back to the root of why you love each other, being able to relive some of those memories and think about some of those times I’ve had with Jen… yeah, I just kind of realiesd just how special she is to me.”

Words by Nikita Hall