Mignon Walker MD

Our approach is different.

After stressful events, your nervous system can be triggered into an immediate fight, flight, freeze, or a numbness response, even though the original situation is no longer present.  For example, a conversation may trigger unprovoked rage or depression, a hug may trigger panic or fear, and certain situations may make you feel completely numb.

We combine medication that supports the formation of new brain and nerve cell connections with somatic integration therapy that helps access and heal mental and emotional wounds rooted deeply in your subconscious for results that you cant get with talk therapy, cognitive or behavioral therapy, EMDR, and TMS.

The most common therapy modality in the US is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) or what is commonly referred to as talk therapy. The focus of CBT is on identifying and revising distorted thoughts and belief systems that create stress or other disturbances in people’s lives and relationships. This modality involves reality testing and establishing new behavioral habits that help people cope better with their situation.

However, even while CBT is considered an evidence based practice, the effectiveness is quite limited. In a large scale study conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health looking at CBT for depression (Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program), CBT was only 1.2 points better than no therapy on a 54 point Hamilton depression scale. In this and other trials, CBT had an effectiveness rate ranging between 17% and 24% under the most ideal, rarified laboratory conditions. In real world circumstances, we see CBT's effectiveness decrease to the 5% mark. These results for the effectiveness of CBT have remained consistent from that early trial to much more recent studies which is to say the state of the art in evidence based psychotherapy yields a 75% to 95% failure rate for the treatment of depression.

Ketamine is excellent at engaging the subconscious. The non-rational sensations, emotions, thoughts, and images that are experienced in these altered states of consciousness are your mind and body's way of expressing deep, subconscious truths that have shaped you. Furthermore, they allow for bottom-up processing to take place, which has little to do with insight and understanding and much more to do with the shifts that take place at the level of the subconscious.

When combined with somatic integration therapy, you are able to access your subconscious and process extreme stress or trauma related memories, removing the charge associated with the fight, flight or freeze response, allowing you to revisit the memory without being triggered. People have described the experience as 20 years of therapy after one treatment.