Nonprofit team explains how ketamine-assisted psychotherapy can provide 'quick, sustained' relief

Be Well Now, a nonprofit organization that provides psychotherapy, professional development, and mindfulness retreats, hosted an Open House and official ribbon cutting on Oct. 23 to celebrate its one-year anniversary.

Following the ribbon cutting ceremony with members of the Floyd Chamber of Commerce, the Be Well Now team introduced themselves and described the therapeutic practices they offer. The team includes Licensed Professional Counselors Joe Klein and Jessica Talley Haynes, and Dr. Mary Hansen, an Internal Medicine physician who served as an active-duty physician in the U.S. Navy for 16 years.

Klein, the founder of Be Well Now, specializes in therapy focused on trauma, grief, depression, anxiety, and addiction recovery. “I use Internal Family Systems, as well as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR),” Klein said. “EMDR is an effective way to work with trauma to help people reprocess old memories without getting overwhelmed and retriggered.”

A new addition to Be Well Now is ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. Klein said that ketamine was originally used during the Vietnam War, and is used in therapy to “help people relax in their mind and their body, so they can work with what they are dealing with. It’s very versatile,” Klein said. “We can go with very low doses, up to medium or high doses, all subanesthetic.”

Hansen spoke about the neuroplasticity properties of ketamine. “It helps patients to make new pathways in their brain and to build neuro connections,” she said. “You can then strengthen those new connections with intentions, so that those become new behaviors. It helps you get out of ruts and go-to behaviors and make new and more lasting changes.”