What a Ketamine Session Actually Feels Like: A Psychedelic Guide Explains

[0:00] When most people hear psychedelics, they think or picture the 1950s, but today is actually a clinical supervised aid that's helping people, many of whom have run out of options. So I'm super excited to be sitting here today with Jerry Cook, who is the owner of Metanoia Journey Consulting. So we're going to talk a little bit about the name and what that means. But by the end of this episode,

[0:22] you're going to learn a little bit more about ketamine and why it's the one psychedelic that people can actually use to help get to the root of their trauma and why the guide and the integration matter as much as the medicine. Health and wellness is confusing. There's a new trend every week. Everyone's got an opinion and half the time you can't tell what's legit and what's just good marketing. And we get

[0:45] it. We're in it too. Welcome to Dialed In Health. I'm Melissa Goodwin. Every episode, we bring in the people who actually do this work, providers, practitioners, the experts who seek clients and patients every day. We ask the questions you'd ask if you were sitting across from them so you can find the right people, make better decisions and feel confident about what's out there, whether it's peptides, gut health, water quality, ADHD,

[1:07] biohacking or something you've never heard of, we're covering it. So let's get into it. Let's get dialed in. So Jerry, thank you for being on the show. I know a lot of people are going to be listening to this one. Thank you, Melissa. It's a juicy topic. It is a juicy topic. I love it. Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me on. Absolutely. So tell me the Metanoia. I've

[1:30] not heard that name before. So tell me a little bit about the name of your clinic, how you got started. We know each other from way back in the days, a couple of years ago, at least. Yeah, a few years ago. So tell, tell me a little bit about your journey, how you got here. So it really started when I was a little boy. So my dad was stationed in the air force or we were stationed in Crete,

[1:51] which is a Greek Island. And my sister was born over there. So I always have these ties back to Greece with whatever I do. And so my dad was actually diagnosed with schizophrenia at the time and ended up taking his life just a couple of weeks before my fifth birthday. So that's kind of the start into my lifelong, the through line of my obsession with mental health and mental wellness and how

[2:13] you know, things interact, how people interact with it. And in 2019, my pet, my sister actually passed away as well. And at that time it was like, man, life was compounding, you know, like owning multiple businesses and this thing came up and like trying to process through that and relationship things that came up. And I'm like, I just need, I need to like find a way to process

[2:35] this. And I'd, I'd, you know, been through talk therapy, which is amazing, you know, multiple times in my life and it's very good, but it was like I need something different. So I did some research and, and came across ayahuasca. And so I started there and, um, and ended up getting involved in, uh, or learning about taking classes and

[2:58] training in ketamine assisted psychotherapy. And so as I went through that training, it was like, well, I want to bring this to South Dakota. I want to bring it to Sioux Falls in the, in the area. So I actually had a clinic open with another partner for a while and that closed down in 2024 because of that partner moved out of state. And then, so now I'm I reopened. And so I came up with Metanoia,

[3:20] Metanoia is a profound change in thought and life direction. And it's actually a Greek word. So it ties back to my roots. So when you were starting, what made you decide that that ketamine therapy was something that you really wanted to pursue as a, as a career, as a calling, maybe. So I started doing a lot of research

[3:42] actually on what veterans were doing. Okay. So, you know, you start talking about like PTSD, complex PTSD, trauma work, help people process through that anxiety, depression. And I really kept stumbling across lots of different modalities of psychedelics, whether it be like psilocybin or MDMA,

[4:05] ayahuasca. There's a whole, I mean, there's a, there's a ton of them. And then ketamine is the one that kept coming up because ketamine is the only legal psychedelic that's you know, us wide, like it's, it's available everywhere. So it's an FDA approved medicine. And this is what's called an off label use of the medicine. Cause it was really is originally

[4:26] synthesized as an anesthetic for surgery back in like the sixties. And what they were finding out is like some people were coming out of surgery saying, Hey, I had all these vivid visions and you know, like, I had spiritual connections with people and all these things. A few psychologists really glommed onto

[4:48] that and started doing some research. And so around like the 1980s and nineties is really where ketamine started becoming like a go to medicine for, for psychedelics and actual, you know, psychological workings with people. So it's really, and so why ketamine it's, it's legal.

[5:10] It's a very incredibly safe medicine. Okay. So like the dosage that we give people in a psychedelic session, like for myself, I'm typically about a hundred milligrams. Okay. But if I, if you were to put me in a surgical application, I'm probably like five to six times that amount. Okay. So again, you start to look at like the safety

[5:31] mechanisms of ants really, really a safe medicine. So tell you mentioned a couple of different drugs, MDMA, psilocybin, ketamine, like what, what is, they all fall under psych ayahuasca. Are they all psychedelics help help us understand like maybe the differences of those and what, when do you use what? So like I think the key

[5:53] would be the answer is yes, they're all kind of in the psychedelic category. Okay. So for me, like I've done journeys myself with people in different states or, you know, I know of people that use different medicines and even combinations of medicines. Yeah. Right now there's research and a lot of things going on in like Colorado and California where micro dosing

[6:17] psilocybin has some really great benefits. And then as you get into a little higher dose and even higher doses, then you get into the psychedelic realm and the component, the mechanism in psilocybin is actually different than ketamine, but really they both kind of act in a certain way where what you're really trying to do is suppress a little bit of

[6:40] what's called the default mode network in your brain. So as we all go through life, whether it's big traumas, little traumas, whatever, we build up these, these ways of thinking, right? And as we develop those ways of thinking, maybe it's interacting with people, maybe it's, you know, coping mechanisms, whatever, those are really ingrained in our brain.

[7:02] And that is very difficult to break those, that chain of thought. And so what the psychedelic psychedelics in general are trying to do is suppress that mechanism, which is the automatic way of thinking about things and reframing thought. So if something happened to me, like I'll give you an example. My, when my dad passed away,

[7:24] it was a five year old little boy, but what did I do to cause his death? What could I have done to prevent it? You know, it was my fault, right? So as we sit here logically as adults, we go, well, of course that wasn't your fault. Like you should have no, but no, it's embedded inside. So that manifests itself in a lot of different ways. So,

[7:45] psilocybin can access some of that. But again, here in South Dakota, psilocybin isn't legal. So we look to ketamine and ketamine has a little different mechanism of action where part of what it does, it will put you in a dissociative state where you actually will at a little higher dose, actually sort of lose track of your body.

[8:08] Okay. And your thought process. But what you're really doing is it's almost like an enhanced dream state. So when you're asleep at night, you actually lose kind of control of your body, right? And your brain is free to do whatever it wants to do. Well, we're trying to mimic that state in, you know, in your waking state. So the beauty of it is, as you get into that psychedelic state,

[8:31] your brain is telling you things that it really wants to process through. And it could be like very scary, dark things, or it could be like very good, positive things, but all of those are super important because as we look back at that history, we're trying to break the old way of thinking and connect with a new way. So it's, it's disassociate from the old and associate with new. And that's how you start breaking those

[8:53] chains of like anxiety and depression and things like that. So, so how is this different? You know, um, I think about many people think of these as like recreation, maybe not necessarily so much ketamine, but recreational drugs, like mushrooms or acid or whatever. Right. So especially when you start talking to MDMA, you get like all the old 1960s sort of connotations to it.

[9:15] How is this different than the recreational use of those drugs? That's a great question. And actually, ketamine is a recreational drug too, or I mean, people use it, recreational typically on a lower dose. Right. Yeah. Yeah. We're definitely not promoting that. But the point, the point is like, there's a lot of, there's a lot of medications and drugs that people use recreationally.

[9:37] But obviously, you know, they shouldn't. But so, so I think the difference is, is multitudes of back in the sixties, when a lot of this stuff started happening in the U S and I would say in the, in the developed world, um, you know, this substances LSD is a big one that came out. Uh, ketamine was used a lot in like Vietnam for,

[10:00] for surgery and pain management. And so you start to see all these fringes of like, Hey, let's start to use this recreationally. Well, the problem with using a psychedelic, meaning a psychedelic dose of something recreationally, if you're not in the right, what's called in psychological terms, it's called set and setting, right? So what's the physical space that I'm in

[10:21] and what's the company that I'm in? Back in the sixties, people would say, Oh, I took LSD, but I had this horrible trip. Well, yeah, of course one is unsupervised and you might be with the wrong people doing this. So it sends you down a really bad path. So in this case, we're trying to use those medicines to access the same psychedelic

[10:43] areas, but with the proper set and setting so that people are safe, safe to explore internally and safe to start reframing some of those things. So there's components from the past, but right now it's, you know, this isn't really, this isn't here. We're not here to have fun and like take a trip. This is like for people that want to do deep psychological work and really, you know, try to help, like I said,

[11:05] reframe thought patterns and the ways of thinking and stuff like that. So and process traumas and things. So one thing I'm curious about, you know, there, there might be folks that are very aware of their trauma, like you knew when your dad passed away. And then there's people that seem to try or take or go on these experiences, these guided journeys, and then they remember something that has been like

[11:28] holding them back. So how do you know like if you're stuck and might need, or this kind of therapy might help you? Yeah, great, great question on multiple levels. So I think that internally most of us know when we're stuck, right? And so if you're on a path for doing some healing

[11:50] if you're anxious all the time, if you're kind of just like, you can, you can feel right. Your body is tensed up or depressive thoughts. I'm not good enough. You know, a lot of these things that come in, we just feel unwell. So in that unwellness, it's typically because we're in a thought loop pattern and that thought loop pattern has been there for years and years and years.

[12:12] And it's a great protect protection mechanism when you're younger and when you go in through trauma and then it has bad manifestations down the road. And unfortunately our brain's super great at like continuing the loop and going, ah, this is the way I should work. Right? So there's a few things that we typically look at with people. One, if you have an outside therapist and you've really sort of plateaued, right?

[12:35] And not making a lot of progress there, this is a beautiful way because again, like you had mentioned, even in like the normal process, you get through things and like, where do I get to the next level or things come up that I didn't even know that were there. That's, that's our brain and our body suppressing a lot of those previous experiences and our memories. It's a protection mechanism. And it's not like,

[12:57] you can't control it. I can't control it. We all just do it subconsciously. So even in myself, you know, for, let's say, this is about four years going on that I've been doing some of this work. And it's very important that like as a practitioner, you do your own work as well. Right? So, I mean, I just did a journey a few weeks ago and like, wow, where did this particular thing come from?

[13:19] I didn't even realize or I thought that I had processed that very well, but this, this will show you the things that you need to process and work on. So it's really, it's really eyeopening and allows you to kind of follow the progress through. So what does that experience look like? So let's say you feel stuck. You're not really sure what's going on. You've maybe taken,

[13:42] a therapist and you just feel like it's just not working. Come to see Jerry. What is the process like? How often do I come? What is, what does it feel like for somebody who's like scared of maybe somebody who's never done, done drugs before, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's a great point. Actually, I just had a conversation with the gentleman the other day about this. First thing would be like contact me. And I usually have about a 15 to 30

[14:04] minute call with someone in an introductory call, just to kind of get to know someone, what's kind of the things that, you know, we're, we're looking for people that are like, I don't, we don't work with people or I don't work with people are like, Hey, I just want to come experience this. No, no, no, no. There's gotta be a reason, right? So, so one, you know, what is the reason? So we have an introductory call. And then once we decide that this may be

[14:25] a good fit for, you know, you or whoever else, then I turn you over to my medical team. I have a couple of different medical people that I work with and you go through a full medical process because what we're looking for is any, what are called contraindications, right? For any medical issues or any other maybe medicines that you're on, medications you're on that

[14:47] don't work well with ketamine. So we have to rule out any of those possibilities, but again, it's very safe. So we go through that process. So there's a medical process that's about an hour long. Okay. And then once we're cleared medically, then a prescription can be issued. Then I typically do about a 45 minute to 60 minute pre-journey,

[15:08] integration session with someone. So, Hey Melissa, let's sit down for an hour. We need to build a bond of trust in the relationship. And also let's talk about, let's talk about where you're at in life. This is about meeting people today where they're at, not where they were five years ago or five years in the future, but where are you at today? And then we'll start to stream things backwards and forwards. But, um, so we,

[15:30] we have that pre integration or pre session integration meeting. And then you come into the office here or I'll do remote sessions as well. And that's typically scheduled for like three hours. And the first, you know, 15 to 30 minutes is really, let's just settle in. You're trying to, again, that's set and setting. You're trying to just create a calm

[15:52] environment where we can just settle in. And then the medicine is administered and it typically takes anywhere from about two to maybe five minutes for the medicine to start to kick in. Okay. And then the journey will like the psychedelic portion of the journey usually takes about 30, 45 minutes. And then the next like hour, hour and a half is tailing out of the psychedelic

[16:18] and you're in what's called a psycholytic state. And the psycholytic state is really where the defense mechanisms are down and you're more open to talking and stuff like that. So now we're doing the integration, the really heavy work of like, Hey, let's, let's talk about what happened in the journey, how that might tie into certain things in life. What is the brain

[16:39] actually trying to show? Hey, maybe now it's time we can let go of this thought process of like, you were not responsible for your dad's death type things. Sure. But you're in this neuroplastic state where your brain is open to processing things differently. So we really take advantage of that first like 24 hours after the session to another followup

[17:01] integration session for about an hour. And we really try to get into those memories and start to re, you know, reframe memories and reframe thought processes. So you have a really cool window of opportunity to work with people there. So you mentioned something interesting when you said, I thought I had fixed that, but it came up again. How, when you say neuroplasticity, I hear that a lot on podcasts and stuff, especially Huberman, right? Yeah.

[17:25] How do you take something that's been hardwired like that? How long does it take for it to reframe or stick? Yeah. I mean, that's a, that's a better word. That's a great question. I mean, so, um, at times and one of the things I didn't answer before, but I want to hit on is like psychedelics in general and specifically ketamine, the one that we're talking about today is

[17:48] not the ultimate panacea. It's not like you come in for one psychedelic journey and your life as a mate. Like, I mean, that can happen. You can have really huge shifts, sure. But typically it's over like maybe a couple sessions or over a period of, let's say, you know, you do a journey. Sometimes, you know, there's intensive weeks where maybe we do two journeys in a week, but that's,

[18:10] tip, that's typically not where we start, right? So typically it's like, let's say you come in and week number one, we do a journey together. Um, and we really access some of these things. And what you're doing is you're really opening up that the ability to release and that release and reconnection can happen in those journeys and it can basically can be there forever. Um,

[18:32] typically what happens though, is as we open up one and start to reattach to new, there's other things tied to it, right? So it's really starting that gateway process of looking at, okay, here's a section, here's a section, here's a section. So I typically tell, tell clients I'm here for the

[18:54] journey and the integration, not necessarily for what's called longitudinal care, which is really where you have an outside therapist. I can do some of that with people in special cases, but so it's, it's a journey, right? It's a process that, you know, if, some people that can, it can be like three medicine journeys over the course of let's say a month or a

[19:15] couple months or three months, and it just takes a really profound shift in life. Um, others, you know, if there's more things to work on or people that go, Oh, I did really well there. This is reframed. I feel pretty good about it, but now I want to go onto the next thing. I mean, it, you know, it can be, people can come for years and it might be every like three months or six months

[19:36] or 12 months. It's really independent, you know, it's dependent on how the person themselves, the client is taking the medicine and how they're, how they're moving through the process. What have you seen from maybe the either people you've worked along, side or people that you've worked with from a transformation standpoint, like tell me, tell me a couple of stories that would

[19:57] help make it real for us. Yeah. I mean, I have tons of stories from working alongside people. Like I, my training is out of a group called players insight center out of the San Francisco Bay area. And you know, like the main person there is a psychologist who's been in the field for 40 plus years. Like just amazing, like, you know, world-class shadowing and,

[20:19] you know, mentorship from that group. It's, it's incredible. So I feel very, very blessed and lucky to have that. So I have tons there, but like one of the ones I could give you from a current client of mine. So this gal has, you know, pretty significant alcohol abuse disorder, right? It's the coping mechanism and has gone

[20:43] through life changes as a mother of her own and is through life changes, back living with her parents and like just feels this internal, like why am I so, you know, anxious all the time? There's no more, you know, alcoholism in the, in the family home, et cetera, et cetera. It's a safe, loving

[21:04] place. But again, internally, so you go back to, we'll call her Joan. We'll call, you know, when Joan comes back into the family home, even though she's, you know, let's say 45 years old, there's parts of Joan that are still the five year old girl and reacting to the thought process, the loop that's

[21:26] created the safety mechanism, because mom and dad would get into big fights and you know, they're just, she felt unsafe. Well, now you compound that with her being a mother herself. And internally she's trying to protect herself and trying to protect her daughter, even though there's really no, you would call it threat. Immediate threat, right? So it's really beautiful though, to be able to work with her and start to

[21:49] start that reframing process. And one of the, one of the first things I remember is, um, it was actually during a pre a pre journey session and integration session. And she's like, oh, my therapist and five of my friends are like, I need to go march into my childhood home and confront my mom and dad today. And you know, we need to like address

[22:11] this issue and all the wrongs from my childhood. And I'm like, well, hold on a second. First off, we can't, we can't do that if the other parties are not in the same, you know, realm of capacity of able to do that, where we're just being our head against the wall, but let's work through a couple of journeys first and let's reframe actually what's happening.

[22:32] So it's been really beautiful process because you go through that first journey. And there are some other things we're working on too, but the ability to start separating out like this anxious component of like, no, I can look at this and I can logically and internal in my body go, I'm actually safe now. Cause the unsafety was there from five

[22:55] years old and 10 years old and whatever. So you start to see that disengagement. So is it fully healed? No, but the disengagement from the old way and the, the new way of thinking is there. So the mechanism is there and it's, it's already making huge advancements. It's almost like you start to hold two things true at one time. This was my childhood and also this is

[23:17] today and it's different. And sometimes it's interesting that your, your, you know, talk therapy is great, but you're asking people to talk through things that oftentimes are very hard to process. So you're talking and processing and some like sometimes those subconscious things like you're talking about are really hard. How do you rewire that if you don't have

[23:39] some assistance to do that? Yeah. Um, I'm curious for the folks that you've, you've worked with, do they tend to have that reframing stick for a period of time then afterwards? So do you, do you feel like the afterwards, this person will be able to live in that home and continue to build new memories? How does that work? Yeah.

[24:01] How do you pass back to the other parties that she's been working with? Yeah, it definitely, it definitely does. And you see it kind of a progression, right? So again, it's sort of like, can I detach from that way of thinking? And I go, there's two things logically we know, right? But logic doesn't address, you know, this internally. So your head and your heart sometimes your head and your heart, yup.

[24:22] And your energy and everything is in your soul, whatever you want to call it is two different things. And they can be, like you said, duality is the psychological term, two things at once, right? So logically, um, you know, we know that we're safe, but that mechanism is still there. So to answer the question, the big thing is can we see the detachment?

[24:44] The detachment is the first thing. Got it. Okay. Doesn't necessarily mean we've landed solidly on the new way of thinking, but the detachment, can we slow down that energetic process? Because that's what that look like. How do you know there's detachment? Yeah. Detachment is really going to come from, I mean, a lot of times you can, you know, you've talked to somebody who's like me

[25:06] sometimes I get hyper anxious about things and that, you know, there's just a calming effect. Okay. So it's one medium with the client themselves, how they self-report, but also the observation of what's going on. So a lot of anxiety and depression is really stored energy in your system. That is just this

[25:27] machine is just grinding and grinding and grinding away and you feel it right. It's exhausting. So as you start to detach from that, that wheel starts to slow down a little bit. And as we're not spending that much energy or that intensive energy all the time, you start to see that progression following through. So sometimes that attachment and reattachment to new can

[25:48] happen in one journey. Most of the time the detachment starts to happen in one journey, or at least we identify it more differently and it starts to get stronger and stronger and stronger as you do more journeys. So it's all client dependent and where they're at. Sometimes it takes longer for people, but the track is there and it doesn't

[26:09] necessarily, you know, again, this isn't the panacea for everybody. Sometimes it doesn't work for people, but it's a beautiful tool when it does. So for people who are worried about like, am I going to hallucinate, like the journey itself, am I going to hallucinate, you know, or whether you have tried things recreationally in the past or you haven't, you've probably got ideas of what's, you know, we've seen movies, right?

[26:32] So what is that part like? You've, you've experienced it yourself. Can you, can you help paint a picture for someone who's terrified of what this might, what might happen? Yeah. So it's, it's really great on a couple, on a couple different, um, you know, veins there. One, um, the, when you get into the psychedelic journey space,

[26:54] it can be incredibly like just purely peaceful and blissful. Um, it can also be like intense and difficult. And both of those things, all of those things that are actually really good because even the intense journeys, the difficult ones are our brains and Hey, I need to, I need to revisit this, whatever that is. Right. And that's super important.

[27:15] That's why like you were talking about before of like the sixties version of psychedelics versus now and why it's so critical to work with somebody and not do it recreations. Like somebody's really got to be there to help, you know, I take tons of notes with people, what you're experiencing, trying to tie it back. You know, the difficult journeys can be difficult. The blissful ones are amazing. You know,

[27:37] you've got people that have like spiritual connections with other people. They may see, you know, spirits, gods, whatever. And a lot of that, again, is a lot of self-love that you see. Um, and so, but the other part of that is, is for people that are maybe, um, you know, haven't experimented or not familiar with, or maybe scared of that psychedelic process.

[28:01] There's other ways that we can work with people or that I work with people. And so you can, the nice thing about ketamine is you can what's called titrate or adjust the dose up or down. So I can give them a smaller dose of ketamine and get them in what's called a psycholytic state where you're not psychedelic, but your defense mechanisms are down and we just have a more open. It's almost like an MDMA type process

[28:22] because MDMA is really beautiful, but they call it a heart open medicine. Okay. I'm just, I want to connect. I want to talk. My defenses are down. So ketamine mimics a lot of like what MDMA does, and then it can mimic a lot of the more intense psychedelics. But we, I can titrate that based on really what the client can handle and what they want

[28:43] to do. So, um, you know, cause you can get right into the edge of psychedelic zone or we could push into it further, just depending on what the client wants to do. Like if they tell you I'm scared, I want to stop, you can stop it or lower it in real time almost. Yeah. Like stuck there. You can't really. So once the process is started, you can't really reverse it.

[29:06] But the other beautiful thing about ketamine is the journey really like the core of the journey is about 30, 45 minutes. Okay. So you're not in it that long. Like when you start talking psilocybin or MDMA or some of these other, I mean, you know, four hours, six hours. Yeah. You're in it. So, but the point is is

[29:28] in this whole process, you really take people from that low dose. Let's just see how you feel on it the next time, or maybe we might give a little bit of a booster to get a little bit higher into that zone. It's all about making the client, the patient very comfortable with what's going on. Okay. So tell me about your role in this and

[29:49] the provider side, the integral, you call it integration, integration, tell, tell me what, why is that important? What does that do? So, you know, when you're in that psychedelic state, especially on ketamine, your, your body is dissociated. You know, again, you can have visions, um, connections with people. So at that point, two things. One,

[30:10] I really want people to not do anything other than just experience the journey. So when they're in the journey, typically the lights are very low in here. You're in an eye mask. Um, you're laying on a floor mat. I'm right there on the floor beside you because I really want people, like a lot of times people get into, um, what's called somatics, right? Where they're, they're moving

[30:31] energy throughout their body. So they may be moving around, maybe, you know, dancing, maybe yelling, maybe whatever it's like, however we need to process these things. They're dancing can be at times. Yeah. So move around. You're like so stoned or out of it that you're just laying down for a period of time for sure. Like, you know, especially if you get a higher dose, like you're probably not going to do too much for 30 minutes. I think

[30:53] you did tick tock, probably not. No. So, but as you come out of it, again, your defense mechanisms are down. And sometimes it's like, I just have pure like euphoria and I want to celebrate enjoy, which is a beautiful, like it's a self love process, right? Celebration is great. So let's great go for it. Yeah. It's around a while.

[31:15] Yeah. Obviously like I'm there to supervise. So that's the big thing is like, as you come out of it, your motor skills come back to you, but it's very important to have somebody there who knows medically what to do. And, and also safety touches a big thing. If somebody starts to fall or, or has to go to the bathroom, you have to escort them and not into the bathroom, but you know, just make sure that they're safe. So, um,

[31:38] and then what was your other, just like what the provider, the role of that in your training and that kind of thing. So, um, in the training, I mean, there's definitely medical side of it, right? Like how to attend to people dosage, stuff like that. And I work with my outside medical providers to, to titrate medicine up and down. And then really my role is to one develop a very safe, open relationship with the clients

[32:01] because that's a huge part of it and be there to support them in that psychedelic journey and the psycholytic process coming out of it and really document, you know, what happens in that journey. Cause people will say, Hey, I've got mantras or visions that are coming to me. I need you to write down, you know, so there's, there's interaction between the client and myself. Sure.

[32:26] And then also it could be sometimes supportive touch, right? Like, Hey, I just need to know, like if you have, um, you know, clients with like abandonment trauma, okay, deep in the process and I check in with them, they're like, Hey, can you just, you know, I just need to like physically know that you're there. So maybe it's like holding their hand, maybe it's touching their shoulder. Maybe it's them reaching out

[32:48] for my hand. You know, again, it's just like that compassionate touch at times. So physically being there because in that dissociative state, you really need to have somebody there, a lot of documentation. And then as we're coming out and talking, it's that integration process. So there's the journey, you know, the journey process where you're consulting and walking through that.

[33:09] And then the integration, which is more of the talk side of it and really kind of putting the pieces together of what happened. Do people forget once they leave the psycholytic state, what happened? You can, because sometimes in those in the psychedelic journeys, it can be pretty intense. Like things were coming at you, you know, and, and like, you know, and you're, you're, you're trying to experience it. So part of it is like, let me be the,

[33:32] person to document, let me take as much, be the witness. Exactly. And so you just have your journey and I'll be there to support you. And you're just trying to get as much, you know, of the internal resources off of them so they can just experience the experience. So, so the answer is yes, though. You can, you can forget a lot because sometimes there's a lot of things that happen.

[33:53] So I'm going to read some statements and now you can tell me if these are true or false. So in a session, you are tripping and out of control. False. Okay. So tell me why that's false. Well, you're kind of tripping in some ways or what, what awards do people use? I don't think they use tripping anymore. I think like, you know, the, the, uh, the, the word tripping is usually the

[34:16] connotation of like the sixties, right? So I took some LSD and I'm tripping out, man. That's not what this is on the flip side. There, you are in a psychedelic process where you could call it a trip, right? Because there's visions and things that can come to you. So it's a yes and no, it's both this duality, but, um, and then, you know, am I out of control?

[34:37] The answer is really no. I mean, there's a point where, uh, especially in a deeper journey where you don't really, you don't feel your body, you dissociate out of that. Um, but the whole point of all this is that you're safe in a controlled environment. So to me, if you took it and went outside and tripped out, yeah, then you're tripping it out of control here. You're in a guided

[34:59] psychedelic journey. So, okay. Uh, ketamine is a party drug, not real medicine. Mm. Good one. Um, one it's actually real medicine for sure. Um, and it, you know, again, like other drugs that can be misused, but that's not again, the point of the clinic here at all. So, right. Okay. Uh, ketamine is addictive.

[35:20] So we all, I mean, I'd never watched, I shouldn't, some people might not like me, but I never really watched friends very much, but we all know Matthew Perry, right? So was he addicted? Like, is it addictive? Or was that just his addictions? Who knows? I mean, you, so is it addictive? That's what the general answer is in, my view, and I think a lot of other views, you can be addicted to anything,

[35:41] right? Food, work, coffee, drugs, alcohol. Um, so there are indications of people that have ketamine addiction or that's there. What I would say more than addiction, ketamine is that's their coping mechanism. Okay. So, so, but I don't want to skirt the issue. I mean, that can be, that can be an issue, but again here, ketamine for what we're doing,

[36:04] like this is not something you want to just recreationally do all the time. Like it's, it can be intense. And then also it's the process of like, I'm trying to get in deep psychologically and work on things. So, but we also manage that. I mean, it's through my medical team. You're not just given a bunch of ketamine and like, Hey, go have a party. That's, that's not, you know, what happens here. It's very controlled. We, we, you know,

[36:25] limit access to it and stuff like that. So, all right. An intense session means something went wrong. You hear about bad trips, right? So somebody has a really bad experience. Does that mean something went wrong? It's actually really good. Um, so, so again, you know, you're framing it in the sixties of like, go, I had a bad trip and blah, you know, I saw this stuff. If we have what we call them as a tough journey,

[36:47] right? Like it can be solved to give you an example. And one of mine, right? It was very intense, but the whole point was like, that was me trying to say to myself, I've processed through lots and lots of pain and loss in my life of literal people. That was my hell. So I could go to hell and

[37:10] look at hell and be like, Hey, I know I can make it through here. So you can look at that and say, well, that was really intense. And that was bad. And actually, no, it was really good. It's a very, you know, again, self love, like I am control of my own life, my own destiny. So it's a very empowering thing too. So actually we welcome, part of the thing with this is like, we have to stay curious and that's part of the preparation for this is let

[37:32] whatever wants to come, come try not to control it. Just let whatever comes. And if it happens to be a little bit more difficult or a harder journey, that's good. Let's process through that because we can start to disengage from old and reengage with new, I always say like, do you know who Tom weights is the singer? Yeah. Yeah. I always say his voice sounds like somebody that I would want to take to hell and back with cause I feel like he could help me make it.

[37:54] All right. Um, last questions here, like cause I see these ads for micro dosing gummies and things on Facebook and stuff all the time, right? I'm like, I don't know if that's even legal. Maybe it is, but can you just buy psilocybin and do it at home and have the same experience? Um, psilocybin again, like here in South Dakota, isn't legal. So I would say,

[38:17] you can do whatever you want, but it's not legal. Um, ketamine you can actually buy in, um, in smaller doses. So, you know, I was talking about like surgical dose up here, psychedelic doses here. And then there is another subset of ketamine where they, you could, let's call it micro dosing for the sake of argument, but there's a, there's a, uh, type of ketamine called Spravato, which is a nasal spray. Okay.

[38:39] And then they actually make smaller ketamine tablets. So people will do micro dosing of, of ketamine. And that's typically for symptomatic management of anxiety and depression. Okay. So you sort of have these three, this continuum, right? It's like very low dose is for symptomatic treatment. Psychedelic doses for like deep internal processing and then, you know,

[39:01] knock you out for surgery is way over here. And then the partying is off over here somewhere. We don't want to talk about that. You brought it up a few times. I know. I'm like, what? I mean, I went to college. Maybe we need to talk after this. Well, I do remember there was a period of the early 2000s that it was like

[39:22] special K I kept hearing it was special K everywhere, right? Like the party scene, what was the thing? And I don't know if kids still do this or not. I'm sure there's some subset somewhere. So that's probably why I keep going back to it. Um, I'm curious now, uh, if people want to get ahold of you, um, where do they find you? How do they find your clinic or how do they reach out and get some more information? Yeah, I think through the

[39:43] website is probably the best way. Okay. So it's Metanoia JC for Metanoia journey consulting Metanoia, JC.com. And you spell Metanoia has got a wild spelling. Yeah. Well, we'll put a link on there, right? We'll put a link in the show notes. If you're on YouTube, watching this on YouTube, go ahead and click on the description. We'll put a link to Jerry's website there. Um, otherwise you can find him on the

[40:06] internet or is there other ways to get in touch with you? Do you have an email? I do. We'll put your email on this. Yeah. My email will be on there too. Yep. Email email on the internet and the website would be the best way. So. All right. Well, thank you so much. I mean, this is such a, it's an area of definitely emerging. Um, I would call it probably an emerging treatment modality, right? That maybe not a lot of people know about.

[40:28] And so thank you so much for helping just sharing a little bit more and helping demystify and you know, breaking some of those myths that are out there that may be, maybe there's probably a lot of people that could be helped by this if they just knew what it was new, the safety profile of, of the products that you're working with and more about the journey. So thank you so much for talking us through it today. Thank you, Melissa. I really appreciate it.

[40:49] Absolutely. So if you get, if you want to connect with Jerry, we'll have him in the notes below. We'll make sure to link to his website and to his email. And if you want to learn more about ketamine and ketamine therapy, make sure to connect with Jerry cook here in Sioux falls. Hey, that's our show. If someone came to mind while you were listening to this, if you thought, Hey, my sister needs to hear this, or I should send this to my mom or my

[41:12] buddy would get a lot out of this, please share it with them. Just hit the share button and send it their way. You never know what one conversation, one episode or one piece of information can do for someone who's been looking for answers. And if you haven't subscribed yet, please do it now. It takes two seconds. It's free. And it means you won't miss an episode. We've got incredible stuff coming up and I don't want you to miss any of it. And if you're a health or wellness

[41:34] provider and you want to be on the show, we'd love to hear from you. There's a link in the show notes to get in touch. We're always looking for people doing interesting work who want to share what they know. And one last thing, I get asked all the time about the products and brands I actually use. So I put together a list of sponsors and favorite products that have worked for me and my family. If you're curious, that link is in the show notes too. Thank you for being here. And I really

[41:56] mean that I'm a list of Goodwin. The line is open. See you next time.