Safety & Risks

Screening is a clinical process, not a pass-or-fail formality. The team considers your goals, current stability, mental-health and medical history, medications and supplements, substance use, prior experiences with ketamine or anesthesia, and the support available before and after a session.

Areas requiring particular attention may include cardiovascular concerns or uncontrolled high blood pressure, active psychosis or untreated mania, pregnancy or breastfeeding, substance-misuse risk, and medication interactions. This is not a complete list. The prescriber may recommend further evaluation, stabilization, medical follow-up, a different treatment, or a higher level of care.

Ketamine can affect awareness, perception, mood, coordination, judgment, blood pressure, and heart rate. Temporary effects may include altered perception or sense of time, dissociation, dream-like imagery or hallucinations, unusual thoughts, confusion, anxiety, fear, agitation, sadness, euphoria, dizziness, drowsiness, impaired balance or coordination, nausea, vomiting, numbness, increased saliva, blurred or double vision, involuntary eye movement, headache, and increased blood pressure or heart rate. IM administration may cause discomfort at the injection site.

Less common but potentially serious reactions include a marked change in blood pressure or heart rhythm, breathing difficulty, severe agitation or confusion, allergic reaction, loss of consciousness, or another response requiring urgent care. Ketamine also has misuse, abuse, tolerance, and dependence potential. Repeated or high exposure has been associated with bladder or urinary symptoms, liver or biliary injury, and problems with memory or concentration.

An experience may feel peaceful, meaningful, confusing, frightening, or emotionally intense. Difficult memories, grief, fear, shame, or unexpected material may surface. Insight during a session may later feel uncertain or may not lead to lasting change. Symptoms can persist, return, or worsen, and some people do not benefit.

Preparation and integration support safety and meaning-making, but they cannot eliminate uncertainty. Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy is not a cure and does not replace the ongoing care, relationships, habits, and supports recovery may require.

Experiential sessions take place onsite with trained clinical staff. The medical provider determines eligibility, prescribing, route, dose, and medication decisions. The therapy team supports preparation, the session, and integration.

The process includes medical and psychological review, informed consent, pre-session instructions, observation and monitoring appropriate to the route and individual risk, a plan for distress or an adverse reaction, recovery assessment before departure, and transportation and post-session support planning. Monitoring reduces risk. It does not make ketamine risk-free.

You may not drive yourself home after an experiential session. Arrange for a responsible adult to provide transportation and follow the team’s instructions about accompaniment and post-session support.

Do not drive, operate machinery, make high-stakes decisions, use alcohol or non-prescribed substances, or engage in hazardous activity for at least six hours after a session, until the effects have fully subsided, and until your clinician’s instructions allow it. Follow a longer or route-specific restriction if your clinician gives one.

LuminaThera clinicians and staff follow professional and legal confidentiality requirements. Every participant is also asked to protect what others share. The practice cannot guarantee that another participant will keep information confidential.

The team discusses this limit before group work begins and asks each participant to make a clear confidentiality commitment. You control how much personal information you share, within the needs of safe participation.

LuminaThera does not provide crisis or emergency services, and website messages and forms are not monitored for urgent needs. In immediate danger or a medical emergency, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency department. In suicidal crisis or emotional distress in the United States, call or text 988.

After a session, seek urgent help for severe or increasing distress, loss of sleep, confusion, unusual beliefs, inability to function, breathing difficulty, loss of consciousness, or thoughts of harming yourself or someone else.