Ketamine in Psychotherapy: Opportunities to Explore by Will Van Derveer, MD

This course explores how integrative psychiatry approaches common conditions such as treatment-resistant depression and frames depression as a multifactorial condition linked to missing resources for health. It presents the default mode network as a key concept for understanding habitual thought patterns, negativity bias, and the limits of talk therapy alone in shifting deeper patterns. The session also reviews how meditation research relates to default mode network activity and how ketamine has been studied for its effects on connectivity involving the insula and the default mode network. The discussion emphasizes that ketamine may create an opportunity for change, but is not presented as a standalone root-cause solution. The content is suited to learners interested in psychotherapy, integrative psychiatry, and the neurobiology of depression. Practical takeaways include supporting broader recovery through journaling, exercise, diet changes, and relationship work alongside clinical treatment.