The Role of Positive Emotions in Trauma Recovery (and how Ketamine can help)
When clients consider trauma treatment, they often assume that they will need to confront deeply hurtful experiences in order to find healing. The medicine used in ketamine assisted psychotherapy (KAP) is often viewed as a tool for deepening insight and revisiting old wounds in a way that feels safe and manageable. Yet, ketamine can also open the door to deep calmness, clarity, and even joy—experiences that some individuals find surprising or even confusing. Sometimes these positive experiences lead clients to wonder: if there’s no pain, am I really doing the work? In today’s blog post, I explore how ketamine can assist in generating powerful positive emotional states and how such states can aid in trauma processing and lead to lasting transformation.
Ketamine allows for an expanded experience of consciousness. Sometimes this means glimpsing behind defense structures at unprocessed traumatic material, but other times it can mean accessing a sense of calm and clarity that may be unfamiliar to individuals. In overwhelming situations where escape isn’t possible, the nervous system may enter a ‘freeze’ state of protection. This is our body’s attempt to cope with the traumatic situation- by muting sensory input from both our inner and external world. In the short run, this defense helps us withstand the trauma. However, when employed repeatedly or for an extended period of time, this disconnection from sensation often leads to chronic problems such as feeling detached from one’s body, having difficulty accessing emotions, or having low awareness of basic needs such as hunger or thirst.
It’s ironic that a “dissociative” drug can actually help trauma survivors feel more safe in their bodies, but over and over again that’s what we see. Ketamine can allow for a sense of bodily relaxation and connection that is often foreign to survivors. This experience can help individuals reorient to the body as a resource for recovery rather than a hindrance. With a reduced fear of embodiment, KAP supports clients in learning to trust their internal and external cues again, empowering them to meet their needs and desires. Reconnecting to the body’s sensory wisdom isn’t just useful- it’s foundational in healing from trauma.
Just as trauma dissociates us from our bodies, it also severs our sense of belonging. When we have gone through something truly awful, when nothing or no one could stop the pain, the resulting sense of aloneness can feel unbearable. Trauma survivors often distrust others and their sense of safety in the world, never mind finding a sense of camaraderie or belonging. Yet, in a KAP session, one may suddenly know—not just intellectually, but viscerally—that they are not alone, that they are an integral part of life itself. It’s hard to understate the power of such a deep inner-knowing. I am connected to all, all is connected to me. Sometimes, the very notion of “me” dissolves entirely, leaving only an indescribable sense of unity. This felt sense of connection—whether to others, nature, or something greater—can be a powerful antidote to the isolation trauma creates. It can help us take steps towards reengaging with our communities, where genuine healing occurs.
In addition to calmness, ketamine can help users access states of clarity or joy. Many living with long-term mental health conditions become so mired in their suffering that they’ve forgotten what it feels like to be clear-headed, they don’t remember the last time they’ve experienced anything close to elation. Being able to give someone a window into the positive emotions inherent in life helps in (at least) a couple of ways. First, gaining an embodied sense of awe or happiness shows individuals that such emotions are possible to experience. While most treatments aim to engender hope by providing relief from symptoms, there is no better way to help one believe that things can be different than by having them experience it first hand. I’ve had more than one client brought to tears when they experience a grounded joyfulness that they didn’t even know was possible.
Secondly, with appropriate therapeutic support and intervention, these experiences of hope and elation can become touchstone memories— resources that clients can return to to help them get through difficult times. Expanses of consciousness naturally return to states of relative contraction. Part of effective KAP treatment involves helping clients anticipate and navigate this undulation— of things feeling better, then worse, and then better again. The ketamine experience can highlight this natural cycle of emotions, teaching clients how to better ride the waves of their mental states with the awareness that no one state lasts forever.
While we cannot guarantee that any or all of the emotional experiences described in this post will be present in a given KAP session, as providers, we can recognize them and nourish them as an important part of trauma recovery. We can support clients who question whether they’re doing the therapy “right” if they aren’t experiencing pain, by reframing the goal of trauma therapy: to live well. Healing isn’t just about revisiting pain—it’s about rediscovering the full spectrum of what it means to be alive. If ketamine can help stuck clients access embodiment without fear, a sense of connection, and hope for a better future, that sounds like good treatment to me.
Interested in learning more? Reach out today for a free 15-minute phone consultation.
