Trauma-driven dissociation is usually adefensive disconnection from experience because experience has becomeintolerable. Ketamine-induced dissociation is a temporary pharmacologicloosening of the brain's ordinary integration of self, body, perception,memory, and salience.
Ketamine through its neuropharmacologicalmechanisms create capacity and re-connection/integration ofcortical-subcortical circuits that are usually offline in PTSD and Trauma.Allowing integration and flow of communication potentially allows forintegration of experiences that otherwise are difficult to integrate
Inwell-held relational KAP, that loosening may allow a person who chronicallydisconnects from experience to encounter previously intolerable experiencewhile remaining connected enough to another human being, the present moment,and an observing self.
When a traumatizedperson dissociates, the nervous system may be saying: “I cannot remain here andexperience this.” Ketamine can also create distance from ordinary experience,but through a different biological pathway. In a carefully held therapeutic relationship,a person may sometimes discover: “I can be far enough away from this experiencenot to be consumed by it, yet close enough to encounter it. I can remainconnected to my body, another human being, and the knowledge that I am herenow.”
If this occurs during a period of increased neural flexibility, the clinicallyimportant possibility is not simply remembering differently, but learning adifferent way of being with the memory and the felt sense of the experience.
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