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How a Ketamine Integration Guide can help

My Purpose as a Ketamine Integration Guide

My purpose as a ketamine integration guide is to focus on current actions you can take in breaking unproductive mental habits and help you set meaningful intentions. When you are looking for adjustments in thinking to facilitate healthy progression then it makes sense to go with a guide. If things come up during ketamine that require more awareness of past events and the way that they influence your actions then I would refer you to a qualified therapist to work through those issues.


Shifting perspective

Integration guides are by your side during the infusion to offer an alternative perspective to assist you in shifting the way you interpret the world around you. Helping to bring your emotions more in line with your reality. Helping side step predictive errors, i.e. “they will just shut me down so I shouldn’t speak up.” Or “they didn’t do the dishes. That proves they don’t love me.”  People often get stuck in their own stories. I can help you turn the page.

Ketamine Guide Jamie Stirland

Differences between a therapist and an integration guide

One of the biggest differences between a therapist and an integration guide is that an integration guide doesn’t focus on your past in order to see detrimental habits.  As a guide,  I focus on your individual goals and go from there. I’m there to give your subconscious the option of dealing with the emotion or calming the mind and teaching it a new state of being, one where you are allowed to feel your emotions but not let them define you.


The first guided session is complimentary to all new ketamine infusion patients of Restorative Health to help new patients feel comfortable in their treatment. The first time I’ll mostly just keep you calm and help you acclimate to the experience. Each treatment after that there is an additional fee.


I’m there to remind you of your goals and help redirect your mind to a calm space. This helps train your subconscious for self-soothing during high stress or “triggering” moments. This leads to healthy processing which then allows you to move forward from the incident instead of feeling stuck.


How do patients respond to ketamine?

Patient’s response to ketamine treatments varies from person to person and session to session. There is a standard physiological response as the medicine enters their system and certain nerve receptors are affected. It can lead to a feeling of floating. The visual and audio response is similar to lucid dreaming but with less focus.


Each person comes with different goals and different aspects of life that are important to them. Choosing a guide or a therapist for ketamine treatments is up to the patient. I find that after the first treatment patients have a better understanding of how ketamine affects them. This will give them a better idea of what they can expect to accomplish while in treatment and align that with their personal goals. Also if the guide notices any patterns that need to be discussed in a more lucid manner they will recommend speaking with someone to evaluate properly and come up with a personal plan.

I have always been the kind of person that people could tell anything to and I wouldn’t blink. For those that have had traumatic experiences or do not adhere to the social norm, this is very important. I embrace the concept that emotions are physiological. They happen to us regardless. How we respond to them is who we are. I focus on combating our inner dialogue to avoid giving power to our emotions over our lives while still fully embracing, experiencing, and processing our emotions. Allowing individuals to have more calm and control. This comes from a natural ability to simplify certain behaviors and thoughts so we can effectively rewrite our own inner narrative.  


“Normal is an illusion. What is normal to the spider is chaos to the fly.” - Morticia Addams. 


Accepting that we create our view of the world around us helps us move away from comparing ourselves to people around us and being authentically ourselves.  

Jamie Stirland Headshot

Jan 18, 2020 by Jamie Stirland