Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy
Coming Soon - Autumn 2026
Ireland's first integrated ketamine, KAP and TMS programme.
What is Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy?
Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, often shortened to KAP, combines the carefully measured use of ketamine, a long-established medicine, with skilled psychotherapy in a safe clinical setting. It sits within the broader and rapidly developing field of psychedelic-assisted therapy: an emerging area of mental health care in which medicines that produce non-ordinary states of consciousness are used to support and deepen the work of psychotherapy.
KAP is not a standalone treatment. It is one part of a structured therapeutic process, and the evidence, while substantive in certain areas, is still developing. What it offers carefully selected individuals is a different mechanism of action and a different kind of therapeutic opportunity: one that, in our experience and in the wider clinical literature, can produce meaningful change for people who have not found that change through conventional treatments.
The Science: A Window of Neuroplasticity
Ketamine works differently from conventional antidepressants. Where SSRIs and SNRIs act on the serotonin system, ketamine acts primarily on the brain’s glutamate neurotransmitter system through the NMDA receptor. This is a different neurobiological mechanism, and it helps explain why ketamine can produce rapid and clinically meaningful effects, sometimes within hours, in people who have not responded to standard medications.
What is most relevant therapeutically, though, is what happens next.
Following administration, the brain enters a transient state of enhanced neuroplasticity. This is a temporary window in which neural connectivity becomes more flexible, more responsive, and more open to forming new patterns. Long-held thoughts loosen their grip. Rigid emotional responses soften. The mind becomes, briefly, more capable of change.
It is within this window of neuroplasticity that the real therapeutic work takes place.
Ketamine is a powerful tool. Used carefully and within the right framework, it can support meaningful and lasting change. Used in isolation, as an infusion without a structured therapeutic framework around it, its benefits tend to fade quickly. The medicine creates the conditions for change. It is psychotherapy, delivered as ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, supported by neuromodulation through TMS, that uses those conditions to make change last.
This is the foundation of how we work.
An Integrated Programme
Ketamine on its own is a short-term intervention. Without a therapeutic framework around it, the symptom relief it can produce, while sometimes striking, tends not to last. That is why our programme is built around the medicine, not delivered through it alone.
The programme draws on three integrated modalities, each playing a distinct role in supporting lasting change.
Ketamine. The medicine is delivered either intramuscularly or intravenously, with the route chosen on a per-patient basis following full clinical assessment. Each session takes place in a calm, professionally staffed clinical environment, with a consultant present for oversight and continuous physiological monitoring throughout.
Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP). Each ketamine session is paired with skilled psychotherapeutic support, before, during, and after the medicine session. This is where the neuroplastic window described above is actually put to use. The therapist’s role is not to direct the experience but to help you prepare for it, hold space during it, and make sense of the insights that emerge from it afterwards.
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). Alongside the ketamine and the psychotherapy, we incorporate TMS, a well-established, non-invasive neuromodulation treatment that uses targeted magnetic pulses to stimulate the mood-regulating regions of the brain. Used in parallel with ketamine and KAP, TMS supports the brain’s adaptation to the new patterns the therapeutic work is creating.
The number of sessions, route of administration, and pacing of TMS are tailored to you based on your initial assessments. There is no single fixed package because no two presentations are alike. What is consistent is the pathway’s structure and the depth of clinical and therapeutic support around you at every stage.
This is why we describe this as a programme, not an infusion service.
Conditions We Treat
Our programme is currently offered for adults living with the following conditions, particularly where standard treatments have not provided sufficient relief.
Treatment-resistant depression. This is the indication for which the evidence base is strongest. For people who have not responded to two or more antidepressants, or who have not achieved lasting benefit from psychological therapy, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy can produce clinically meaningful reductions in depressive symptoms, often with a speed of onset that conventional antidepressants cannot match.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex PTSD. The evidence for ketamine in PTSD is substantive and growing, particularly for presentations that are severe, chronic, or have not responded to trauma-focused psychological therapies. Combined with skilled psychotherapeutic support, ketamine may reduce hyperarousal, increase psychological flexibility, and allow engagement with material that has previously felt inaccessible.
Anxiety disorders. Including generalised anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and anxiety presentations with strong links to depression or trauma. The evidence base here is smaller than for depression, but is expanding, particularly when ketamine is integrated with skilled psychotherapy rather than delivered in isolation.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). There is emerging evidence that ketamine-assisted psychotherapy can support symptom reduction in OCD, particularly in severe or treatment-resistant presentations. We assess suitability on an individual basis at the point of consultation.
Substance use and dependence. There is a meaningful and growing body of research into the use of ketamine in substance use disorders, particularly alcohol use disorder, with promising outcomes when ketamine is embedded within a structured psychotherapeutic programme. Our integrated approach, combining ketamine, KAP, and TMS, is well-suited to this kind of work because behavioural and psychological change is built into the programme’s structure rather than left to chance afterwards.
Chronic pain. Ketamine has a long-established role in pain medicine, where it has been used safely as an anaesthetic for decades. In the context of chronic pain, particularly conditions involving central sensitisation such as fibromyalgia, complex regional pain syndrome, and persistent neuropathic pain, ketamine can produce meaningful reductions in pain intensity. This is offered following careful assessment in collaboration with your other treating clinicians.
We assess suitability for each of these conditions on an individual basis, and the programme’s scope will continue to expand as the evidence base develops. If your concern is not listed above, it does not mean KAP won’t be available to you. Please contact the clinic to discuss your individual needs.
Is This Treatment Right for You?
The programme is designed for adults who have not achieved adequate outcomes through standard treatment pathways and who are seeking a clinically supported alternative. It is not a first-line intervention, and careful assessment sits at the heart of how we work.
Three distinct evaluations sit at the start of the programme.
A medical evaluation is conducted by our consultant anaesthesiologist, focused on physical health, cardiovascular function, and any other factors that could affect the safety of administering ketamine.
A psychiatric evaluation is conducted by our consultant psychiatrist, focused on diagnosis, mental health history, current medications, and your suitability for the programme from a psychiatric perspective.
A psychological evaluation is conducted by your KAP-trained therapist, focused on therapeutic readiness, your goals for treatment, and your capacity to engage with the psychotherapeutic component of the programme.
These three layers of assessment are deliberate. Each clinician brings a different lens to the question of whether the programme is appropriate for you, and we make decisions collaboratively, with you, before any treatment is offered. The final clinical determination of suitability is made by our KAP-trained lead, Dr. Tara Logan Buckley, who integrates the input of all three evaluations into a single decision.
It is also important to be honest from the outset. Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy is not suitable for everyone, and even for individuals who are appropriate candidates following assessment, it does not work for everyone. Response varies, and we cannot guarantee outcomes. What we can offer is rigorous screening, a structured pathway, skilled clinical and therapeutic support, and an honest conversation about what is realistic in your specific circumstances.
There are certain medical and psychiatric factors that warrant especially careful assessment, including but not limited to a personal or family history of psychosis, certain cardiovascular conditions, other medical conditions and pregnancy. We do not apply blanket exclusions in most cases. Each presentation is considered individually, weighing potential benefits against risks, and our clinicians will be open with you if we feel the programme is not appropriate, or not appropriate at this time.
How the Programme Unfolds
What to Expect on the Day of a Session
For most people considering ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, the unknown is the most anxiety-inducing part. We want to remove as much of that uncertainty as possible.
You will arrive at our Galway clinic at the time arranged in advance. Please make sure you have eaten lightly that morning (your team will give you specific instructions in your preparation sessions) and that you have arranged for someone to collect you, as you will not be able to drive yourself home.
When you arrive, you will be welcomed into the clinic and shown into a quiet preparation area. A clinician will conduct routine pre-session observations, including blood pressure, heart rate, and a brief clinical check-in to confirm that it is safe to proceed.
You will then be brought into the therapy room. The space is purposefully calm: low lighting, comfortable seating, blankets, and an eye mask if you would like one. Most people choose to lie down. A curated soundtrack plays throughout the session, designed to support and accompany the experience.
Your KAP therapist will be present throughout. The medicine is administered by the medical team, either intramuscularly or intravenously, as set out in your treatment plan. Your physiological observations are continuously monitored throughout the session. You will not be alone at any point.
The acute effects of ketamine typically last around an hour. People describe the experience differently. Some report a softening of the sense of self, a slowing or fluidity of time, vivid internal imagery, or unexpected emotional responses. Others report a quieter, more reflective state. There is no single right way to experience the session.
Like all medicines, ketamine has side effects. At the sub-anaesthetic doses used in this programme, these are generally short-lived and well-tolerated. The most common are dissociation, mild transient changes in blood pressure and heart rate, nausea, dizziness, and occasional headache. All of these typically resolve within around an hour of the session ending. Your physiological observations are continuously monitored, and the medical team is on hand to manage any issues that arise. The full risk and side-effect profile is discussed with you in detail during your assessment and again before each individual session.
Once the medicine’s acute effects have resolved, you will rest in a recovery space. Your therapist will check in with you, and you can speak with them as much or as little as you wish. Refreshments are available, and when you feel steady and ready, we will coordinate with the person who will collect you.
A clinician will check in with you by phone the following day if you do not have an integration session scheduled.
A Note on Ketamine as a Psychedelic Medicine
A question many people considering this treatment have, sometimes openly, sometimes not, is whether ketamine is a psychedelic.
Technically, ketamine is classified as a dissociative anaesthetic. It is not chemically related to the classical psychedelics such as psilocybin and LSD, which act on serotonin receptors in the brain. Ketamine works through a different pathway, blocking NMDA receptors and triggering a surge in glutamate activity, which is what produces its distinctive effects.
In practice, however, the experience of ketamine in a therapeutic setting has a great deal in common with the psychedelic experience as it is broadly understood. People often report a softening of the usual boundaries of self, altered perceptions of time and space, vivid internal imagery, a sense of meaning or connection, and moments that resist easy description. The experience is generally gentler and more dream-like than classical psychedelics, and it is often easier to integrate.
There is a deeper reason that ketamine sits comfortably in the psychedelic medicine conversation. Like other psychedelics, it appears to promote neuroplasticity, the temporary opening of the brain to new patterns and new ways of processing experience. That window is not permanent, but with skilled therapeutic support, it can be used to accomplish work that might otherwise be inaccessible through other routes.
Your Care Team
Your Care Team
Your care is delivered by a multidisciplinary team with specific expertise in each component of the programme.
Dr. Ivan Murray, Consultant Psychiatrist, leads the psychiatric assessment and clinical oversight of the prescribing component of the programme.
Dr. Tara Logan Buckley, Consultant Clinical Psychologist and CPAT, leads the psychotherapeutic and KAP-specific components of the programme. She is trained specifically in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, having completed her training at the Integrative Psychiatric Institute (IPI) in Colorado, United States. She is among a small number of clinicians trained in psychedelic-assisted therapy and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy in Ireland, and is committed to the safe and ethical development of this emerging field in Ireland.
Dr. Niall Cribben, Consultant Anaesthetist, leads medical safety throughout the programme, including the comprehensive medical evaluation prior to any treatment being offered, and the safe administration and monitoring of ketamine itself.
Together, the team draws on consultant-level expertise across psychiatry, anaesthesiology, and KAP-specialist psychotherapy. This three-discipline structure is a first and only in Ireland for a programme of this kind.
Begin Your Enquiry
If you are considering ketamine-assisted psychotherapy as a possible next step in your mental health care, the first move is a conversation. We welcome direct enquiries. There is no need for a GP referral, although we may request your relevant clinical records as part of the assessment process.
Get in touch with our clinical team, and we will guide you through what happens next.
Your Care Team
Your care is delivered by a multidisciplinary team with specific expertise in each component of the programme.
Dr. Ivan Murray, Consultant Psychiatrist, leads the psychiatric assessment and clinical oversight of the prescribing component of the programme.
Dr. Tara Logan Buckley, Consultant Clinical Psychologist and CPAT, leads the psychotherapeutic and KAP-specific components of the programme. She is trained specifically in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, having completed her training at the Integrative Psychiatric Institute (IPI) in Colorado, United States. She is among a small number of clinicians trained in psychedelic-assisted therapy and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy in Ireland, and is committed to the safe and ethical development of this emerging field in Ireland.
Dr. Niall Cribben, Consultant Anaesthetist, leads medical safety throughout the programme, including the comprehensive medical evaluation prior to any treatment being offered, and the safe administration and monitoring of ketamine itself.
Together, the team draws on consultant-level expertise across psychiatry, anaesthesiology, and KAP-specialist psychotherapy. This three-discipline structure is a first and only in Ireland for a programme of this kind.
Begin Your Enquiry
If you are considering ketamine-assisted psychotherapy as a possible next step in your mental health care, the first move is a conversation. We welcome direct enquiries. There is no need for a GP referral, although we may request your relevant clinical records as part of the assessment process.
Get in touch with our clinical team, and we will guide you through what happens next.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is ketamine-assisted psychotherapy suitable for everyone?
Do I need a GP referral?
Will my GP be informed?
Will I need to stop or change my current medications?
What are the side effects of ketamine?
Will I be conscious during the session?
Is there a risk of dependence with ketamine?
Is the treatment confidential?
What happens if the programme doesn't work for me?
Is the programme covered by health insurance?
Clinical Governance and Regulatory Framework
Neuromed Clinic operates within Ireland’s clinical governance framework for private medical practice. All our clinicians are registered with the relevant Irish professional bodies and hold the qualifications, training, and indemnity required for the services they provide. The programme is delivered in accordance with current Irish medical and professional standards for the prescription, administration, and monitoring of ketamine in a clinical setting, and it is subject to ongoing internal clinical governance, audit, and review.
