Ketamine is a prescription-only medicine that may be prescribed off-label by our medical team following a comprehensive assessment to assist in the psychotherapy.
Ketamine is a prescription-only medicine that may be prescribed off-label by our medical team following a comprehensive assessment to assist in the psychotherapy.
LEADING UK PSYCHEDELIC THERAPY CLINIC
A structured programme for people living with depression or treatment-resistant depression, combining medically supervised ketamine treatment with the psychotherapy needed to help create real change in how you feel and live.
ADVANCED TREATMENT
Medically supervised ketamine treatment in a safe, clinical setting..
SPECIALIST PSYCHOTHERAPY
Evidence-based psychotherapy tailored to you and your goals.
SUPPORT THROUGHOUT
Compassionate care and ongoing support at every stage.
SCROLL TO EXPLORE
This page is an educational resource about ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for depression. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice. KAP is not suitable for everyone — a full medical and psychological assessment is required before any treatment is considered. Results vary between individuals and cannot be guaranteed.
UNDERSTANDING DEPRESSION & TREATMENT-RESISTANT DEPRESSION
If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’ve already tried more than one antidepressant, sat through months of therapy, and are still waking up under the same weight. You’ve done the work. You’ve pushed yourself harder than most people around you realise.
That experience — of doing everything right and still not feeling better — is exhausting. And it can leave people believing the problem is them. It isn’t.
In many cases, that isn’t a personal failure. It is a recognised clinical pattern. When depression does not improve sufficiently despite appropriate treatment — including two or more antidepressants given at an adequate dose for an adequate length of time — this is often described as treatment-resistant depression, or TRD.
TRD does not mean your depression is untreatable. It means the treatments you have tried so far have not been enough.
HOW KETAMINE-ASSISTED PSYCHOTHERAPY HELPS
Conventional antidepressants help many people, but not everyone responds sufficiently. For some people living with treatment-resistant depression, several medications and years of therapy still do not bring the relief they need. That does not mean you have failed treatment. It may mean you need a different kind of treatment – one designed for depression that has not responded to the usual approaches.
Ketamine acts primarily through the brain’s glutamate system and can produce changes on a much faster timescale than conventional antidepressants. It can also temporarily increase neuroplasticity — the brain’s capacity to adapt, form new connections and respond to new learning. When this period is combined with skilled psychotherapy, long-established thoughts, emotions and patterns may become easier to approach differently.
The medicine opens the door.
The psychotherapy helps you walk through it.
RAPID ONSET
Many people notice a meaningful shift in mood within hours of their first session. For someone who has been severely depressed for years, this speed of response can itself be significant.
NEUROPLASTICITY
Ketamine increases the brain’s capacity to form new neural connections. Combined with psychotherapy, this temporary window allows deeply embedded patterns of thought and feeling to begin changing in ways that talking therapy alone often cannot.
A DIFFERENT OPTION
KAP is not a first-line treatment. It is specifically suited to people for whom conventional antidepressants and therapy haven’t been enough — which is exactly who we work with at The Emerge Clinic.
Individual responses to treatment vary. Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy is not suitable for everyone and is only offered following comprehensive medical and psychotherapeutic assessment. Results cannot be guaranteed.
THE SCIENCE
Ketamine’s effects on depression aren’t simply chemical — they’re neurological, structural, and psychological. Understanding what’s actually happening helps explain both why conventional antidepressants often fall short, and why ketamine-assisted psychotherapy can reach places they cannot.
Ketamine creates a period in which established patterns may become less fixed.
Psychotherapy helps you use that opening.
01
The default mode network is active when the mind turns inward, reflecting on the self and revisiting the past. In depression, it can become caught in repetitive loops of self-criticism and negative thought. Ketamine may temporarily disrupt this rigid activity, giving you some distance from the thoughts that usually feel impossible to escape.
02
Glutamate is the brain’s main excitatory chemical messenger and plays an important role in learning, memory and communication between brain cells. Ketamine blocks certain NMDA receptors, setting off a wider glutamate response that strengthens signalling through other receptors. This can help damaged or weakened connections begin functioning more effectively and may explain ketamine’s rapid antidepressant effects.
03
BDNF is a protein that helps brain cells survive, grow and form stronger connections. Chronic stress and depression are associated with reduced synaptic health in areas involved in mood and thinking. Ketamine can rapidly increase BDNF-related activity, supporting the repair and formation of connections and making the brain more receptive to new learning.
04
These neurological changes can create a temporary period of greater flexibility, when familiar thoughts and emotional responses may feel less fixed. Psychotherapy uses that opening to explore what emerged, reconsider established beliefs and practise different ways of responding. The medicine creates the opportunity; the therapeutic work helps turn that opportunity into changes you can carry into daily life.
Ketamine is not licensed in the UK for the treatment of depression. Its use in this context is off-label and only considered following comprehensive medical and psychotherapeutic assessment.
THE EVIDENCE BASE
A meta-analysis examining depression treatment outcomes across multiple clinical studies found that ketamine-assisted psychotherapy demonstrated a 70% effectiveness rate — compared to 36% for single antidepressants, 45% for multiple antidepressants, and 60% for electroconvulsive therapy. These figures represent meaningful clinical response, not cure rates, and individual outcomes will vary.
It is important to be clear about what this data means and what it doesn’t. These are population-level findings from research settings. They do not guarantee any individual outcome. KAP works well for many people — but not everyone responds, and some people require more sessions than the standard programme to achieve meaningful change.
What this data does tell us is that for people who have not responded to conventional antidepressants — for whom that 36–45% effectiveness rate represents repeated failure — ketamine-assisted psychotherapy offers a genuinely different and meaningfully better prospect. That is why we offer it, and that is who it is designed for.
Approximate response rates reported across clinical studies
Treatment
Response rate
What that means
Single Antidepressant
36%
Many people improve, but a substantial number do not
Multiple Antidepressants
45%
Repeated medication trials may offer only modest gains
Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)
60%
Often effective, but more intensive and not right for everyone
Ketamine
70%
Higher response rates in treatment-resistant depression studies
These figures reflect approximate response rates reported in clinical populations. Individual outcomes vary.
NEJM 2019
A single ketamine infusion combined with an oral antidepressant produced faster and greater reductions in depressive symptoms compared to antidepressant plus placebo in adults with treatment-resistant depression.
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY
Multiple ketamine infusions demonstrated sustained antidepressant effects beyond the acute dosing period, with response rates significantly exceeding those of conventional pharmacotherapy in treatment-resistant populations.
JOURNAL OF PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY
Ketamine’s rapid antidepressant effects are associated with restoration of synaptic connectivity in prefrontal circuits, providing a neurobiological basis for the psychotherapy window observed in clinical KAP programmes.
JAMA PSYCHIATRY
Research continues to show that ketamine works on a different timescale and through a different neurobiological pathway than standard antidepressants.
LANCET PSYCHIATRY
Meta-analytic findings support ketamine as a clinically important option for people whose depression has not improved with standard treatment.
PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDICINE
Clinical work suggests that the antidepressant effects of ketamine may be strengthened when paired with structured psychological support and integration.
Ketamine is not licensed in the UK for the treatment of depression, anxiety, PTSD or addiction. Its use in these contexts is off-label and only considered following comprehensive medical and psychotherapeutic assessment. The research cited represents population-level findings and does not guarantee individual outcomes. Results vary between individuals and cannot be guaranteed.
THE TREATMENT JOURNEY
Every stage has a purpose. Nothing is rushed. Nothing happens by accident.
ASSESSMENT
We take time to understand your medical and mental health history, what you’ve tried, what’s helped, and what you’re hoping to achieve. This assessment is what allows us to begin building the relationship that makes therapeutic change possible.
PREPARATION
Preparation is one of the most important parts of the programme. Together, you and Paul identify what you’re carrying and what you hope to release or understand. You’ll set intentions and build the trust that allows you to go deeper than you could with a stranger.
KAP SESSIONS
The four KAP sessions sit at the heart of the programme, but they are never offered in isolation. Ketamine is administered by intramuscular injection, usually into the shoulder. The treatment experience lasts approximately two and a half hours, with Paul present throughout to support you.
INTEGRATION
Integration is where the therapeutic work happens. The KAP sessions create the material – insights, emotions, memories, shifts in perspective – and the integration sessions are where you make sense of them, work through them, and begin applying them to how you live.
The full programme — four KAP sessions, four integration sessions, preparation, intake and ongoing support — is included in the all-inclusive fee. Medical assessment, prescribing, storage and administration are provided by a separate CQC-registered medical provider. The Emerge Clinic provides psychotherapeutic services and programme coordination only.
IS THIS PROGRAMME RIGHT FOR YOU?
The Emerge Programme is assessment-led. Not everyone who enquires will be suitable — and we will always tell you honestly if we don’t think we can help. The criteria below are a guide, not a guarantee. The only way to know for certain is through a proper assessment.
My responsibility is not to persuade everyone that this programme is right for them. It is to understand each person properly, be honest about whether we can help, and recommend another direction when that would be safer or more appropriate.
— Paul
If you’re unsure whether the programme is right for you, the best next step is a conversation. Our assessment process exists precisely to answer that question — honestly, thoroughly, and without obligation. We would rather have that conversation and tell you we can’t help than have you invest in something that isn’t right for your situation.
Ready to Take the First Step?
If depression has followed you through medication, therapy and years of trying to understand yourself, getting in touch can feel like another risk. This first conversation is not a commitment to treatment. It is simply an opportunity to tell us what has been happening and find out whether The Emerge Programme may be the right next step.