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Colorado clinic explores different ways to address mental health with ketamine-assisted therapy

Colorado clinic looking to help patients with ketamine-assisted psychotherapy
Colorado clinic looking to help patients with ketamine-assisted psychotherapy 02:49

For those struggling with chronic pain, PTSD, anxiety or depression, often times, finding a solution that helps can be difficult. However, a clinic in Arapahoe County is exploring new ways to help patients by offering ketamine-assisted psychotherapy.

Mind Spa Denver opened about two years ago in Greenwood Village. It's where ketamine therapy treatments are emerging as a solution, and where a local patient turned his life around with it.

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Kurt Schier has always lived an active lifestyle as a competitive athlete and nationally-ranked gymnast.

"I had some concussions when I was competing," Schier explained. "Between gymnastics and skeleton, I had more concussions than anybody should have."

In his 50s, Schier was also involved in a crash on the slopes as he got wiped out by a snowboarder.

"That last concussion put me on a track that was taking me down a bad path," Schier said.

With 10 concussions in his life, Schier began struggling with his mental health. He said he had gone through therapy alone, but it didn't help solve or fix everything he had been dealing with.

"I started having really major depression and was having a hard time thinking straight and having difficulty with emotions," Schier said.

Schier then found Mind Spa Denver in 2022. Mind Spa is an outpatient psychiatric clinic specializing in trauma recovery and offering ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. Schier said he didn't go to there seeking ketamine therapy, but he went through an evaluation, and the medical professionals believed it could potentially help.

"When they mentioned ketamine, it was scary because I am not a drug person. I've never experimented," said Schier, who has been a patient for almost 2.5 years.

Dr. Ron Schwenkler called ketamine therapy a shift in mental health care. He's a psychologist at Mind Spa Denver, where many of his patients are veterans, first responders or people who've had a traumatic experience.

"Talking about trauma, it doesn't always heal the trauma. You have to intervene with those things," Schwenkler said. "That's really our specialty is how to address those unfortunate events."

To help patients suffering with chronic pain, anxiety, depression or PTSD, ketamine therapy is offered in a small, comfortable room, and the medicine is given through an IV. Patients can put on headphones and listen to music and watch visuals on a large screen.

"Ketamine is really useful for ... when someone is gripped in their symptoms. It's an anesthetic, but it has psychedelic components to it," Schwenkler said.

Schwenkler said the therapy offers patients a different perspective or brings them back to experiences they're suffering from. He added that he believes good therapy is looking at a change in perspective

"Some people bring a memory into the session. They will bring a situation or something they want to work on," Schwenkler said. "What it's doing is allowing space for someone to address the hardest things that have happened in their life."

"It's almost like you're watching yourself in a dream, and you're able to guide yourself through the dream in a way that you can actually make suggestions," Schier said. "It allowed me to change some of the thoughts and feelings and emotions that I wasn't able to change on my own."

During 90-minute sessions, medical staff are always there to regulate the medicine and keep an eye on the patient. The treatments, which are done over a short period of time, have led to months of relief for patients like Schier.

"I'm much stronger in handling my emotions and much more present with the people in my life. It's been wonderful. It's been life changing," Schier said. "Compared to where I was two years ago, it's 180 degrees."

Dr. Schwenkler believes in layering intervention approaches. After ketamine therapy treatments, he also follows up with psychotherapy within two days. The follow-up therapy helps patients integrate what they gained from the ketamine therapy treatment, into their everyday life.

"I think that's what's so exciting about psychedelics coming into the mainstream and being looked at as more of a legitimate intervention," Schwenkler said.

For more information about the treatments, visit mindspadenver.com.

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