Ketamine for anxiety is an off-label use with early, encouraging research, mostly in generalized and social anxiety that hasn’t responded to standard treatment. At SomaVerse in Kansas, we pair low, gradual sublingual doses with careful preparation, because for an anxious mind, feeling safe enough to let go is part of the treatment.
Anxiety rarely travels alone. Many of the people we see in Lawrence and Overland Park live with anxiety and depression together, or with anxiety that grew out of trauma. Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) doesn’t treat a diagnosis in isolation. It works with the whole pattern: the racing thoughts, the clenched body, and the beliefs about safety underneath them.
We also want to be honest about the evidence. Research on ketamine for anxiety is younger and smaller than research on depression. It is promising enough that we offer KAP for anxiety, and early enough that we won’t promise you a specific result.
You might be here because…
- You’ve tried SSRIs or SNRIs, and they either didn’t touch the worry or came with side effects you couldn’t live with.
- Your mind rehearses worst-case scenarios on a loop, and you can’t find the off switch.
- After a meeting, a party or a phone call, you replay every sentence for hours or even days.
- Your body is always on alert: tight jaw, shallow breath, a stomach that never fully settles.
- You lean on as-needed medication to get through hard days and want something that reaches the root, not just the moment.
- Ketamine intrigues you, but the thought of losing control is frightening. (That fear is exactly what we prepare for.)
- Anxiety and depression feed each other, and treating them one at a time hasn’t worked.
Can ketamine help with anxiety?
It may. Small studies suggest ketamine can reduce anxiety symptoms within hours of a dose, including in people whose anxiety didn’t respond to standard medications. The research is early, and ketamine is not FDA-approved for any anxiety disorder.
Part of the effect seems to be biological. Ketamine acts on the brain’s glutamate system rather than on serotonin, and it may temporarily loosen the rigid, repetitive patterns of thought that anxiety depends on. Part of it seems experiential. Many people describe watching their worries from a distance, as if the thoughts were weather passing through rather than instructions they must obey.
That distance is what we work with in KAP. A worry you can observe is a worry you can get curious about, and curiosity is the opposite of the threat response.
What the research on ketamine for anxiety shows
The plain answer: a handful of small studies, mostly from one research group in New Zealand, plus large real-world data from at-home programs that has real weaknesses. Here’s what each tells us.
In a 2017 study of 12 people with treatment-refractory generalized or social anxiety who were not depressed, anxiety dropped within an hour of a dose, and the effect lasted up to a week. Ten of the twelve responded at the higher doses tested. A 2018 follow-up gave 20 people weekly maintenance doses; 18 reported better social or work functioning, and dissociation lessened as sessions continued. Both studies injected ketamine under the skin, not under the tongue, so their results don’t transfer directly to troches.
A 2021 meta-analysis of randomized trials found a signal for social anxiety disorder, with very wide margins of uncertainty, and its authors called the findings preliminary. A large 2022 study of at-home sublingual ketamine reported that about 63% of participants improved by at least half on a standard anxiety scale. But it was open-label, linked to the company providing treatment, and, as Yale researchers pointed out, outcomes were missing for more than half the people who started. It shows what’s possible, not what’s proven.
The anxious mind and the fear of letting go
If you live with anxiety, control has probably kept you safe for a long time. Planning, scanning and anticipating are how you’ve gotten through. So the idea of a medicine that changes your perception can feel less like relief and more like the thing you fear most.
We take that seriously, and we don’t ask you to override it. Ketamine at SomaVerse doses doesn’t knock you out. You remain aware, can open your eyes, and can speak with your guide at any point. What usually shifts is the grip: thoughts move more loosely, the body feels heavier or lighter, time stretches. For many anxious clients, the most healing part of a session is discovering they can loosen that grip for an hour and still be okay.
Sometimes anxiety rises as the medicine comes on. That’s common and usually brief. Your guide helps you breathe, ground, and turn toward the sensation instead of fighting it, which is the same skill you’ll practice in daily life afterward.
How preparation helps an anxious nervous system
Preparation is where we earn your trust before any medicine is involved. You’ll meet your therapist and your guide, see the room, and walk through every minute of a session in advance, so there are as few surprises as possible.
- A clear plan for the first dose: we start low and increase only if you and our medical provider agree
- A simple signal: a word or gesture that tells your guide you want contact, water or a pause
- Grounding skills: breath, touch and orienting practices you rehearse while sober
- Your music and your space: you can preview the playlist, keep the eye shade on or off, and bring a comfort object
- A “what if” conversation: what you’ll do if fear rises, so it feels like weather, not an emergency
A somatic approach to anxiety
Anxiety isn’t only a thinking problem. It’s a nervous system stuck on high alert, and you feel it in your shoulders, your gut and your breath long before you have words for it. That’s why our work is somatic as well as cognitive.
During and after sessions, we pay attention to what your body is doing: where it tightens, where it softens, what it wants to do when it finally feels safe. Program director Anissa Pfannenstiel, LSCSW holds a psychedelic somatic practitioner certificate from EMBODY Lab, and that lens runs through our preparation and integration. Between sessions, you’ll practice small, repeatable ways to signal safety to your body, so the calm you touched during dosing becomes more familiar.
Benzodiazepines, other medications and ketamine
Many people with anxiety take a benzodiazepine such as alprazolam, clonazepam or lorazepam. These medications can blunt ketamine’s effects, so timing matters. Our medical provider may ask you to adjust when you take them around dosing days.
Please don’t stop a benzodiazepine suddenly. Abrupt withdrawal can be dangerous, including a risk of seizures. Any change happens slowly and with your prescriber. Tell us about every medication and supplement you take, including stimulants, sleep aids and cannabis, so we can plan safely.
In office first: a setting for an anxious nervous system
Every client begins with in-office sessions, offered at all three of our offices in Lawrence, Overland Park and Topeka, where a guide is in the room and help is a few steps away. For an anxious mind, that’s often a relief: you don’t have to manage anything but your own experience.
Once you’ve completed at least our main program with us and are medically approved, you may be approved to continue troche sessions at home. At-home dosing also requires a sober support person with you, secure storage, no driving for the rest of the day, and a medical check-in after every dose. In 2023 the FDA warned about at-home use of compounded ketamine without monitoring, and our at-home protocol is built around that concern.
Cost, insurance and where to find us
Ketamine troches are self-pay: $90 for a single dose, or $480 for the Individual Ketamine Healing Package of six sessions, which includes the prescription, a Journey Box, medical monitoring and a preparation session. Solo Ketamine, built for first-time clients, is $1,505, with payment plans available, and includes a medical assessment, therapy assessment, guide preparation, eight dosing sessions, three guide sessions and three integration groups. Eligible medical and therapy visits may be billed to insurance. Details are on our pricing page.
We see clients at our Overland Park office in the Mark One Building on West 87th Street, convenient to Olathe, Lenexa and Kansas City, at our Lawrence office on West 6th Street, and at our Topeka office on SW 28th Street. Troche sessions are offered in office at all three. Therapy and integration are also available by telehealth in Kansas.
