Ketamine for OCD is an off-label, experimental use. One small controlled study found a single dose eased obsessions quickly, but later findings have been mixed. At SomaVerse in Kansas, we offer it only as a possible support for evidence-based OCD treatment, especially exposure and response prevention (ERP), never as a substitute.
OCD is widely misunderstood. It isn’t about liking things tidy. It’s intrusive thoughts that feel alien and alarming, followed by an overwhelming pull to neutralize them: checking, washing, counting, re-reading, confessing, or silently reviewing until something feels “just right.” The relief never lasts, and the cycle tightens.
If you haven’t yet tried ERP with a trained therapist, that is usually the right first step, and we’ll tell you so. Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) may be worth exploring when OCD has held on despite good treatment, or when fear has kept you from engaging with that treatment at all.
You might be here because…
- Intrusive thoughts show up uninvited, and they horrify you precisely because they’re the opposite of who you are.
- You check, wash, count or re-read, knowing it doesn’t make sense, and still can’t stop.
- Much of your OCD happens silently: reviewing, mentally neutralizing, chasing certainty inside your own head.
- You’ve tried an SSRI, maybe at a high dose, and it took the edge off without giving you your life back.
- You believe ERP works, but every time you start, the anxiety feels too big to sit with.
- OCD has left you depressed, exhausted or pulled away from the people you love.
- You want an honest answer about whether ketamine is worth trying, not a sales pitch.
Can ketamine help OCD?
Possibly, for some people, and often only for a short time. The research is limited, and ketamine is not approved by the FDA for OCD. We think of it as a tool that may make other treatment more effective, not as a treatment on its own.
Most OCD medications work on serotonin. Researchers have long suspected that glutamate, the brain’s main excitatory messenger, also plays a role in the looping circuits behind obsessions and compulsions. Ketamine acts directly on the glutamate system, which is why it caught scientists’ attention as a different kind of option.
What the research says, and what it doesn’t
The best-known study is small. In 2013, researchers at Columbia University gave 15 unmedicated adults with near-constant obsessions a single IV dose of ketamine or placebo, in a crossover design. One week later, 50% of the ketamine group met criteria for response, compared with 0% after placebo, and many people noticed obsessions easing within hours.
That result was striking, but only eight people received ketamine in the phase the researchers analyzed, and later, smaller studies have been less consistent. A 2025 open-label study followed 43 people with treatment-resistant depression, PTSD or OCD who switched from injected ketamine to six weeks of oral ketamine; most kept their earlier gains, but there was no comparison group. No large randomized trial has tested ketamine for OCD, and sublingual troches haven’t been studied for OCD specifically.
The participants in the 2013 study were also not taking other OCD medications, which most people seeking help are. So we can’t predict how ketamine will work for you, and we won’t pretend otherwise.
Why ketamine works alongside ERP, not instead of it
ERP has decades of evidence behind it. It asks you to face a feared thought or situation and resist the compulsion, so your brain learns that the anxiety rises, peaks and falls without the ritual. It works, and it is hard, and the hardness is why many people stop.
Ketamine can’t do ERP for you. Its effects on obsessions, when they happen, tend to fade within days to weeks. But many clinicians, ourselves included, have a working hypothesis: if ketamine temporarily loosens OCD’s grip, the days after a session may be a good time to take on exposures that felt impossible before. That idea hasn’t been proven in a controlled trial, and we hold it as a clinical observation worth testing in your own life, carefully.
During a session, some clients also have a felt experience of uncertainty without alarm: the thought is there, and nothing needs to be done about it. That experience isn’t a cure, but it can become a reference point you return to when you sit with discomfort in ERP.
Keeping ketamine from becoming another ritual
OCD is clever. It can turn anything that brings relief into a new compulsion, and ketamine is no exception. If sessions start to feel like a way to get certainty, or you find yourself counting down to the next dose to quiet a thought, that’s worth noticing together.
Our integration work is designed with this in mind. Instead of using a session to resolve doubt, we use it to practice living alongside doubt.
- Fixed, spaced dosing: doses are prescribed in limited amounts and never taken “as needed” to calm an obsession
- No reassurance loops: your therapist and guide won’t answer OCD’s questions for you, kindly and on purpose
- Exposure-friendly integration: we plan small, concrete steps for the days after each session
- Honest check-ins: if ketamine seems to be feeding the cycle, we pause or stop
Coordinating with your OCD treatment
If you already work with an ERP-trained therapist, we’ll coordinate with them, with your permission, so dosing and exposures support each other. If you don’t, we’ll talk honestly about how to build ERP into your plan, including referrals if that’s the best fit.
Your SomaVerse team includes medical care led by our Psychiatry & Ketamine Medical Director, Angel Patterson-Tetuan, PMHNP-BC, a ketamine-trained therapist and a wellness guide, with integration groups between sessions. Program director Anissa Pfannenstiel, LSCSW brings more than 20 years of psychotherapy practice and a somatic lens, which matters in OCD because so much of the urge to neutralize is felt first in the body.
When OCD and depression travel together
Living with OCD is exhausting, and many people develop depression on top of it. Ketamine’s evidence is considerably stronger for treatment-resistant depression than for OCD, so if depression is a big part of your picture, it may be the more realistic target. Read about ketamine for depression.
Cost, insurance and locations
Ketamine troches are self-pay: $90 for a single dose or $480 for the six-session Individual Ketamine Healing Package, which includes the prescription, a Journey Box, medical monitoring and a preparation session. Every client begins with one of those two. Bundled programs with medical visits, therapy, guides and groups run $1,325 to $1,650. Eligible medical and therapy visits may be billed to insurance. See our pricing page.
Troche sessions take place in office at all three of our offices: Lawrence, Overland Park and our Topeka office on SW 28th Street. At-home sessions are possible only after you’ve completed our main program and are medically approved. Therapy and integration are also available by telehealth.
