Synopsis: A comprehensive year-end guide featuring Reset Ketamine's transformative 2025 content. Born from clinical expertise and real crisis experience, this guide covers ketamine therapy basics, treatment alternatives, integration tools, and resilience frameworks. More than medical information. It's wisdom tested through both patient care and personal rebuilding.
INTRODUCTION
On May 17, 2025, a car bomb explosion temporarily closed our Palm Springs clinic. If you follow our blogs and videos, you know transformation is one of our values. But what followed that fateful day was an unprecedented year of crisis, rebuilding, and unexpected growth.
Anyone who has been our patient or a loved one of a patient will attest to the level of empathy and understanding Dr. Ko and our team provide. In the aftermath of this bomb, we went from knowing intellectually that healing can be slow and difficult to feeling it in our bones.
This time of crisis and rebuilding has been difficult, and yet we have a deeper appreciation for our patients. Not only have our patients and community been of great support to us, but we now have a more visceral understanding of what our patients face. The challenges and tragedies they have faced with courage and resilience, however big or small, are seen in a new light by us. We are honored to have served them and look forward to continuing to take care of them soon.
Through this year of forced introspection and rebuilding, we realized that our most powerful content emerged not just from clinical training, but from walking the path ourselves. The frameworks that helped us navigate this crisis - FMA, amor fati, focusing on vision over obstacles - became as valuable as any treatment protocol. This guide reflects that integration: evidence-based medicine paired with real-world resilience tools, all tested in the crucible of actual difficulty.
You will find blogs grouped together to cover topics from frequently asked ketamine therapy questions to mindset tools to navigate difficulty. To dive deeper into any of the blogs, simply click the related links to explore the full post.
Let's dive in.
Table of Contents:
Whether you're just beginning to explore ketamine therapy or you're deep into your healing journey, this comprehensive guide meets you where you are. Read straight through for the complete picture, or jump directly to the sections that speak to your current needs. Each section stands alone while building toward a deeper understanding of authentic healing - with links to the full blog post and related video.
Part 1: Starting Your Healing Journey with Confidence
Understanding Your Options: FAQ Essentials
Making Informed Medical Decisions: The BRAIN Framework
Preparing for Your First Treatment in Palm Springs
Part 2: Exploring All Your Treatment Options
Stellate Ganglion Block for Hot Flashes
PTSD Treatment Innovations: Ketamine vs. SGB
Part 3: When Your Journey Gets Challenging
When Ketamine Stops Working: Troubleshooting Guide
10 Common Treatment Mistakes to Avoid
Part 4: Integration Tools for Lasting Change
3 Mindset Mnemonics for Daily Life
Setting Intentions That Actually Work
Part 5: Lessons from Crisis - Finding Strength in Difficult Times
Real-Time Resilience: Tools for Navigating Crisis
Authenticity Over Perfection: Chess and Crisis Lessons
Embracing Difficulty: The Lego Lesson
Legacy and What Really Matters
Every healing journey starts with questions. Whether you're curious about ketamine therapy or ready to take the next step, this guide provides the confidence-building answers you need.
Part 1: Starting Your Healing Journey with Confidence
From Curiosity to Your First Treatment
Whether you're just beginning to explore mental health treatment options or you're ready to take the next step, we created comprehensive resources to guide you through many if not all the questions and concerns you may have about ketamine therapy.
Understanding Your Options
Ketamine Therapy FAQs: Part 1 - Your Foundation Questions Answered
Don't let uncertainty hold you back from exploring treatment. This comprehensive guide tackles the basics: Do you need a referral? What does an infusion actually feel like? How long do effects last? No question is too basic when it comes to your mental health.
Key takeaway: Most people need 6 initial treatments over 2-3 weeks, with ongoing therapy being essential for lasting results.
Ketamine Therapy FAQs: Part 2 - Advanced Questions for Confident Decisions
Ready for deeper insights? This follow-up post addresses the nuanced questions: medication interactions, who should avoid treatment, response rates, and realistic expectations. This is blog is for you if you are moving from curiosity to serious consideration.
Key takeaway: 70-80% of patients experience significant improvement, but success depends heavily on preparation and integration work.
Making Informed Medical Decisions
BRAIN: A 5-Step Guide to Navigating Medical Choices - When You Need a Clear Framework
Medical decisions can feel overwhelming, especially when you're already struggling with mental health symptoms. This simple mnemonic (Benefits, Risks, Alternatives, Intuition, Not Now) proides you a structured approach to evaluate any treatment option with confidence.
Key takeaway: Your gut feeling (Intuition) matters just as much as clinical evidence when making personal healthcare decisions.
Preparing for Treatment
What to Know Before Your First Ketamine Infusion in Palm Springs - Comprehensive Preparation Guide
While this focuses on our Palm Springs location, the preparation principles apply universally. From mental preparation and intention-setting to practical logistics and post-treatment integration, this is your complete roadmap to a successful first experience.
Key takeaway: Proper preparation (mental, emotional, and logistical) often determines treatment success more than the infusion itself.
Healing isn't one-size-fits-all. Explore multiple evidence-based treatment options - from ketamine therapy to stellate ganglion blocks - to find what works for your unique situation.
Part 2: Exploring All Your Treatment Options
Beyond Ketamine: Complete Mental Health Solutions
One of our core beliefs at Reset Ketamine is that healing isn't one-size-fits-all. This year, we had several posts that extensively covered stellate ganglion blocks (SGB) - a promising complement to ketamine therapy that many people haven't heard of yet.
When Hormones Aren't the Answer
Stellate Ganglion Blocks for Hot Flashes - A Breakthrough Non-Hormonal Option
For women who can't or don't want to use hormone replacement therapy, SGBs offer new hope. This innovative approach targets the nervous system's role in temperature regulation, providing relief without hormonal risks.
Key takeaway: SGBs can reduce hot flash frequency and intensity by resetting your body's overactive stress response system.
PTSD Treatment Innovations
Can Ketamine Therapy Worsen PTSD? - Addressing Real Concerns with Research
This honest blog post tackles a valid fear many PTSD patients have. By examining Dr. Adriana Feder's landmark research and the four types of ketamine experiences, we provide evidence-based answers to help you make informed decisions.
Key takeaway: Proper preparation and clinical oversight are essential. Ketamine therapy can be transformative for PTSD when approached correctly, but it's not right for everyone.
Stellate Ganglion Block for PTSD - A Non-Psychedelic Alternative
For those seeking PTSD relief without mind-altering experiences, SGBs offer a compelling option. This procedure works on your nervous system's "hardware" while ketamine therapy works on the "software" of emotional processing.
Key takeaway: SGBs can calm your fight-or-flight response for weeks or months, making other therapies more effective.
Does a Stellate Ganglion Block Hurt? - Honest Answers About Discomfort
No medical guide is complete without addressing the elephant in the room: pain. Most patients rate SGB discomfort as a 1-3 out of 10, comparing it favorably to dental work. This post removes the fear of the unknown.
Key takeaway: If you can handle a dental procedure, you can handle an SGB. The brief discomfort can be worth weeks or months of symptom relief.
The beauty of having multiple evidence-based options means finding what works for YOUR unique situation, medical history, and personal preferences.
Healing isn't linear. When your journey hits plateaus or setbacks, these troubleshooting tools help you navigate challenges and get back on track
Part 3: When Your Journey Gets Challenging
Navigating Setbacks and Plateaus
Healing isn't linear. It can be a winding or meandering road. Even with effective treatments, patients often hit roadblocks, experience plateaus, or make mistakes that derail progress. Our own clinic crisis experience taught us valuable lessons about resilience that apply to any healing journey.
Treatment Troubleshooting
Ketamine Infusions Not Working Anymore? Here's Why & What To Do - When Progress Stalls
Whether you're hitting a plateau or feeling like benefits have worn off, this post explores the three main reasons: insufficient integration, need for complementary treatments, or simply the non-linear nature of healing.
Key takeaway: Ketamine is a catalyst, not a cure. The real transformation happens through integration work between sessions.
Avoiding Common Pitfalls
10 Ketamine Therapy Mistakes to Avoid for a Successful Healing Journey - Learn from Others' Experiences
Prevention is better than correction. From skipping intention-setting to keeping your eyes open during treatment, these mistakes can significantly reduce ketamine's effectiveness. Think of this post as your "what not to do" checklist.
Key takeaway: The preparation and integration work you do outside the clinic often matters more than what happens during the 40-minute infusion.
Treatment insights mean nothing without integration. These practical mindset tools bridge the gap between breakthrough moments and lasting change in daily life.
Part 4: Integration Tools for Lasting Change
From Infusion Treatment Room to Daily Life
Your healing can stall in the gap between insights during treatment and implementing them in daily life. These practical tools can bridge this gap with actionable strategies you can use immediately.
Mindset Strategies That Work
3 Mindset Mnemonics for Calm and Ketamine Therapy Integration - Simple Tools, Profound Results
MIT (Most Important Thing), WIN (What's Important Now), and ANT (Automatic Negative Thoughts) are simple frameworks that can transform overwhelming days into manageable ones. These techniques can support your after and between treatments by giving you practical tools for the enhanced neuroplasticity window - potentially furthering the benefits of your ketamine treatment.
Key takeaway: Using these mnemonics during the 24-72 hour post-treatment window when your brain is most adaptable can create lasting positive changes.
Setting Powerful Intentions
Setting Intentions for Ketamine Therapy: Focus on Your Vision, Not Obstacles - How Your Brain's Wiring Affects Your Healing
"The key to successfully breaking a board with our hand was to actually look beyond the board. Imagining your hand going not right at the board and stopping there, but going beyond it."
This post emerged as we are rebuilding our clinic after the car bomb - a real-world lesson in focusing on outcomes rather than obstacles. The neuroscience is clear: what you focus on literally rewires your brain.
Key takeaway: Instead of setting intentions like "not being depressed," focus on specific positive outcomes like "more energy to play with my dog."
Crisis became our greatest teacher. These real-world resilience frameworks emerged from rebuilding after the unthinkable and apply to any difficult season of life.
Part 5: Lessons from Crisis - Finding Strength in Difficult Times
When Life Tests Everything You Believe
The car bomb that damaged our clinic in May 2025 became an unexpected teacher. These posts document real-time resilience building and offer frameworks that apply whether you're recovering from trauma, navigating ketamine therapy, or simply dealing with life's inevitable challenges.
Real-Time Resilience
When Crisis Hits: 3 Mental Health Tools That Are Getting Me Through - From Personal Devastation to Practical Wisdom
"Those are really what we have power over: 1) What we focus on, 2) How we interpret the event or the meaning we give it, and 3) the actions we take after."
Written while actively rebuilding from the explosion, this post introduces three frameworks: FMA (Focus, Meaning, Action), amor fati (loving your fate), and the shrimp shell metaphor for growth through difficulty. Raw, honest, and immediately applicable.
Key takeaway: You can't control what happens to you, but you always have power over your focus, interpretation, and response.
Authenticity Over Perfection
Being Yourself Is Hard: Lessons From Chess, Crisis, and Ketamine Therapy - Why Following Expert Advice Can Make You Worse
"I would rather have someone not like me for who I truly am instead of being admired for a false front I put on."
Josh Waitzkin's story of actually getting worse at chess when he abandoned his natural style to follow expert advice became a powerful metaphor during our rebuilding process. Sometimes authenticity serves us better than expertise - a lesson that applies to ketamine therapy integration as much as chess or crisis recovery.
Key takeaway: Ketamine therapy can help reconnect you with your authentic self, but maintaining that connection requires courage to be disliked for who you truly are.
Embracing Difficulty
How Hard Things Make Life Easier: A Ketamine Therapy Lesson - The Lego Lesson in Growth
"When we do hard things later, if another challenge comes up, we discover that those smaller challenges are actually easier."
Building a 570-piece Lego set with my daughter revealed a profound truth: tackling difficult challenges expands our capacity for everything else. The same principle applies to ketamine therapy. Facing uncomfortable experiences during treatment makes daily life obstacles more manageable.
Key takeaway: The challenging moments during ketamine therapy often signal breakthrough and expanded capacity for handling life's difficulties.
Wisdom from Unexpected Places
What Chess Taught Me About Life, Legacy, and Ketamine Therapy - What Really Matters When Everything Is Stripped Away
"When people gather at your funeral, they won't be talking about how much money you had. They'll be chatting about your job title. Rather, they'll be reflecting on the person you were and how you impacted their lives."
Chess pieces all return to the same box regardless of their power during the game - a metaphor that gained deeper meaning during this challenging time for our clinic this year. Ketamine therapy often provides this same perspective shift, helping people see beyond status and achievement to what truly matters.
Key takeaway: Healing often involves shifting from external validation to internal values and genuine human connection.
Our crisis-born insights aren't just philosophical. They're practical frameworks for navigating any difficult period, whether you're in therapy, rebuilding after loss, or simply trying to live more authentically.
As we rebuild and look toward 2026, we're reminded that the most meaningful transformations often emerge from our most challenging chapters.
CONCLUSION
As of the release of this post, our clinic remains closed. But we're getting closer to reopening each day. The rebuilding process has been a reminder that healing rarely goes as fast as we desire.
Looking back at this year's collection of blogs, what struck us most is how the clinical and personal insights supported each other. The mindset tools we teach our patients became the ones that got us through our darkest days. The authenticity we encourage in therapy became essential when we had to rebuild not just a clinic, but our sense of purpose.
Your healing journey will be uniquely yours. You might find transformation through ketamine therapy, relief through stellate ganglion blocks, or strength through the perspective frameworks we've shared. The path matters less than the willingness to take the next step.
As we move into 2026, we're reminded that the challenging moments, whether in treatment or in life, aren't obstacles to healing. Rather, they are opportunities to transform beyond our wildest dreams.
Thank you for allowing us to walk this path with you. In your courage to face difficulty, we're reminded why this work matters.
Complete 2025 ketamine therapy guide featuring real crisis recovery lessons. From treatment basics to advanced integration, plus authentic resilience tools learned rebuilding after trauma. Your roadmap to healing through difficulty.
