In Lisbon, The Clinic of Change has been committed for the last year to an innovative treatment that alleviates the suffering associated with depression, anxiety, burnout, addictions and post-traumatic stress. At this clinic, Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy has a "70% success rate where before there was a 100% failure rate", as clinical director Victor Amorim Rodrigues confirms. Now, The Clinic of Change is expanding its services and offering a comprehensive view of patients and an innovative ketamine treatment, effective in moderate to severe depressive disorders.

Alexandre Almeida had already tried almost everything and was about to give up when he discovered that ketamine psychotherapy was the way out of the alcoholism that was rotting him and his family relationships. "I got my family back, my sanity, my joie de vivre," he admits.

In Susana's life, anxiety and depression are two shadows that loomed large from an early age. A daily suffering that Susana mitigated the day she embarked on an innovative therapy that combines classical psychotherapy and the use of ketamine. A liberating experience that Susana witnesses here in the first person.

With a lecture by David Nutt and moderation by António Vaz Carneiro, and a panel that included Albino Oliveira-Maia, Ana Sofia Carvalho, António J. Santos and Jorge Gonçalves, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy was debated in favor of information, scientific evidence and patient safety and well-being.

Used as an anesthetic for decades in hospital settings, ketamine has psychedelic properties when applied in low doses. In this context, treatment with ketamine in assisted therapies is aimed at people with, among other conditions, depression, addiction and eating disorders. To discuss this new path that combines psychedelics with psychotherapy, Lisbon will host the conference "Ketamine Psychotherapy - Clinical Evidence and Brain Mechanisms" on September 20. British psychiatrist David Nutt will be in attendance. We spoke to this expert.

INTERVIEW || David Nutt is one of the biggest names in the world when it comes to psychedelic drugs. In an interview with CNN Portugal, Nutt talks about the use of ketamine in the treatment of depression and addiction, an alternative that is gaining ground in the scientific community. The psychiatrist also talks about the advances and promises of this therapy, which he guarantees will be cheaper than conventional therapy and even more effective in the short term. "It's going to be the biggest innovation in the next 20 to 30 years," he says.

Only through rigor, open debate, information, research and scientific evidence can Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy exist for the benefit of the individual with psychiatric illness. An opinion piece by psychiatrist Victor Amorim Rodrigues, clinical director of The Clinic of Change.