Could psychedelics be the solution to depression at work?
This drug is being provided to workers through company health insurance as the popularity of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy grows.
Financial Times, May 2024
Text: Emma Jacobs
Liz Kost had never tried ketamine, a drug that has a reputation for being used at parties. But she decided to give it a try when she was offered the chance by her employer. "It was amazing," she says.
He didn't try the psychedelic drug for fun. She tried it for therapeutic reasons. The California company where Liz Kost works in marketing offers a psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy program completely free of charge through health insurance.
This benefit comes at a time when there is a "very strong growth of interest in this type of therapy", says Jeffrey Zabinski, assistant professor of psychiatry at Columbia University.
Ketamine was approved in the US as an anesthetic as early as the 1970s, but more recently doctors and researchers have started using it as a mental health treatment. Although it's not its primary indication, it's perfectly legal for doctors and specialists to prescribe it off-label for this purpose.
For Liz Kost, the benefit came "at a desperate time". "I had a very traumatic childhood. Those emotions were repressed, but when the pandemic came... the uncertainty woke up my traumas." She started having anxiety attacks and couldn't sleep. "I was trapped in a circle of trauma."
Liz Kost first sought more conventional psychotherapy, but when she heard the company's founder talking about the new health benefit, she decided to give it a try. "In the past, he had already been honest about his depression and told us how ketamine helped him."
Patients usually have a program of several sessions of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy in a specialized clinic, often referred by other doctors and health professionals. Liz Kpst had six sessions over a few weeks, with a subsequent re-evaluation session. The whole process was accompanied by a health insurance company that offers this possibility to companies that want to make it available to their employees.
Nowadays, more and more companies want to ensure that their employees have mental health support, offering more and more therapy options and even apps.
