What You Need to Know About Ketamine Therapy, the Buzzy Mental Health Trend
It sounds like it’s a quick fix for what ails your brain, but the truth is more complicated than what you'll see on social media.
Illustration by Sean Dong
At first glance, it seems no substance better assuages the anxieties of our accelerationist era than ketamine. The dissociative drug—a rapid-acting substance that increases the brain’s neuroplasticity and has antidepressant effects—slows time into a serene flow, offering a tranquil(ized) alternative to the doomscrolling status quo. That a common anesthetic used to sedate humans on operating tables, not to mention horses, has become a trendy mental health hack is an unexpected outcome, especially given how unsettling the deeper ends of a ketamine trip, also known as a K-hole, can be.
Companies courting the $3.4 billion ketamine market tout the powerful drug as a way to heal our existential doldrums while also enhancing cognitive function. Social media marketing positions ketamine as a faster and more effective alternative to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).