How to Build a KAP Practice in 2023

Lizzie Mears

February 7, 2023

A growing number of psychotherapists are passionate about psychedelic therapies and want to become KAP providers, but don’t know how to get started.

On Wednesday, January 25th, industry experts Ingmar Gorman, Jonathan Sabbagh, Rebecca Kronman, & Lauren Taus gathered to host a webinar for psychotherapists interested in becoming KAP practitioners.

Watch the full replay of the webinar here:

How to Start a KAP Practice in 2023 | Webinar

The webinar walked psychotherapists through the process of setting up a KAP practice, including the essential steps to become trained in Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy, identify a KAP prescriber, and market your KAP practice to clients.

Our top takeaways from the session include:

1. Consider the licensing and training needed to become a KAP provider.

• Licensing: Since KAP is a modality that involves providing psychotherapy services to a clinical population, it requires that you be licensed to deliver psychotherapy. Licenses include but are not limited to PsyD, LMHC, LCSW, LMFT, LCAT, LPC, LPCC.
• Training: Enrolling in a formal training program for Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy or KAP is not required to become a KAP provider. However, it is highly encouraged to reflect on your competencies as a practitioner and obtain the appropriate training and support in order to build the expertise needed to competently and confidently deliver KAP.
  Companies like Fluence offer robust, comprehensive training programs in KAP and PAP.
  Journey Clinical gives members access to didactic and experiential KAP learning opportunities.

2. Partner with a KAP-trained prescriber like Journey Clinical.

• Delivering KAP is not possible without the partnership of a medical prescriber for patient care. Journey Clinical is an affordable, turnkey platform that makes it easy for licensed mental health professionals to become KAP providers – they have an in-house KAP-trained medical team that takes on all patient medical care, including eligibility, ketamine lozenge prescriptions and outcome monitoring.
• For practitioners who are interested in other routes of ketamine administration involving IV infusion, IM or Spravato, the presence of a licensed medical provider on site is required (via ketamine clinics or infusion centers, for example). Finding a competent, KAP-trained prescriber often requires networking with aligned clinics and prescribers in your state.

3. Consider your professional profile and interests.
According to KAP provider Rebecca Kronman, LCSW (member of Journey Clinical and a Fluence trainer). KAP works well for clinicians who:

1. Work with attachment-based trauma and identity transitions
2. Want to do deeper work with their clients
3. Are comfortable with challenging clinical material
4. Are comfortable with proximity, intimacy and silence
5. Have somewhat of a risk tolerance

4. Create bandwidth to successfully add KAP to your practice.
Creating bandwidth for KAP in your practice is essential to success. For example, KAP provider Rebecca Kronman, LCSW, shared that in addition to her 4 days of regular psychotherapy, she reserves 1-2 days per week exclusively for KAP. When scheduling a KAP session, she schedules a 3-hour block with as little as possible scheduled afterwards to ensure enough time for decompression and rest.

5. Structure your KAP offering to fit your unique professional philosophy.
As a KAP provider, you can create an offering that is in alignment with your professional, business and personal goals. For example, you can deliver KAP in-person, remotely, or via groups and structure your pricing accordingly. You can also blend KAP with other modalities that you are trained in such as EMDR, IFS, Music therapy and somatic experiencing. There are virtually unlimited ways to make this work your own.

KAP and other psychedelic therapeutic modalities represent a rapidly growing field. There are more patients interested in this work than ever before, so a diversity of clinicians delivering KAP is needed to help support the demand. Moreover, the KAP clinical community is warm, welcoming and supportive, so we encourage you to jump in!