Speaker: Christine Ellen Alejandro, LPC | Journey Clinical KAP Provider
Christine Ellen Alejandro: Hi, everybody. My name is Christine Alejandro and I'm a licensed professional counselor in the south of Texas as far south in Texas as you can go in a little metropolitan community. Whose motto is on the border by the sea, Brownsville, Texas. And I've been practicing here for over 30 years, but in the last two years I've added Ketamine assisted psychotherapy to my practice.
Christine Ellen Alejandro: I decided to join Journey Clinical and start my Ketamine assisted psychotherapy practice with them because I had graduated from the Integrative Psychiatry Institute, which was a year long program in learning and getting triple certified with Ketamine assisted psychotherapy. Um MD MA and Psilocybin uh assisted psychotherapy. And when I first graduated uh for about a year, I was working with some Ketamine clinics in and around South Texas and these clinics didn't offer any psychotherapy. And so I would end up accompanying my client to the clinic and I would look around and I would see other people there by themselves getting IV Ketamine and they would just put the ketamine IV in the arm of the patient and walk away. And I thought how scary that is for people. And I just couldn't imagine having my clients go through that and you know, be left alone and not have any follow up and just expect the medicine to magically erase their depression and anxiety without any supportive psychotherapy. And so when Journey Clinical um started coming into Texas, I signed up right away, but they weren't approved yet. So I had to wait several months, 78 months before they got approved in Texas. And I was one of the first um therapist to be on board with Journey Clinical in Texas. And I'm so glad I did because I really like the way that journey clinical assesses my clients for medical qualification for ket immune assisted therapy. And I really like the way that they take care of the client, interact with the client. I get nothing but good reports back from my client. If there's ever a problem with a technical issue or a mailing issue, um I get a email to journey clinical and they always get back to me right away and they always get back to the client right away. They're very thorough and very professional. And I really like the way that they treat my clients.
Christine Ellen Alejandro: I would say that 95% of my clients have had amazing outcomes with Ketamine assisted Psychotherapy. I will say the other 5% just weren't a good fit for Ketamine assisted psychotherapy. And I wanna say right up front that it's not a magic bullet, it's not a panacea of a cure for everyone. Um But for the 95% of my clients who have had good outcomes, I can tell you of a couple of clients who have given me great metaphors to use. One client said that healing is like 100 story building and you can take the stairs or you can take the express elevator. And Ketamine assisted psychotherapy has been like the express elevator for him. Another client said it is like you with your problems on one side and there's a mountain of dirt and rock in front of the healing on the other side. And with talk therapy and, and medication, prescription medications, you have a shovel and you can work your way through that pile of dirt. But with Ketamine assisted psychotherapy, you have dynamite and an earth mover. So I like both of those analogies. And so I'm happy to share those with you coming straight from the client's perspective.
Christine Ellen Alejandro: Journey Clinical has supported me in delivering Ket Iun assisted psychotherapy to my clients by making the referral process easy and very streamlined. Uh Another thing that I like is as I mentioned before, if there's any kind of a technical issue or mailing issue, um we get that they, they take care of that right away. The other thing that I like is that you can get online at any time and email them, email the medical personnel with any questions that you have, you have a question, a client that maybe has a questionable diagnosis like um a seizure disorder and they will get back to you right away. Um They also have these open houses uh about protocol and about marketing your business. And then the other thing that they have that I'm also involved in is that I teach a class for Journey Clinical called Ketamine Compass Guiding Therapists through the healing journey. And it's an eight session course. And I'm not the only peer on Journey Clinical that offers classes like this. There's a plethora of classes depending on um what specialty or, or what modality that you would like to know more about. They have classes that are being taught by other therapists who are specialists in those areas. And so they also have um excellent training. Like I said, I was trained through uh integrative Psychiatry Institute for a year before coming on with Journey Clinical. I was also trained by maps multi assoc multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. But the company that does the training for Journey Clinical for the therapist is called Fluence and Elizabeth and Ingmar have done an excellent job in putting training together for Journey Clinical to use with all of their therapists. And it's very thorough and it's very consistent across the board.
Christine Ellen Alejandro: The advice that I would give another psychotherapist. Looking to get started with Ketamine assisted psychotherapy would be to become a member of Journey Clinical. Go into your member portal, really look around in there and get to know what's in there. Do all of the trainings that are available to you, get to know the community board that's in there, introduce yourself, get to know other people that are in there, show up to the open houses in the protocol meetings and just find your way around and start talking to your clients about ketamine assisted psychotherapy. Now put together some flyers, some brochures to hand out to them and start to earmark. Who in your client list would be a good candidate for a referral to Journey Clinical.
