Ask a Doctor: My Conversation with a Ketamine Therapy Clinic MD

Since 2023 I have partnered with Dr. Aida Yavari, co-founder at Arktos Direct Care, located in Fort Collins to provide IV and IM ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP). I sat down with her recently to get some frequently asked questions answered to share with anyone who might be interested in learning more.

Tell me about the services offered at your clinic and what is unique about it.

Arktos Direct Care is a Direct Primary Care practice, which means we’ve intentionally stepped away from the traditional insurance-based model so that we can spend more time with our patients and provide highly personalized care. We offer comprehensive primary care, women’s health, mental health care, and a strong focus on prevention and overall wellness. One of the things that makes our practice unique is the amount of time and continuity we’re able to offer. We really get to know our patients—their medical history, their lives, their stressors, and their goals. Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy fits naturally into that model because it allows us to approach mental health in a much more comprehensive and individualized way.

What inspired you to start working with ketamine in your practice?

As a primary care physician, I was seeing patients who had done all the “right” things—they had tried medications, therapy, lifestyle changes, and sometimes years of treatment—but still felt stuck. I became interested in ketamine because it offered a fundamentally different approach, particularly for people who weren’t getting where they wanted to be with conventional treatments alone. What ultimately drew me to KAP was the combination of the medication with psychotherapy. Rather than viewing ketamine as simply another medication for symptom relief, I was interested in its potential to create a window where people may be more open, flexible, and able to approach difficult thoughts or deeply ingrained patterns differently.

What are some of the successes you’ve seen with patients who have done a KAP series?

Some of the most meaningful changes aren’t necessarily dramatic overnight transformations. They’re often patients describing that they feel less stuck, more connected to themselves, or able to look at something they’ve struggled with for years from a completely different perspective.We’ve seen patients experience significant improvements in depression and anxiety symptoms, but we’ve also seen changes that are harder to capture on a questionnaire—greater self-compassion, healthier perspectives on relationships, increased motivation, or the ability to engage more productively in therapy. I think one of the most important parts of KAP is what happens after the ketamine session. The insights that come up during treatment can become much more meaningful when patients have the opportunity to process and integrate them afterward.

What issues do you think ketamine treats most effectively?

The strongest evidence for ketamine is in depression, particularly treatment-resistant depression, and it can also be helpful in certain other mental health conditions. In our practice, we tend to think less in terms of ketamine being a cure for a particular diagnosis and more as one tool within a broader treatment plan. I think it can be particularly valuable for people who feel very entrenched in certain patterns of thinking or who have reached a plateau despite engaging seriously in conventional treatment. Careful patient selection is important, because ketamine certainly isn’t appropriate for everyone.

How does your clinic differ from other clinics that offer ketamine infusions?

Our approach is intentionally very personal and very integrated. We’re not a high-volume infusion center where someone comes in, receives ketamine, and leaves. We already practice medicine in a relationship-based model, and we bring that same philosophy to ketamine treatment. We use ketamine as part of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, with the therapist providing preparation beforehand, support during the experience, and integration afterward. 

What is something most people don’t know about how ketamine can help?

I think many people assume the goal of ketamine is simply to make someone feel better while the medication is in their system. What’s much more interesting is the potential therapeutic window surrounding treatment. Ketamine increases neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to adapt and form new connections. That doesn’t mean the medication automatically “rewires” the brain, but it may create an opportunity for change. What patients do with that opportunity—through psychotherapy, reflection, behavioral changes, and integration—can be incredibly important. That’s why I tend to think of ketamine not as the treatment in isolation, but as a tool that can sometimes help people access therapeutic work that previously felt very difficult or inaccessible.

Check out https://arktosdirectcare.com/ for more information!