“KAT does unlock things that may be otherworldly,” she says, “but the person is in treatment for some time before they get to this, and they go through five different assessments before they can be considered for KAT therapy.” The overall experience is very much up to the individual, Somerville notes, adding that Sage is careful of the potential pitfalls with psychedelics and takes care that patients are fully prepared for the experience. The third stage is integration of the KAT experience into their ongoing therapeutic program, “making meaning” with the help of their therapist. It helps them access those dark places from a position of safety, with someone they feel is helping them through that process.” “They focus on the experiences that have led them there. “The client is definitely the one providing the context for the work being done, shaping that time,” Somerville says. At least one or two staff members stay with them throughout the experience, which can last up to three hours. In the KAT session itself, they put a low-dose ketamine lozenge under their tongue and settle into a specially appointed room at the institute-think comfortable furniture, aromatherapy, a general relaxing atmosphere. They are counseled not to eat for at least five hours before their session and to avoid alcohol and drugs. The first is preparation, in which each client has at least three prep sessions. Ketamine-assisted therapy (KAT) has three parts to each session, Somerville says. Some 57 percent of Sage clients identify as people of color, 66 percent as LGBTQ+, and 81 percent are low income, making less than $28,800 a year. Somerville and Sage Institute therapist Z Shmueli “in session” at Sage offices. Sage offers low-fee, sliding-scale ketamine-assisted therapy to address what it calls “a mental health epidemic amplified by centuries of systemic oppression,” for conditions including depression, anxiety, PTSD, end-of-life distress, chronic pain, and drug or alcohol problems. “A game changer,” one Yale scientist called it.

It’s used by others as a club drug and goes by the name “Special K.” One form of the drug was approved by the FDA in 2019 as a treatment for major depression. The nonprofit works with the hallucinogen ketamine, which is used in medicine as an anesthetic. The Sage Institute aims to use the therapy to support a different population, trying to spread the benefits to people of color or limited means, who might find this form of care hard to access or unaffordable. Why are we absent from them? How do we get access?” And a few years ago, I began to see efforts by Black folks to question those white spaces. “It was not a part of any world I belonged to.

It felt a world apart for me, personally,” Somerville says. “I had only seen it in the context of mostly white, wealthy people. Psychedelic therapy and its trendy cousin, microdosing, have become popular recently, but generally among the well-off, especially those bohemian baby boomers who might remember LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin mushrooms from their adventurous youth. “They can walk through it more safely and with an opportunity for resolution.” “It gives a person a chance to unlock a door they may have closed themself off to or that was closed to them,” says Somerville (SSW’95), a Bay Area native. Therapy assisted by psychedelic drugs has been gaining credence in the mental health community in recent years, especially for people with depression or post-traumatic stress. Deidra Somerville believes in healing for all, and she’s followed that work down an uncommon path since last spring as the new executive director of the Sage Institute in Oakland, Calif., which provides accessible psychedelic therapy to underserved communities.

Sylvia sage