Drug Science
Ketamine was synthesized in 1962 and approved for anesthesia in the United States in 1970. At lower, subanesthetic doses, ketamine produces profound alterations in consciousness. Patients experience changes in perception, emotions, body awareness, and sense of self. This feeling of distance from the body and self led to its initial classification as a “dissociative anesthetic.”
The psychotherapeutic potential of ketamine was recognized long before modern antidepressant studies. During the 1970s and 1980s, psychiatrists in Iran and the former Soviet Union experimented with ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, using the altered state itself as a catalyst for psychological change.