Angela Ward

Angela Ward is a registered nurse and board-certified nurse coach who runs Guardian at the Gateway, a small team of nurses offering ketamine-assisted therapy with coaching in the Seattle area. She also trains other practitioners online through her Psychedelic Doula Academy.

Approach

She was a labour and delivery nurse, birth doula and perinatal bereavement worker before turning to ketamine. She says she is a PTSD survivor who has had psychedelic-assisted therapy. Her training includes the Synthesis Institute practitioner programme, a certificate from the California Institute of Integral Studies and the MAPS training for MDMA therapy. In her model the client, called the Voyager, leads, and the team supports rather than tries to fix anyone.

Who it is for

The Ignition programme is for people with depression, anxiety, PTSD or other mental health struggles, and for those who feel stuck. Clients should be open and willing to do the work; the practice says it is not a quick fix.

Practical details

Ignition combines three ketamine sessions with five one-to-one coaching sessions and group coaching. Treatments take place at the Telos Transformational Therapies clinic in Tukwila, near Seattle, usually two weeks apart; the rest is online. Fees follow a sliding scale, suggested at $2,600 to $4,600; insurance is not accepted. Travel Insurance is a separate set of five coaching sessions around a psychedelic experience. Spore, the first academy level, costs $1,800.

Care and safety

Applicants go through a medical screening: a video call, an intake form, medical and psychological assessments and consent forms. Licensed providers at Telos prescribe the ketamine, given as a lozenge or an injection in sessions of three hours. It is ruled out for people who cannot tolerate a sudden rise in blood pressure and for schizophrenia or bipolar 1 with active mania. Clients may not drive for 12 hours afterwards.