Staying Consistent: Keeping Up with Therapy While Undergoing SPRAVATO® Treatment
- Category: Mental Health
- Posted On:
SPRAVATO® (esketamine) treatment can be an important step toward managing treatment-resistant depression (TRD). However, medication is often only one part of a broader mental health plan. Continuing your talk therapy during esketamine treatment can help you make the most of the improvements in your symptoms and learn effective coping strategies through a comprehensive, personalized approach.
What Is Esketamine Treatment?
Esketamine is a groundbreaking, safe, and effective therapy that can provide relief from TRD even after the first session. The FDA-approved nasal spray is self-administered in a health care setting, where you’re monitored for safety, comfort, and support.
Benefits of esketamine treatment include the following:
- It often begins to work immediately and continues to improve symptoms through the course of treatment.
- It’s one of the only FDA-approved therapies that has shown, in multiple studies, to improve TRD symptoms.
- Most side effects are mild and subside within several hours after treatment.
Benefits of Combining Esketamine With Therapy
Esketamine treatment and psychotherapy can serve different purposes. Esketamine works through biological pathways involved in TRD, while therapy can help you understand your emotions, address root causes of your behaviors, and navigate your relationships, as well as give you a consistent, safe space to talk about what you’re experiencing during treatment.
Benefits include:
- It improves your emotional regulation: Research suggests that esketamine may help people with depression become more emotionally responsive, which could make it easier to engage in therapy and work through difficult feelings.
- It can create space for new perspectives: As depressive symptoms ease and rigid thought patterns become less dominant, you may be better able to reflect on your experiences and consider new approaches.
- It provides better long-term outcomes: Treating your symptoms with both modalities will increase your chances of sustained improvement and prevent symptom reoccurrence. While esketamine offers quick symptom relief, therapy can help you identify triggers and turn short-term chemical changes into long-term behavioral shifts.
How to Make the Most of Your Therapy During Esketamine Treatment
Communicate With Your Therapist
Keeping your therapist informed about your esketamine treatment is important. Let them know when you started treatment, how frequently you receive it, and any changes you’ve noticed in your mood, energy, sleep, or daily functioning. Sharing both improvements and challenges can help your therapist better understand how treatment is affecting you and tailor your therapy accordingly.
Use Therapy to Process Your Experience
Beginning a new treatment can bring up a mixture of emotions. You might feel hopeful about improvement while also feeling anxious or frustrated if progress isn't immediate. Therapy can provide a place to process these experiences, help you identify realistic goals, and develop strategies for navigating challenges along the way. Mental health treatment is not a linear process, and having support can make it easier to respond to setbacks without interpreting them as failure.
Learn Coping Skills
As your depression symptoms improve, your therapy can shift toward building and maintaining the skills that will support your well-being and help you maintain progress over time.
Depending on your individual needs and your therapist’s approach, this might include:
- Recognizing unhelpful thought patterns
- Managing stress and difficult emotions
- Improving communication and relationships
- Establishing healthy routines
- Setting boundaries
- Participating in meaningful activities
- Developing strategies for handling future setbacks
Be Patient
It’s normal to want to see noticeable improvement quickly, especially after deciding to try a new treatment, but everyone's experience is different. Try to view your progress as a journey and keep track of any changes you notice in your mood, functioning, sleep, and other symptoms to discuss with your providers. If you aren't noticing the changes you hoped for, they can help determine whether adjustments to your overall treatment plan may be appropriate.
Try SPRAVATO at LiveWell Counseling
At LiveWell Counseling, we provide SPRAVATO (esketamine therapy) in our comfortable, calming lounge, where clients self-administer the nasal spray under the supervision of our board-certified psychiatrists and nurses.
To learn more, please call (201) 848-5800 or visit SPRAVATO. This innovative treatment is covered by most insurance providers.
Important Safety Information
Information for Consumers
Information for Healthcare Professionals
Prescribing Information
.png)