Ketamine psychosynthesis groups (Roquet, historical)

Domain VII · Transpersonal, psychedelic & altered states · Salvador Roquet · 1967 · Mexico

Historical or harm account: this guide describes what happened and how to recognise it. It is not a practice to implement.

What it is

HISTORICAL ACCOUNT — NOT FOR USE. This tab describes a discontinued drug therapy so clinicians can recognise it, evaluate claims about it and support clients who meet its descendants. It deliberately contains no doses, routes, schedules, drug sequences or combinations, or administration details.…

Format

• A. The course as a whole
• Population. Mostly neurotic outpatients; occasionally people with antisocial personality, character neuroses and schizophrenia. No published screening or exclusion criteria are documented in the sources; Villoldo notes only that groups were "carefully selected" for mix.

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• What remains today. No regulated programme uses Roquet's method. Richard Yensen presides over a Salvador Roquet Psychosynthesis Association and developed a non-drug "Perceptual Affective Therapy". Echoes appear in contemporary retreat and underground settings that mix substances, multimedia and confrontation.
• Current legal and regulatory status of ketamine (as of the sources' dates). USA: ketamine is Schedule III and FDA-approved only as an anaesthetic; "Ketamine is not FDA-approved for the treatment of any psychiatric disorder" (FDA, Feb 2022), so psychiatric use of racemic ketamine is off-label, and compounded products have not been FDA-evaluated. Esketamine (Spravato) is Schedule III and approved (2019) for…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Does it involve intense or unusual breathing? Have you been told about the medical conditions for which that is not advised?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• "pioneer" framing used to justify unregulated retreats.
• pressure to act as a session "sitter" or guide; decline, and document.
• rising arousal or dissociation while recounting; switch to grounding (B3).
• claims that Roquet, indigenous tradition or "pioneers" validate these features.
• grandiosity, persisting conviction of special mission, or escalating spiritual crisis, which need psychiatric review.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.