Interview with Dr. Juan Pablo Galindo - Ketamine for Depression

Community CollaborationKetamineDepression

Aug 5

Written By Landrie Ethredge, MA, LPC, CCTP

What is the name of your name and the name of your business?

Dr. Juan Pablo Galindo D.O. with Innerbloom Healing Arts in Charleston, South Carolina.

Why did you open Innerbloom Healing Arts?

I founded Innerbloom Healing to create a space of healing and growth through the use of psychedelic medicines and psychotherapy. After working in a traditional psychiatric setting for many years I was disillusioned by the limited scope traditional psychiatric practice has. A lot of emphasis is placed on medication management, without much time to understand someone's whole story. I wanted to offer alternative paths to alleviate psychological pain, especially for those whom standard psychiatric treatments had not met their needs. With the help of psychedelic medicines, we hope to create a therapeutic environment that breaks down the walls of suffering and empowers one's sense of healing.

What services do you offer to the community?

Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy, Traditional Psychotherapy, Integrative Psychiatry (Coming Soon)

What’s your favorite part of your job?

I am always in awe of a persons innate wisdom. In our medicine journeys a lot of material comes up for people, and I am always in wonder of how the medicine and a person's mind interact to create these healing experiences. Even though I am the 'doctor' and 'therapist' I realize that my client's are teaching me as well.

What’s your favorite service?

Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy. Being trained in psychedelic therapy we bring all of our knowledge of psychedelic medicines into our work with ketamine. Before working with us we always do a free consultation to make sure this would be safe and a good fit for the individual. Once cleared people do an intake and preparation session with me to prepare for the medicine journey. We work alot with goals and expectations as well as setting intentions for what one would like to work on for themselves.

Our medicine session appointments are 1:1 with me, we allow 3 hours for these appointments which gives alot of space to process before and after the medicine experience. The experience itself lasts about 1 hour and again I am with the client the entire time. The way client's interact while with the medicine varies from very talkative to being silent and experiencing the medicine, and everything in between. The next day clients always return for an hour integration session. Here we process and 'integrate' their experiences to see what can be learned and what changes can we make to help improve their lives. Clients will either sign up anywhere from 2-6 sessions depending on what brings them in and their diagnosis. We work with people that have severe treatment disease, to those that are feeling stuck with some aspect of their life.

What makes your business unique?

I tend to believe we put the "therapy" back in to the idea of Ketamine Therapy. Alot of other clinics offer 'Ketamine Therapy', but their definition of therapy is of receiving the medicine itself, not with any actual psychotherapy. We offer true psychotherapy with the help of ketamine, so not only are you receiving the benefit from the medicine but from the therapeutic relationship. Our focus is not necessarily with the ketamine, but with the process and experience itself.

What is one piece of advice you want everyone to know?

Don't believe everything you think.

Share one fun fact about yourself that people may not know!

At the bottom of my resume/CV I had a section of skills ie: proficient in excel, fluent in spanish etc. When applying to psychiatry residency I forgot that I had slipped in the list of professional skills "Dance Machine". This was kind of a joke that I had put in a CV while applying to jobs while living in NYC. Needless to say the only reason I got an interview at the University of Louisville (where I ended up matching for my psych training) was that one of the doctors there saw "Dance Machine" on my resume and said, we need to meet this guy. This doctor later told me they had already filled their interview slots but the "dance machine" made them change their minds.