JORDAN GAGE, LPCC

I am a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor in Kentucky. My goal is to help my clients when they feel stuck and support them to begin making changes in their lives. We often learn ways of getting through life that don’t always help us the way we want. By slowing ourselves down we can learn to listen better and make healthier decisions. This can come in the form of better self care, setting boundaries in relationships, or making new changes. This allows us to craft our own story rather than following one that feels stale or stagnant.

I work primarily with adults and couples who are interested in exploring opportunities for change. I have helped people navigate anxiety, addiction, grief, life transitions, and identity challenges. I also believe in exploring the impact spirituality has on our lives, particularly for the ex-churched.

Some of the tools I use in trying to help people get un-stuck are Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) and EMDR.

Ketamine is a Schedule III medication that has long been used safely as an anesthetic and analgesic agent and now often effectively for treatment of depression, alcoholism, substance dependencies, PTSD and other psychiatric diagnoses. KAP is offered as 6 two hour, self pay therapy sessions, during which clients who have been medically approved by our partnering physicians take prescribed doses of Ketamine under the guidance of the therapist. Before the sessions take place my clients and I work together to consider the goals and intentions they seek for their work with the medication. After the medicine experience ends I work with the client in the moment to help integrate the psychedelic experience into the rest of their lives. Ketamine allows people to bypass their usual, habitual ways of interacting with the world, and often allows people to access a greater sense of personal empathy and self compassion. Research has shown that the combination of medication and psychotherapy yields the best results in helping clients maintain long term change and getting the greatest benefit out of a psychedelic experience.

EMDR is tool I use in traditional therapy sessions to help clients target past memories of traumatic events. Targeting those memories that have been dysfunctionally stored in the brain allows the client to desensitize the painful material and replace negative cognitions with adaptive, healthier ones. EMDR does not change a person’s memories, rather their perception of what has happened to them and how they reflect on those memories. It may not be appropriate for some memories, such as loss of a loved one, to feel “good”, but EMDR can help someone to reflect on the past in a way that strengthens their sense of self, rather than inhibit it.