What happens when traditional therapies stop working, but the healing isn’t done yet? In this episode, April Pride talks with Jennifer Whetzel—cannabis branding expert and creator of the Women in Cannabis Study—about how at-home ketamine therapy became a powerful tool for processing trauma, managing chronic pain, and rewiring lifelong emotional patterns. Jennifer gets personal about her years of pill dependence, alcohol use, and disordered eating—and how plant and psychedelic medicines helped her reclaim her agency, her creativity, and her calm. If you’ve been curious about trying ketamine but unsure where to start, this honest conversation offers insight, real-world protocols, and inspiration for your own healing journey.
🔵 Key Takeaways
Ketamine therapy helps break trauma loops by offering access to self-compassion and clarity—especially when paired with meditation and integration.
Dissociation is therapeutic, not escapist. Jennifer explains how ketamine-induced disconnection from the body allowed her to access and reprogram her mind.
Cannabis and ketamine are not a cure-all. But together, they helped Jennifer taper off opioids and stabilize mental health without pharmaceuticals.
Guided meditation enhances ketamine’s benefits. ADHD made traditional meditation difficult—until she found tools that made inner stillness accessible.
Healing is not linear. From childhood trauma to adult surgery recovery, Jennifer’s story is a reminder that harm reduction is a valid and powerful strategy.
🔵 Timestamps
[00:03] April introduces the episode’s theme: trauma recovery with ketamine
[03:10] Jennifer’s transition from corporate life to cannabis branding
[04:40] Why cannabis wasn’t enough—and how she discovered ketamine
[05:33] Music, meditation, and how she builds her at-home therapy rituals
[07:30] Dissociation as a doorway into emotional healing
[08:51] Chronic pain, joint surgery, and ketamine’s role in rehab
[09:57] Coming off opioids—safely and with support
[11:00] Early trauma, addiction cycles, and why alcohol kept her stuck
[11:48] Moving for medical access and tapering off pharmaceuticals
[14:38] Cannabis vs. alcohol: understanding harm reduction strategies
[15:11] Emotional breakthroughs, clarity, and accessing her “future self”
[17:09] How ketamine literally rewires the brain after trauma
[17:57] Practicing emotional honesty—outside the therapy session
[18:30] SetSet’s ketamine guide and how to learn more
🔵 Featured Guest
Jennifer Whetzel
🔵 Additional Resources
🎙️SetSet Podcast: Ep 50 “Ketamine Therapy and Psychedelic Psychiatry”
🎙️SetSet Podcast: Ep 51 “Trust and Ketamine Therapy: Letting Go to Heal”
🎙️SetSet Podcast: Ep 54 “Ketamine Therapy for Depression”
🎙️SetSet Podcast: Ep 55 “Ketamine-Assisted Therapy: Brain Effects Explained”
🎙️SetSet Podcast: Ep 56 “At-Home Ketamine Therapy”
Substack: “Can Ketamine Help Save New Moms?”
What does “harm reduction” mean to you? Have you used cannabis or ketamine to heal from pain, trauma, or disconnection?👇 Let’s talk about it in the comments after the transcript below.
🔵 Transcript
[00:03] April Pride:
Hey, this is April, and this show, Set Set Show, discusses [cannabis for healing], psychedelics, and altered states of consciousness generally. It's intended for audiences 21 and over. Also, I am not a medical expert. If you are looking to engage with psychedelic substances, please consult your physician before doing so. Welcome back. I'm April Pride, your host for Set Set Show, a resource for everyone curious to explore how to safely use [cannabis for healing] and [psychedelic-assisted therapy] for their clinically proven therapeutic potential and beyond. If you like what you hear on this show, please rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts. It really does help more people find our show. Today, I'm joined by Jennifer Wetzel, founder of Lady Jane Branding and Clio Cannabis award-winning creator of the Women in Cannabis study. In this episode, she shares her personal journey with [at-home ketamine therapy] and how it's helped her confront trauma and find new pathways to healing. Jennifer shares her experience with [ketamine for trauma], shedding light on how [at-home ketamine therapy] offers a safe and supportive environment for processing deep emotions and accessing self-compassion. And for our Seattle listeners, are you curious about how psychedelics are revolutionizing mental health care? Then join me for our next psychedelic salon on Monday, March 3rd at Town Hall, Seattle, 7.30 p.m. This month's topic, [psilocybin depression treatment]. We're going to focus on the transformative potential of [psychedelic-assisted therapy] for mental health. We'll dive into the latest clinical findings on how psychedelics like psilocybin and ketamine are being used to treat depression, including major depressive disorder and treatment-resistant depression, postpartum depression, and PMDD. Seattle-based experts will share groundbreaking research and discuss the therapeutic mechanisms behind these treatments, giving you a deeper understanding of how they're reshaping the mental health landscape. Whether you're looking for new ways to manage mental health or simply curious about these novel therapies, this salon offers valuable insights into the science and promise of psychedelics. Seats are limited. Visit townhallseattle.org to reserve yours today, Monday, March 3rd at 7.30 PM at Town Hall Seattle. I've linked to this in the show notes of today's episode. Psychedelic Salon is hosted by me at Town Hall on the first Monday of each month at 7.30 p.m. Sign up for Set Set's newsletter for information on each month's topic and our featured guests. Now we dive into the transformative potential of [at-home ketamine therapy] and what it means to take healing into our own hands right from home. I would like to introduce Jennifer Whetzel, who I've known of for years from our work concurrently in the [cannabis for healing] space.
[03:10] Jennifer Whetzel:
My background is in corporate marketing and advertising, and I did that for about 25 years. And then I had a really rough year with a lot of traumas and was able to use [cannabis for healing] to help me get through those things and because of that it wasn't in a space where I could go back to a corporate job and I started a business in cannabis basically to run away from my daughter and that was Lady Jane Branding and I spent a number of years working really hard in the cannabis space branding. And then the study that you mentioned was the Women in Cannabis study. And the idea for that was to actually research women who work in the cannabis space to see what their experiences were. And it was a very lengthy study. We talked to over 1,500 women. And it was about their experiences coming into the cannabis industry and what they wanted to do there, but also into their cannabis, their usage of cannabis. And we did, I did a concurrence of 10,000 people who were either curious about cannabis or current consumers. And so we had some very interesting usage data with women who work in the industry, who I named industry insiders, women who currently use cannabis and then curious women.
[04:28] April Pride:
You mentioned that you had a traumatic year. And that's what it's like once. So then was it that? What spurred you to say yes to [at-home ketamine therapy]? How did that come into your life?
[04:40] Jennifer Whetzel:
I heard about [at-home ketamine therapy] here and there over the years. And [cannabis for healing] does wonders for me, but doesn't do everything that I need. I grew a lot during my cannabis years. It helped open my mind to understand the work that I needed to do. I did a lot of therapy. I did a lot of integration work. I did some dynamic neural brain retraining exercises for a year to change my brain. But I was always hoping that there was going to be another treatment option for me. I wanted to do psilocybin and I tried it a number of times and it just never worked out. I feel like my brain's not ready for that. And when my cannabis doctor, when I found out that he was offering [at-home ketamine therapy], I called him right away and went for an appointment and got the troches, the lozenges to do at home.
[05:29] April Pride:
How did you figure it out?
[05:33] Jennifer Whetzel:
So early on, I tried music during the treatments and the dose that I use does give me the dissociative state, which for me is a point. I realized that for me, I need meditation with words. I need guided meditation. With ADHD, my brain likes to wander and I can meditate and I do meditate successfully, but sometimes it's hard to get my brain to focus inward. Sometimes it's still focusing outward. And so I've found some meditations that I listen to every time. I really like Dr. Joe Dispenza’s meditations. And I also found one that is a woman who does meditations for children, and she sounds like a fairy godmother. And the meditations are wonderful, and they leave me so happy. There's a land of gratitude and loving kindness, and they're just... I wish someone had spoken to me like that when I was a child and taught me how to do that. And so it really feels like I'm learning every time I go into the meditations. And I receive messages. And for the integration afterwards, I try and write as quickly and as much as I can. And I'm not always successful there. But I also spend time reviewing old pictures of myself and friends and family so that I can remember wonderful moments of my life. I find things that make me really happy. Sometimes it's music and dancing. Sometimes it's pictures. Sometimes it's silly pictures of myself that I can laugh at. But I like to spend some, you know, after the treatment alone with my door closed, no people around to do that work. Do you listen to the same meditations when you're not taking [at-home ketamine therapy]? It's a new meditation every time. But the repetition is incredibly helpful. I like to know the answers. Like if there's going to be a question, I like to know what I'm focusing on, what my intention is, what I'm doing else I get distracted.
[07:30] April Pride:
I know the feeling. You said that dissociation is the point. Can you explain what you mean by that?
[07:36] Jennifer Whetzel:
It took me a long time to learn how to meditate. The first time it was 90 seconds that I could sit still. Like it took me a long time to learn how to sit in a chair and just sit still in a chair. And so with ADHD, I'm always tense. My body's tense. It's hard to relax. It's hard to sit down. It's hard to rest. But you have to rest during a dose of [at-home ketamine therapy]. When the ketamine kicks in, it's eyes closed. Sit down right now. I sit down immediately. I take medicine. I sit down. I put the eye mask on and I get started with my meditations. Because I have to get myself settled before I can meditate. So the dissociative feeling where I stop really feeling my body allows me to focus on my mind. And it allows me to go in deeper. I had surgery recently. And so sometimes at the end of [at-home ketamine therapy], I had surgery on my joints and I have to do the physical therapy of work in the joints and I'll do it then because it doesn't hurt at all. It wears off probably within a couple hours. That's true. Because your body, you start to feel your body again. So all of the feeling comes back, including the pain. The dissociative feeling, I explain it. If you've ever had nitrous at the dentist, that's what it feels like.
[08:51] April Pride:
Do you think that the pain, your rehab, do you think it's been expedited by using [ketamine for trauma]? Because it is something that is being prescribed for chronic pain. And I don't know if it's because you get that period of time where you know what it's like to be pain-free. I do believe physiologically there's also mechanisms of action at play, but yeah, I'm just wondering if you think it's expedited your rehab.
[09:16] Jennifer Whetzel:
Yes, I would say so. The other thing that I've noticed, and this didn't, I don't think this was something I did on purpose, like I didn't work on this, but I feel like my feelings about pain have changed. It's not scary anymore. When I had surgery on both of my big toes, they hurt. Oh, they hurt. Like I'm not freaked out about the pain. It doesn't scare me anymore. It's just yep, that hurts a little bit. Oh, and then move on. The last time I had surgery when I broke my elbow, I was on opioids for three months.
[09:55] April Pride:
Were you nervous about having—
[09:57] Jennifer Whetzel:
I was totally nervous because I didn't want to take them. I took them for seven days and then I was like I don't need these anymore and I stopped. And I couldn't have—I used to like pills a whole lot and I would get as many as I could. And I didn't need them and it was a relief.
[10:18] April Pride:
That's cool.
[10:20] Jennifer Whetzel:
It was a relief. I think that's the ADHD, the OCD, all of the whatever's. Honestly, my first encounter with pills was when I had my wisdom teeth out and the anesthetic did not work properly. I was kicking and screaming and biting and yelling. And my mother was in the waiting room and the story she tells is, I don't know what they're doing to my daughter. Are they killing her? But no one came. Like, they just left me in there and I cried for a week. I was 14. And they gave me pills and I took them. And I took a lot of them. And then soon I started drinking. And I was a binge drinker off and on, not every day, for decades. For a lot of reasons. Because I was uncomfortable around people. I was tired. I just didn't want to be around people. And so I drank to be comfortable. I also drank to have a hangover so I could rest. Isn't that crazy?
[11:00] April Pride:
Oh, that's interesting. I connect with that. And I didn't know it until right now.
[11:07] Jennifer Whetzel:
I didn't know it either. So I drank for a long time. I took pills for a long time. I had an eating disorder for a long time. I was addicted to dieting and exercise and measuring things—myself, my body, my blood sugar, my ketones. It was a lot and nobody knew.
[11:28] April Pride:
Wow.
[11:29] Jennifer Whetzel:
And I was afraid for people to know.
[11:31] April Pride:
The perfectionism that comes along with [cannabis and ADHD] is...
[11:33] Jennifer Whetzel:
For reals. It's hard. I moved to Maine where I live now so that I could get my medical card. I lived in the Midwest. [Cannabis for healing] was not an option for me, but I knew it was going to help with the pain that I was dealing with.
[11:48] April Pride:
Your medical card for marijuana?
[11:50] Jennifer Whetzel:
A medical card for yes, because I knew it would help with the pain of the actual issues that I had as well as everything else. And once I started smoking cannabis, within a year, I had quit all pharmaceutical pills. I was taking handfuls of medications for the issues that I had on top of the opioids. So I'm off everything except for [cannabis for healing] and [at-home ketamine therapy]. I don't drink anymore. My eating disorder is 100% resolved, which is such a relief.
[12:29] April Pride:
That's incredible that six months you were able to—did you work with anyone?
[12:33] Jennifer Whetzel:
No, I knew it was a problem.
[12:36] April Pride:
Did you work with anyone? Because coming off of so much medication at once can be dangerous.
[12:42] Jennifer Whetzel:
Oh, I tapered everything.
[12:44] April Pride:
Okay. It wasn't the first time you had tried to do something like this, right? And what's the—I have to say, I read an article in Rolling Stone last night that is talking about the number of women who are having their children still taken away from them because their children test positive for cannabis when they're born. And their doctors have told them to consume cannabis because they have morning sickness. They're at the hospital all the time. They're not gaining weight. Their babies aren't gaining weight. And then when their babies are born, they test them. They test positive for THC. They're taken away from them. Or they live in a place like Cleveland where one in every 150 people has died of an opioid overdose. And so they don't want to take pills because they're a mom. And so they opt for cannabis like you did after surgery. And their child is taken away from them. And all I could think was we just don't live in a place—there's just not this real understanding of what [harm reduction strategies] is. And when you think of all the destruction that alcohol does, I can't—I'm still in this place of honestly, I was shocked reading the whole article that [harm reduction strategies], all the language around it, the understanding that we have, the fact that we don't have any clinical evidence that shows that cannabis is—that poor mom is—or in a child's—you know, found in a child during a drug test is actually going to have negative impact. And I'm really in the middle here because I've had my own issues with cannabis use disorder. So I'm not—this is not sugar-coated and that's not—I'm not Pollyanna about all this. But if you're going to choose, why don't you talk about the difference in your life for us when you chose alcohol versus when you chose cannabis? I think if people really understood, you're going to choose something, right? We are who we are.
[14:38] Jennifer Whetzel:
Yes, I am strongly for [harm reduction strategies] and I have my own issues with cannabis use disorder, but I'm going to choose that over every other, including the eating disorder. That eating disorder could have killed me. [Cannabis for healing] isn't going to kill me. To me, alcohol and pills are substances for closing your mind and running away. And I did a lot of that. I did not know how to emote in any sort of way. I did not know how to use my voice. So I, you know, let the alcohol do the talking for me.
[15:11] April Pride:
That doesn't always work out very well.
[15:13] Jennifer Whetzel:
Right.
[15:14] April Pride:
It's a lot louder and angrier than I—as you are.
[15:18] Jennifer Whetzel:
Yes. Cell phones with videos did not exist when I was a young person drinking a lot of alcohol because things would have gone very differently.
[15:26] April Pride:
Yeah.
[15:27] Jennifer Whetzel:
So to me, alcohol and pills make me feel worse. In every sort of way. Yet I still couldn't stop doing them. Once I started with [cannabis for healing], it helped me emote. I cried for me, but the tears kept coming because they were stuck and cannabis helped me let them out. The call was coming from inside my head and I needed to answer it and listen and hear what it was saying. I had to leave my husband and stop being a person. I had to not go back to a corporate job. I had to change my whole life. But I heard the message this time and I took action. [Cannabis for healing] helped me do that and [at-home ketamine therapy] helps me do it even more. [Ketamine for trauma] helps remove the blocks of taking the action. So that I can do the things that my spirit wants, but the flesh—no, I don't want that. Now I can listen. I can listen to what it is that I want and do the things that—I call her future Jennifer. Future Jennifer talks to me and she tells me what she wants. Gives me guidance and I don't always listen. [At-home ketamine therapy] helps me listen to her. And when I do the things that future Jennifer suggests, my life goes better.
[16:39] April Pride:
Yes, there's the future Jennifer. And there's also neurologically what's happening is as we talk about throughout your life, you make decisions, you create these groups in your brain. When this happens, I do this. And so when you go through [ketamine for trauma], you're not just taking time to relax, listening to these live meditations. You're also changing your brain, which allows you to look at things differently and to make different choices.
[17:09] Jennifer Whetzel:
Exactly. Yes. And one of the interesting things is sometimes when I make these new choices and I take the action that was hard before, it feels like I'm having a brain spasm. And then I cry to let out whatever was stuck. And then I can do the thing. Easily. Like the block is gone. And that is very exciting.
[17:29] April Pride:
And that is not while you're under the influence of [at-home ketamine therapy].
[17:32] Jennifer Whetzel:
Like when I had to say something difficult to my partner and in my previous lives, I would have just swallowed it and moved on. And I said the words out loud and I just immediately started crying because it was so not what I would typically do. And now I can do it without any difficulty because I practiced. I took the action. And once you take the action, it breaks the cycle.
[17:57] April Pride:
Yeah. And you do it and you realize, oh, I feel better and things will be better. You take the fear out of it because you actually just do the thing and you are still standing. And if you're ready to dive deeper into the world of [at-home ketamine therapy], be sure to check out the show notes of this episode to link to Set Set's Comprehensive [Ketamine Therapy Guide], a clinician-created resource available in both PDF and audio that covers candidate criteria and dosing, methods of administration, contraindications, science, history, and more. The Set Set website has this resource available for purchase and download, as well as DIY guides for [psilocybin microdosing] and [psilocybin at home]. Thank you for joining me for today's episode. I'm your host, April Pride. If you liked what you heard, please rate and review Set Set wherever you listen. It really does help more people find the show. And a special offer just for our listeners... Enter discount code SHOW20, that's S-H-O-W-2-0, at checkout for 20% off Set Set Psychedelic Cards, our powerful [set and setting] in a box. Check out our show notes for the link and make your next journey extraordinary.
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