Discovering my anchor.

I walked into my first ever Spravato® session with a last minute thrown together playlist. I went the ambient route and brought along Brian Eno, a bit of Sigur Ros, and tracks from Spotify's "Relaxing Music" playlist. I thought this would be sufficient. This was incorrect.

Not due to the music selection, but due to lack of thought around the function of music during an esketamine session. I thought this would be background music for some deep focus studying… this is incorrect.

Some twenty minutes in a track I somewhat pointedly relate to a grief period came on. This drug does not fuck around. I was defenseless. The track blasted me into that grief, and I spent the next fifteen minutes somewhere I definitely did not want to be.

It ended up being a good session but it taught me something I have always remembered since that first time; during Spravato® treatment, music is not background. It's a guide. And if you don't choose your guide carefully, it will take you somewhere you didn't plan to go. — Justin Page

An anchor, in the context of esketamine treatment, is something that keeps you in the therapeutic space without pulling you to a particular memory, emotion, or narrative. An anchor is present but modest; it does not dominate the therapeutic space. It allows the medicine to act in the space without dictating the session.

A suitable anchor is therapeutic music. However, not all music is therapeutic. Consideration should be made when choosing music to be an anchor.

The qualities of most successful anchor music include: slow, repetitive, and simple without a clear beat or strong personal connotation. It feels outside of time. Music that is an anchor can be entered at any time.

Anchor music that is unsuccessful has a clear narrative or personal connotation.

Finding an anchor in the music took several sessions. I explored different genres and different levels of simplicity in the music. I documented my impressions after each session (not formal notes). 'Too many sounds.' 'It was great the first twenty minutes then suddenly it changed and I had it no more.' 'This composer gets it.'

Eventually, I came to slow, contemporary classical music along with a type of ambient electronic music. The kind of music that uses textures and atmospheres over melodies and rhythms. Max Richter, Nils Frahm, Stars of the Lid, to name a few. So, the likes of Brian Eno and Harold Budd. Music that is more like the weather than a story.

I realized that all of this is about transitions. A gap between two tracks, no matter how much I liked them, could interrupt the flow. So, I learned to make lists with a crossfade, and a natural progression of tracks in each list.