What does healing actually look like in the years after a psychedelic experience? Not a straight line, but a spiral. In this first guest episode, Dr Rosalind Watts is in conversation with Ruth, who took part in a psilocybin-for-depression trial and has spent the years since walking the long, slow road of integration.
Ruth had lived with depression for most of her adult life, and had tried most of the conventional routes, when she joined the trial in 2019. She talks about what brought her to it and the two strikingly different sessions she had: one expansive and full of light, and one that was hours of darkness and fear.
But the heart of this conversation is what came after. Ruth went home weeks before COVID lockdown, with her integration circle cancelled and almost no support around her. She talks about the ACER sharing circles that grew out of that time, the somatic practices she tried (some that worked, some that made her furious), and the slow, spiralling, six-year journey since. It is an honest picture of integration as real work, and of how being witnessed by others, and witnessing them, is part of what makes an opening last.
In this episode:
Why Ruth chose a clinical trial over travelling abroad, and what safety made possible
"This is not where you belong, you are trapped here," and finding meaning in the hard journey
Tree meditations, and reconnecting with the living world
Knowledge versus wisdom, and learning to use what she already had
Trying somatic practices and breathwork, and letting some things not work
Being witnessed, reciprocity, and not carrying the whole load alone
Six years on: the ups, the downs, and the spiral
References and links:
The trial Ruth took part in: Trial of Psilocybin versus Escitalopram for Depression (Carhart-Harris, Giribaldi, Watts et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2021). Free summary on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33852780. Full paper: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2032994
If you're interested in taking part in a clinical trial: search current studies on () or, in the UK, the NHS "Be Part of Research" service ()."Trust, let go, be open," the trial's guiding phrase, comes from psychedelic pioneer Bill Richards, in his book Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences.The Watts Connectedness Scale (Watts et al., 2022, open access):
