Back in 2016, Rosalind Watts volunteered to work on one of Imperial College London’s early trials investigating psilocybin for depression. She had previously spent several years as a clinical psychologist with the UK’s National Health Service and quickly saw the incredible potential for psychedelics to help people with mental health problems. By the following year, Watts had abandoned her conventional healthcare work, joining the Imperial team and evangelizing the benefits of these miraculous medicines.
Psilocybin is one of several psychedelic drugs currently being explored as treatments for a variety of mental health issues. These drugs, which also include LSD, DMT and adjacent compounds like MDMA and ketamine, can give users profound shifts in perception, both during a dose session and in the weeks or months following. This particular consciousness-altering aspect to the drugs means patients can require more therapeutic support than they would if they were receiving conventional psychiatric medications.
