PT423 – Dr. Rosalind Watts – The Watts Connectedness Scale, The Importance of Elders, and What We Can Learn From Trees
Psychedelics Today
Psychedelics Today, LLC
4.6 • 598 Ratings
🗓️ 14 July 2023
⏱️ 100 minutes
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Summary
In this episode, David interviews Dr. Rosalind Watts: famed clinical psychologist, former clinical lead on Imperial College London's first Psilocybin for Depression trial, and Founder of ACER Integration.
She discusses the awakening she had after having a child; her work at Imperial College and realizing the importance of staying in touch with patients; the challenges of balancing her work with being a mother; her ACER integration model and the interconnectedness of trees in a forest; how the Watts Connectedness Scale works (and David fills it out); and how much the outside-the-hype surrounding pieces matter – the therapy, the therapeutic relationship, the lessons learned, and the work done to integrate it all.
And she talks about another moment of awakening, at last year's Psych Summit conference, where capitalism's obsession with profit-over-care frameworks and "magic bullet" and "brain reset" narratives was on full display, which fully enforced what she hopes for in the future: a world where we embrace non-clinical, ceremonial, and nature-based practices; with healing centers (psychedelic and non); supportive communities; infrastructure around conflict resolution and restorative justice; and a shift towards collectivism and collaboration – and how that all starts by finding our psychedelic elders.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello there, everybody. |
| 0:12.1 | Lovely to have you at Psychedelic. |
| 0:13.9 | Today, I'm David Drabkin, and in our episode today, I'm in conversation with Dr. Rosalind |
| 0:19.1 | Watts, someone I really connected with over our |
| 0:23.6 | podcast four years ago, listening as I was shoveling snow in New Jersey. And that is one of the |
| 0:29.1 | moments in my life where I just thought I have to change my jobs and, yeah, learn more about |
| 0:33.4 | making a career out of psychedelics. So it was great to come full circle then. Just chat about so many |
| 0:38.7 | different things around her work at Imperial College on psilocybin trials, obviously, but also her |
| 0:44.5 | work as a mum and caring for her daughter and that role and how that's transitioned through |
| 0:50.1 | a few different stages. Being a clinical psychologist and how that relates to clinical trials. |
| 0:55.8 | And I also ask her that question, are you a medicine woman? So listen out for that one. |
| 1:00.5 | The importance of nature and elders and her A-C-E-R community, accept, connect, embody, restore. |
| 1:08.0 | Love that. Check out the website and if you're into trees, a lot of wisdom is there. |
| 1:12.8 | I also completed the What's Connectedness Scale and then we analyze my scores and I got a bit of |
| 1:20.5 | free therapy with Dr. Watts there. And one final thing that I love from Ros, she's talking about her experiences in the psychedelic |
| 1:29.4 | circus, as I call it, going to do a TED talk about the wonders of psychedelics and she realizes |
| 1:35.9 | now that there was a bit too much hype in how she was speaking and she's now got a lot more |
| 1:41.1 | humility and just focused on community. |
| 1:48.5 | And perversely, looking at some of the folks in the space around the more extractive corporate size of the psychedelic worlds and feeling a bit of disdain is what I picked up there. |
| 1:54.5 | And I definitely resonate with that as well. |
| 1:57.1 | Before we jump into that, I want to just remind everybody, |
| 1:59.8 | if you haven't yet liked and |
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