The Importance of Connection in Western Cultures

Today I have the treat of speaking with Dr Ros Watts - a clinical psychologist, a mother, and a passionate nature lover. Having worked as the Clinical Lead for Imperial College London’s pioneering psilocybin trial, and then as the Clinical Director at Synthesis Institute, Ros is one of the most prominent and experienced voices in the field of psychedelic research today. She has been named one of the 50 Most Influential People in Psychedelics and one of the Top 16 Women Shaping the Future of Psychedelics, and it is her focus on integration, harm-reduction and inclusion in the psychedelic space that makes Ros’s work so unique in this field. With a recently published a paper providing a validated scale for assessing psychological connectedness in a broad sense, Ros has designed The Watts Connectedness Scale as a clinical, practical tool for measuring our sense of connectedness to ourselves, to others, and to the living world. Ros has a desire to help people cultivate connectedness especially after psychedelic experiences, and it is from this place that she has created an integration community called ACER Integration, which aims to provide experiential education around how to integrate singular experiences into the wider collective and how to connect more deeply to life and one another, in all our relational complexity and richness. Recorded on 16th Nov 2022.