Psychedelics have an ancient and more recent history of medicinal-use. Administered in a supportive environment, with preparatory and integrative psychological care, psychedelic medicines are now being used to facilitate emotional breakthrough and renewed perspective.

Indeed, a growing body of research is indicating that these medicines, when provided with accompanying psychological support, can be used safely to treat a range of psychiatric conditions, such as end-of-life anxiety and depression, alcohol and tobacco addiction, obsessive compulsive disorder, and most recently, treatment-resistant major depression. This talk, from Robin Carhart-Harris, PhD, will detail his latest fascinating research on psilocybin for depression, as well as the results of his brain imaging work with other psychedelics.

Dr Robin Carhart-Harris heads the Psychedelic Research Group at Imperial College London, where he moved to in 2008 after obtaining a PhD in Psychopharmacology from the University of Bristol and an MA in Psychoanalysis from Brunel University. At Imperial, he has conducted and overseen human brain imaging studies of the effects of LSD, psilocybin (magic mushrooms), MDMA and DMT (ayahuasca), plus a clinical trial of psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression.

As of November 2018, he will be Associate Professor at the University of Oxford, where he will lead a new Centre for Psychedelic Research. Three of his papers ranked within the top 100 most impactful scientific papers of the year, over the last two years. His work has been featured in the Independent, New Scientist and Wired magazine.

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Robin’s research centre: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/psychedelic-research-centre

Follow Robin on twitter: @RCarhartHarris