Dr Ros Watts – Building Communities and Connection

Psilocybin therapy clinical psychologist Dr. Ros Watts links psychedelic connectedness with the need for long-term support, arguing that insight fades without integration. Watts discusses her decade of work, including her role as clinical lead for Imperial College London’s psilocybin-for-depression trial, and frames connectedness to self, others, and nature as both a healing mechanism and a human necessity. She emphasizes community-based integration as psychological and ecological resilience, proposing practical models like her “Twelve Trees” framework and her 13-month ACER Integration program (Accept, Connect, Embody, Restore) to help people weave psychedelic learnings into everyday life. The conversation also covers what makes a community “safe” without dogma, including values, freedom, curiosity, diversity, and mutual care, with integration and harm reduction positioned as core principles for the psychedelic space.