Nearly 1 in 2 of us in the UK will face cancer in our lifetime. This month, Dr Rosalind Watts opens the territory of cancer, not the medicine, but the loneliness, the fear, the missing village, and the connection that can hold us through it. In this first episode, Ros sets out the ground for the month and shares a personal story. Her cousin Tom was diagnosed with a rare cancer at ten and died at 13. His mother, Ros's aunt Amelia, speaks about walking him through it, the night he died, the community that held her, and a connection to him that has never ended. Please note: this episode holds the story of a child who died of cancer. If you have lost a child or are going through serious illness with someone you love, please go gently and see the support resources below.

Amelia's shared crossing
Witnessing part of Tom's journey as he died is what researchers call a shared death experience. Her account is part of the work of the Shared Crossing Project, founded by William Peters, whose book is At Heaven's Door (2022): https://www.sharedcrossing.com

The prayer Ros mentions: The reimagined feminine Hail Mary comes from Way of the Rose, by Perdita Finn and Clark Strand and the community they founded: https://wayoftherose.org. The words Ros says are her own remembered version.

References

UK lifetime risk (Cancer Research UK): https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics
The Watts Connectedness Scale (2022): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-022-06187-5
Psilocybin for cancer distress, 2016 trials: Johns Hopkins, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0269881116675513, and NYU, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5367551/
MD Anderson psilocybin nerve-damage trial: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT07227909
Katherine MacLean's Being Ground: https://www.katherinemaclean.org

Support lines
Cruse Bereavement Support (UK): 0808 808 1677. The Compassionate Friends, for bereaved parents (UK and US): tcf.org.uk, compassionatefriends.org. Macmillan Cancer Support (UK): 0808 808 00 00. CancerCare bereavement counselling (US): 1-800-813-4673.
In crisis: Samaritans (UK) 116 123. In the US, call or text 988.

ACER Integration: https://acerintegration.com/
Submit a question for the Q&A episode: https://forms.gle/jVcGniTN3uS1bjz18

Next week: Ros is in conversation with ACER members Rebekah, who is living with metastatic breast cancer, and Kim, whose son survived cancer. Both describe psychedelic experiences that helped them find connection in the hardest times.

Michelle Baker-Jones is a relational psychotherapist and psychedelic guide who worked alongside Ros on the first Imperial psilocybin-for-depression trial. In this conversation: attachment, friendship and loss, the wounded healer, what's being lost as psychedelic therapy scales, and finding sanctuary in trees.

The trials & the film

• Magic Medicine (2018, dir. Monty Wates)- the documentary following the 1st Imperial psilocybin-for-depression trial: magicmedicine.net · Netflix
• The Watts Connectedness Scale: overview and manual: drrosalindwatts.com/watts-connectedness-scale · validation paper (Watts et al., Psychopharmacology, 2022): link.springer.com
• The ACE model: the prep-and-integration approach Michelle refers to building on (Watts & Luoma, 2020) and access to 'pearl dive' the visualisation made from the ACE model- to prepare for a psychedelic experience: https://www.drrosalindwatts.com/pearl-dive

Ideas & terms we mentioned

• IFS (Internal Family Systems): therapeutic model developed by Richard Schwartz: ifs-institute.com
• Attachment styles: Bowlby's four patterns and the Adult Attachment Interview
• The wounded healer: the Jungian archetype Michelle names.
• Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner & Richard Alpert, The Psychedelic Experience (1964)
• Druidry: the Bardic and Ovate training Michelle is undertaking, through the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids (OBOD) https://druidry.org/

The wider context

• Trump's executive order on psychedelic therapy (18 April 2026), which Ros references alongside concurrent healthcare cuts: White House order · plain-English explainer: TIME

ACER & staying connected

• ACER Integration: https://acerintegration.com/
• Submit a question for a future Q&A episode: https://forms.gle/JgJaAjDRbowAcyWZ9

  
  If you are living with the kind of heavy depression Ruth describes, you do not have to sit in it alone. Samaritans volunteers are there any time. In the UK, call 116 123. In the US, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

What does healing actually look like in the years after a psychedelic experience? Not a straight line, but a spiral. In this first guest episode, Dr Rosalind Watts is in conversation with Ruth, who took part in a psilocybin-for-depression trial and has spent the years since walking the long, slow road of integration.

Ruth had lived with depression for most of her adult life, and had tried most of the conventional routes, when she joined the trial in 2019. She talks about what brought her to it and the two strikingly different sessions she had: one expansive and full of light, and one that was hours of darkness and fear.

But the heart of this conversation is what came after. Ruth went home weeks before COVID lockdown, with her integration circle cancelled and almost no support around her. She talks about the ACER sharing circles that grew out of that time, the somatic practices she tried (some that worked, some that made her furious), and the slow, spiralling, six-year journey since. It is an honest picture of integration as real work, and of how being witnessed by others, and witnessing them, is part of what makes an opening last.

In this episode:
Why Ruth chose a clinical trial over travelling abroad, and what safety made possible
"This is not where you belong, you are trapped here," and finding meaning in the hard journey
Tree meditations, and reconnecting with the living world
Knowledge versus wisdom, and learning to use what she already had
Trying somatic practices and breathwork, and letting some things not work
Being witnessed, reciprocity, and not carrying the whole load alone
Six years on: the ups, the downs, and the spiral

References and links:
The trial Ruth took part in: Trial of Psilocybin versus Escitalopram for Depression (Carhart-Harris, Giribaldi, Watts et al., New England Journal of Medicine, 2021). Free summary on PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33852780. Full paper: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2032994
If you're interested in taking part in a clinical trial: search current studies on ClinicalTrials.gov (https://clinicaltrials.gov) or, in the UK, the NHS "Be Part of Research" service (https://bepartofresearch.nihr.ac.uk).
"Trust, let go, be open," the trial's guiding phrase, comes from psychedelic pioneer Bill Richards, in his book Sacred Knowledge: Psychedelics and Religious Experiences.
The Watts Connectedness Scale (Watts et al., 2022, open access): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-022-06187-5

If you are living with the kind of heavy depression Ruth describes, you do not have to sit in it alone. Samaritans volunteers are there any time. In the UK, call 116 123. In the US, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
ACER Integration: https://acerintegration.com/
Submit a question for a future Q&A episode: https://forms.gle/JgJaAjDRbowAcyWZ9

Next week: Ros is in conversation with Michelle Baker Jones, the colleague she started those pandemic sharing circles with, a therapist on multiple psychedelic trials, with her own story of disconnection and connection.