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.