Robin Carhart-Harris

What are you controlling?

So it is more really what the staff do, the quality of their preparation ahead of a dosing session, the quality of the way they hold the space and provide compassionate support if necessary.

needed during a dosing session because the support is typically quite hands-off.

It's quite indirect.

It's more like a holding rather than something directive.

There's often quite little talking going on, so it's not traditional psychotherapy.

It's not traditional talking therapy in the session itself.

But it is in the prep and it is in what we call the integration, which is the therapy, the psychological support that comes after the dosing session.

It might come the next day.

It might come the next week.

And plus maybe one or two sessions on top of that is how we tend to do it in the field.

So we do control that quality of psychological support, both its amount and its quality.

And we have a protocol to follow for that.

We control music listening as a variable.

We either have it on or off.

With colleagues, we've referred to music as a hidden therapist because the sessions are so non-directive.

You ask the question, well,

Is there any nudging, any coaxing going on here?

The music can be quite an overwhelming experience.

It gets enhanced in its emotionally evocative properties.