Watts: Psychedelics produce psychoanalysis-level self-understanding rapidly rather than over a decade
Dr. Rosalind Watts · Researching Psilocybin's Effects on Depression - Dr. Rosalind Watts · Y Combinator · Mar 15, 2018 · at 45:58
Dr. Rosalind Watts, a clinical psychologist at Imperial College London researching psilocybin for depression, discusses how psychedelic therapy compares to traditional psychoanalysis and cognitive behavioral therapy.
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“Psychedelics are a bit more like psychoanalysis and that it's learning to understand, understanding yourself much, much better in a very deep way and making changes. And whereas with psychoanalysis it might be a bit more gradual, that people might get to know each other much better over say 10 years of analysis and many, many thousands and thousands of pounds spent on it. They might start to understand themselves better and make those changes. With psychedelics it can suddenly seem a bit more, you know, revolutionary.”
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More from Dr. Rosalind Watts
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“It seems to, for most people last for about two or three months and then the depression starts to come back.”
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Watts: Psilocybin deactivates brain regions driving negative rumination loops
“And the key finding was that psilocybin seems to deactivate the part of your mind or brain that is responsible for ruminating, for negative thinking on a loop.”
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“You know, as a short-term thing to get people through a crisis time, I think sometimes it can be really helpful, and for some people it works, but for a lot of people it's a short-term fix that doesn't really change the causes of the depression.”