Chris Salway graduated from Leicester University Medical School in 1989, after completion of his pre-registration year he left Medicine for 4 years joining the ranks of the “new age travellers” living in a truck in England and Ireland. In 1994, he returned to work in Medicine, he initially worked in general medicine and emergency medicine in London and then in 1996 he moved to Somerset where he completed his General Practice training and he then worked as a GP for 2 years.
In the year 2000 he made a lateral career move and became a trainee in psychiatry. He has worked in the NHS as a psychiatrist for over 20 years. During this time, he has worked in a variety of settings in in-patients, community services and secure services. In addition to his NHS work he worked for 10 years, between 2008 and 2018, as a visiting psychiatrist at a residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation unit in Weston-Super-Mare.
In psychiatry his particularly interests have been substance misuse and psychotic disorders. He doesn’t hold with the medical model for understanding and treatment of mental health problems. In 2016 he completed the NHS training for Open Dialogue, a systemic approach to treating mental health problems involving someone’s social network. His most recent job in the NHS was with the community mental health team in Torquay which has been one of the sites of a multi-site Randomised Control Trial comparing Open Dialogue to treatment as usual.
Chris Salway joined Exeter’s transdisciplinary psychedelic colloquium in 2022. He has previously presented at Breaking Convention as his interest in the therapeutic potential of psychedelics goes back many years. He has worked for a medical cannabis clinic and in 2016 provided medical cover for an LSD study. More recently he has also provided medical cover for ketamine assisted psychotherapy at Awakn clinics and is now involved with psychedelic research at Exeter University.
