Chris Salway is a consultant psychiatrist and has worked in psychiatry for more than 20 years, having previously trained and worked as a General Practitioner. During this time his particular interest has been in working with people who have been assigned a diagnosis of a psychotic disorder. He is interested in alternative approaches to psychosis including a model called “Open Dialogue” and he is a member of Compassionate Mental Health, an organisation which is trying to develop a different approach for helping those experiencing mental distress.
He is currently working part-time at Exeter University, where he is involved with several psychedelic studies.
Colloquium Presentation: 23 February 2024 3:30-5pm (speaking in person)
Title: Psychosis and Psychedelics
Chris Salway will firstly give a brief history of psychiatry and how biological psychiatry has become the dominant voice over recent decades. He will then go on to explore what is meant by the term psychosis.
He will discuss the relationship between psychosis and psychedelics. The idea of psychedelics being a psychotomimetic and the concerns about the risk of psychedelics inducing psychosis. In the future, he argues that a history of psychosis should not be an absolute contraindication to the use of psychedelic assisted therapy.