The study findings were published a few weeks back and the response has been
supportive and positive. Even the Daily Mail and The Sun newspapers run a good
balanced story. Some of the headlines were silly though. It was also covered in
across the internet and more alternative media. My friend Ian (also a participant)was interviewed for Buzzfeed.com about his experience on the study.
There was also a feature on the study shown on BBC's Newnight where another
participant was able to give his account of the experience and even showed some
footage from the session. I Discussed the coverage with another trial percipient
and we were both pleasantly surprised at the avoidance of sensualist headlines
and basic scaremongering we were both expecting.
and basic scaremongering we were both expecting.
I was interviewed for Sky news. They asked if I would be willing to be interviewed
live. I declined. That felt like a bit too much pressure and I was fairly nervous about
doing the interview anyway. They asked for a photo of my mother, I obliged. They
wanted to film me looking at it and I read this as "lets try and make him cry during
the interview. I didn't cry. I was not even choked up slightly like I expected to be.
They showed the photo of my mother in the segment. That was a nice touch.
Later on the same day I interviewed for a slot covering the study on ITV news,
shown at 10:30pm that night. I managed to see both pieces aired on the same day.
The editing turn-a-round is so quick. I felt a tad weird putting all of it "out there".
Talking about the grief and how I felt. I re-edited in my head what I should
have said, afterwards on the way home.
Just over a week later I was filmed by another documentary / film making
company called Ideo Films. They were very nice and we spent more time going
through the details of before, during and after the Psilocybin trial. I got a little choked
up going though it all again. I wish I hadn't and feel a little apprehensive about the
outcome of that piece but will have to wait and see.
I was also interviewed for a Danish TV show, DR TV. Once again they were very
nice. We met David Erritzoes and we were filmed reminiscing about the study whilstlooking at some of the videos Robin had recorded on my phone, for this blog.
David mentioned a really good talk by Bill Richards titled "Promise of psychedelics
in medicine" from a recent conference he attended in Amsterdam, with Robin.
Robin Carhart-Harris also gave a talk covering the recent Psilocybin study.
I'm moving house in just over 2 weeks time.
