Psychological safety is a term particularly popularised by Amy Edmonson, Professor of Leadership & Management at Harvard Business School ... https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/profile.aspx?facId=6451. She defines it as a shared belief among members of a team that it is safe to take interpersonal risks. This includes speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes without fear of punishment or humiliation. She describes it as “felt permission for candor,” meaning individuals feel it is expected and valued to express themselves openly, even in hierarchical situations. Edmondson emphasizes that psychological safety is a group-level phenomenon shaped by team norms and dynamics. It enables learning, innovation, and collaboration by fostering an environment where individuals are willing to engage despite uncertainties or doubts.

            "Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel."

"This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man."         Both quotations by Polonius in Shakespeare's "Hamlet"

“ The most important thing is caring, so do it first, for the caring physician best inspires hope and trust. ” - Sir William Osler

     Psychedelics: a group retreat - the ceremony, integration & follow-up

                     "Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow-ripening fruit."   Aristotle 

The previous posts in this sequence are 'Psychedelics: a group retreat - initial thoughts' and 'Psychedelics: a group retreat - meeting up, orientation & the ceremony'.  

“

I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.

” - E. B. White

     Psychedelics: a group retreat - lessons: playlists, nature & integration

“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.”  Albert Einstein

           “After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”  Aldous Huxley

“ Everything is, and almost bursts with being so. ” - Anonymous

Psychedelics: a group retreat - lessons: ceremonies, duration & organisation

"And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been."   Rainer Maria Rilke 

“ There is more to life than increasing its speed. ” - Gandhi

     Psychedelics: a group retreat - meeting up, orientation & the ceremony

"Today we can walk around together, talk, eat, and be silent together.  Later I believe we'll have the opportunity to act and suffer together.  All that is necessary to 'make someone's acquaintance' as they say."  Pierre Sogol, professor of mountaineering, speaking in Rene Daumal's book "Mount Analogue". 

'Breaking Convention' - the fifth biennial international conference on psychedelics - took place at Greenwich University in London from 16th-18th August.  There were apparently 1,200 or so attendees for the 6 concurrent programmes - academic, workshop, performance, cinema, entertainment & installations - as well as an art exhibition.  I went primarily because it allowed me to hear pretty much all the relevant research groups in the UK present on their current findings.  As you can see from the other quite extensive writing about psychedelics on this website, I'm very interested in the encouraging emerging research highlighting potential therapeutic value of psychedelics.  Although I focussed on the academic programme, there was much too much even here to manage an ove

“

One shouldn’t complicate things for the pleasure of complicating, but one should also never simplify or pretend to be sure of such simplicity where there is none. If things were simple, word would have gotten around.

” - Jacques Derrida

   Social networks: social identity & the importance of both formal & informal groups (what can we do?)

key points: 

the social identity model highlights the value of group membership (more & less formal) for both psychological & physical wellbeing - are there groups you would like to join (or initiate) and are there helpful ways you can increase the sense of the importance to you of some of the groups you're a member of (for example by increasing your involvement with them).

I run an annual five day training for counselling psychology students on facilitating groups.  I'm using this blog post to upload some of the slides.  For example here's a collection on the current state of psychotherapy & some suggestions on potentially helpful ways of moving forward.  

More to follow! ...

                      (this blog post is freely downloadable as a Word doc and as a PDF file)