DOSED2: The Trip of A Lifetime Q&A panel, Sydney, 23–04-2023

This Q&A panel was recorded at the premiere screening of DOSED2 at Dendy, Newtown with guest speakers; Jonathan Brett, Steve Albert & Vince Polito and hosted by APS’ Jef Baker.

Jonathan Brett

Dr Jonathan Brett is a senior staff specialist in clinical toxicology and addiction medicine at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, clinical director of the Psychiatry and Non-Prescription Drug and Alcohol Unit and a clinical toxicologist with the NSW Poison’s Information Centre.
He has fellowships with the Royal Australian College of Physicians in clinical pharmacology, toxicology and addiction medicine. He is a conjoint Associate Professor with St. Vincent’s Clinical School, UNSW and a Senior NHMRC Research Fellow with the Medicines Policy Unit of Centre for Big Data Research in Health, UNSW. He is the chief investigator on a pilot study of psilocybin facilitated psychotherapy (PP) for methamphetamine use disorder (MAUD), the first PP study of addiction in Australia and the first for MAUD worldwide. He is also the chief investigator on a trial of PP for treatment resistant depression and chief medical advisor for a study of psilocybin microdosing for depression. He completed his PhD in biostatistics in 2018 with a focus on the use of big data measure the quality use of psychotropics in mental health and has a research interest in psychopharmacology.

Vince Polito

Dr Vince Polito is a Senior Lecturer from the School of Psychological Sciences at Macquarie University and had won awards for his work as well as published 44 journal articles and numerous features in popular press.
Vince has a keen interest in understanding how altered states of consciousness can impact on cognition and mental health, and he and his students have studied hypnosis, states of flow, meditation, yoga, chanting, virtual reality, religious rituals and psychosis.
Vince is best known for his work in psychedelics, conducting the first longitudinal study of microdosing, which has become the most cited paper on the subject to date. He is developing a psychedelic research program at Macquarie that includes the world’s first magnetoencephalography (MEG) study of microdosing, and is leading Australia’s largest psychedelic clinical trial, which will investigate low doses of psilocybin as a potential treatment for depression.

Steve Albert

Steve Albert is a psychologist in private practice, adjunct senior lecturer at UNSW School of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine University of NSW and casual lecturer at Department of Psychology Faculty of Medicine, Health and Human Sciences Macquarie University and Honorary Research Investigator at St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney.
His therapeutic orientation includes acceptance and commitment therapies, treatments for PTSD, psychodynamic parts-based therapies and humanistic and transpersonal psychotherapeutic approaches.
His Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapy research roles include:
• Research investigator and lead therapist, and trainer in two psilocybin psychedelic assisted psychotherapy (PAP) clinical trials being held at St Vincent’s hospital in Sydney (One for methamphetamine abuse disorder and one for treatment resistant depression).
*Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) trained therapist in upcoming Monash, Clinical Psychedelic Lab’s clinical trials using MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for severe PTSD.
*Training assistant in the upcoming Australian MAPS delivered MDMA-assisted Therapist Training Program in collaboration with the Clinical Psychedelic Lab at Monash University.