Dear Reader,
We hope you had a joyful Easter, whether spent with friends, family, loved ones, or simply in good company with yourself. Some of our team had the pleasure of attending the Breaking Convention Conference in Exeter—thank you to everyone who stopped by to connect and learn more about our work!
Now, just three days to go: On April 26, we’ll gather at Charles University in Prague for the next uniMIND Symposium. Co-created by students and researchers across Europe, this early career conference brings together top minds in psychedelic science with young researchers, including Prof. Albert Garcia-Romeu, Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins University). A few last-minute tickets are still available—why not make a weekend of it in one of Europe’s most beautiful cities, Prague?
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Thinking about becoming a psychedelic therapist in our eighth training cohort? We put a sound evidence base to our training, skills training for increased clinical flexibility, epistemological openness, a no-bullshit and a learning-from-many masters approach (D. Orlinsky).
Hear why our alumni chose APT: Watch the video
Applications are now open for our next international course in November 2025 —apply here.
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uniMIND Central Session with Abigail Calder, Wed. 23 April
Join us for the next uniMIND Central Session tonight with Abigail Calder, PhD candidate in medical neuroscience at the University of Freiburg and research coordinator at ALPS Foundation in Geneva. She will present her study on depression and psychedelic-assisted therapy.
Join this free uniMIND event
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uniMIND Symposium in Prague, Saturday 26 April
The third uniMIND Symposium will take place this Saturday! With international experts and emerging voices, we'll discuss the future of psychedelics in science, therapy, and society. Far from all, there'll be interactive formats and many chances for networking.
Program, tickets and details here
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Franz Vollenweider @ INSIGHT Forum, Tuesday 15 May
Our next INSIGHT Forum event (EN) features Prof. Dr. med. Franz Vollenweider, one of the world’s most influential psychedelic researchers since the 1990s. He will examine the brain’s activity during psychedelic experiences and how these effects relate to practices like mindfulness meditation.
Get your tickets here
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Click here to add the MIND Foundation events calendar to your calendar
Art: Van Gogh's loneliness [The New Criterion]
In A Fire in His Soul, Miles J. Unger unpacks Van Gogh’s Paris years, the era when the artist ditched gloomy potatoes for bright brushstrokes and Montmartre cafés.
Turns out, even in a city bursting with color and creativity, Van Gogh couldn’t quite find his people. He evolved his art at lightning speed, but his social life? Less “bohemian rhapsody,” more “everyone’s avoiding me at the art party.”
Unger shows us how Vincent’s eternal quest for creative camaraderie kept ending in emotional faceplants. He wanted a brotherhood of painters — what he got was more of a solo exhibition in loneliness.
By 1888, Van Gogh packed up his paintbrushes and heartbreak and fled south to Arles — chasing warmth and isolation in equal measure. And the rest, including a certain ear incident, is art history.
Mental Health: The Certainties of Therapy-Speak Are Contributing to Our Social Collapse [Mad in America]
You’ve probably seen it: “trauma bonding,” “gaslighting,” “holding space” — it’s the language of TikTok gurus, HR slides, and people who “just need to set a boundary.” But a new paper argues that all this feel-good lingo might be... not so good.
Researchers Bandinelli and Pinzón Arteaga say we’ve traded real introspection for Instagrammable self-diagnosis. Instead of questioning the world, therapy-speak helps us adapt to it, even if the world is what’s hurting us.
What do they want? A deeper, messier, more critical kind of therapy — one that resists becoming just another wellness buzzword.
Science: Molecular design of a therapeutic LSD analogue with reduced hallucinogenic potential [PNAS]
Researchers designed (+)-JRT, a novel LSD analogue with reduced hallucinogenic effects but allegedly with “a wide range of therapeutic effects”. It is supposed to promote cortical neuron growth, improve mood and cognition in rodent models, and avoid behavioral and genetic markers of psychosis. The researchers hope this compound may offer a safe, effective treatment for conditions like depression and schizophrenia, where traditional psychedelics are contraindicated.
Science: The stagnation of physics [Aeon]
After decades of chasing cosmic truths, physics is stuck in what some might describe as a ‘sciencey soul-searching spiral’. From dark matter to multiverses, physicists keep throwing bigger machines and wilder theories at the universe with little in return.
Sociologist Adrien De Sutter says maybe the real problem isn’t the cosmos but our obsession with finding one final truth. Instead of clinging to a “theory of everything,” maybe it’s time to embrace a pluriverse of many realities—some empirical, some emotional, some spiritual—and admit that physics might not have all the answers. Or, as Ursula Le Guin might say, we need “the realists of a larger reality.”
Mental Health: The promise of diagnosis: how it can open a door to true self-understanding [The Guardian]
Diagnosis: friend or full stop? Psychotherapist Moya Sarner says it’s not the end of your story, it’s page one. Labels like ADHD or depression can bring relief, but don’t let them shut down curiosity. Real healing? That takes time, therapy, and a bit of “standing under” your feelings.
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“All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.”
- William Shakespeare, written around 1599.
“All the world’s a stage,” he wrote. And centuries later, we’re still playing along. From student to scholar, thinker to therapist, we each perform many roles in the grand drama of life. Shakespeare’s timeless line reminds us that identity isn’t a fixed script, but a fluid performance. As we step into new acts—academic or otherwise—let’s embrace the stage, exits, entrances, and all.
In remembrance of Shakespeare, born April 23, 1564.
Shakespeare also passed away on April 23.
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Wishing you a lovely fortnight,
The MIND Team
