Lori: [00:00:06] Windhorse is our innate ability to uplift ourselves in our environment by giving rise to a positive energy that is both relaxed and disciplined. Since 1981, Windhorse Community Services has integrated this understanding with modern conventional therapies, meditation and contemplative traditions in the development of at home whole person mental health recovery. Windhorse Journal is dedicated to the mission of communicating decades of clinical and personal experience to professionals, educators, students and anyone seeking recovery options. Please join the dialog! [00:00:45][39.0]
Elysa: [00:00:48] Welcome to Windhorse journal entry 80. This is the first of a 14 part series that will dive into basic attendance on a Windhorse team. Throughout this series, we will have conversations with staff members representing each of the roles at Windhorse Community Services. This first recording provides a general overview of basic attendance and relational medicine. The group discusses important overarching themes of therapeutic relationships, as well as an anecdotal experience from a Windhorse clinician. Thank you for listening. [00:01:19][30.8]
Chuck: [00:01:21] Welcome everyone to this podcast of the Windhorse Journal, and I’m your host, Chuck, Knapp. Today’s conversation is the first of a series focusing on the clinical practice of basic attendance, which is the primary therapeutic activity within the Windhorse approach. I’m so pleased to be joined here by this distinguished group of Windhorse clinicians, and I will now introduce you all. Laura Ann Samuelson has worked as a team counselor at Windhorse Community Services and as a basic attendant at Windhorse Elder Care since June 2021. They hold an MFA in dance from the University of Colorado Boulder and are currently an artist in residence at Red Line Contemporary Arts Center in Denver. They are also a certified practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method, a form of somatic education that helps individuals find a greater sense of skeletal connection ease, and freedom in movement. Connor Hollingsworth moved from Chicago to Boulder in 2014 in order to pursue a master’s in music at the University of Colorado. At that time, he began a nearly two year tenure as a housemate with Windhorse Community Services and has since moved on to team counselor and assistant team leader roles. The philosophy and contemplative approach of WCS has proven to be a thoroughly harmonious counterpoint to his parallel career as a freelance musician. When Conner is not performing with symphony orchestras and jazz ensembles throughout the front range, he enjoys exploring the spectacular hiking opportunities that the nearby landscapes offer. Jeremy Ellis is a team leader and assistant team leader at Windhorse. He began his journey at Windhorse Community Services as a housemate in 2015. He enjoys a variety of contemplative and creative practices and is currently obsessed with his new Instant Pot. Jeremy, what is an Instant Pot? “Oh, it’s it’s a newfangled version of a pressure cooker.” OK. That’s great. Kathy Emery is a graduate of the Naropa University’s East-West psychology program in 1980, which then it was the institute. We remember that one has been actively working with Windhorse approach to treatment and care since its inception in 1981, when it was first called Maitri Psychological Services. She’s currently employed with Windhorse Elder Care and Windhorse Community Services as a team supervisor and psychotherapist. She’s also a senior teacher of the approach and feels a lifelong commitment to bring the contemplative view and practice of care and therapy into her work with individuals and groups, as well as through teaching and writing. Kathy, you are one of the co-founders of the whole Catastrophe, and we’ve been fortunate to work together for a long time. Nice. That’s nice of you to be part of that because you were actually part of the group that developed basic intelligence. So. Jack Gipple, Jack is our clinical services manager here at Windhorse Community Services. And you earned your Masters in Transpersonal Psychology in 1991 and have worked extensively with families, couples, individuals with issues related to behavioral and substance addictions, as well as a wide range of mental health challenges. You’ve taught at the Neroca contemplative psychology department for a long time. You, you were affiliated with the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless since 1992. You’ve had your hand in writing some very nice pieces on the Windhorse approach. And you also have taught Taichi since 1985, and you are a top bar beekeeper, pinhole photographer Yogi Gardner from orchardist, father and husband. So thank you again. All for being here, and I’m going to start us off with a quick about three minute overview on what we’ll be doing today. That’s going to be followed up by the story that Lauren, you’re going to be presenting about being on a basic attendance ship with a client. The Windhorse approaches health based, meaning that we understand all people to be fundamentally sane and inclined to return to health and balance when the right conditions are present. In this view, confusion or extreme mental states, or some use the term mental illness or temporary obstacles more like clouds that may obscure the brilliance of the Sun. But just as the Sun is never diminished by clouds, likewise our sanity is not diminished by our confusion. So it’s always there as our deepest ally. We know this can really sound like wishful thinking, but it’s actually our experience, both personally as well as in our extensive work with clients and families. At its most basic level, the Windhorse approach is characterized by creating individually tailored personal recovery environments, which invite that person’s sanity and health and balance for person who remains that we consider and include all aspects of a person’s life in the therapeutic process. Our environments are grounded in their physical and domestic world. We cultivate open and healthy relationships, and of course, we work to help our clients to clarify and understand their minds and emotions. The primary way that we develop this environment is through relationship will often refer to Windhorse as relational medicine, as we know that when a person is experiencing mental confusion or distress, it’s almost always helpful to be in the midst of people with healthy lifestyles and relatively healthy minds. We actually experience health to be surprisingly contagious, so we create teams specific to each client’s personality and interests in order to jumpstart their connection with ordinary folks more effectively. Things such as keeping their home in good order, developing healthy habits of eating, sleeping and exercise engaging in their interests. Meeting people outside of the team, which will often involve the Greater Windhorse community school and work. A big part of the effectiveness of our approach is that we’re not trying to make our clients into someone or not. We’re actually supporting them to be the most integrated and harmonious version of who they most basically are and who they most know themselves to be at their core. Another part of the power of our environments is that we have a number of complementary roles involved in the team, starting with the housemate who’s a staff person living in the therapeutic household. The team counselors who spend the most time with the client in the midst of ordinary life activity, the team leaders who organize the activity of the team and also spend time with a client in the household. The psychotherapist who meets with the client, usually twice per week. The team’s supervisor who turns to the overall activity of the team and also works as a family of medications are used, a psychiatrist is also an integrated part of the team. So the client is also fully included as a team member. Likewise, families, when possible and together, we all create a system of relationships that’s resilient and which can flexibly adapt as the recovery path evolves. This team and the environment that everyone creates is clearly a more powerful and intelligent therapeutic system than the sum of its parts. So this was a very broad stroke description, and to begin bringing this to life, Laura, and from the perspective of a team counselor will lead us through a description of being with a client while doing basic attendance. From there, our group will discuss their story, noting some of the principles involved in basic tenets, which will be expanded on over the course of this podcast series. Laura Ann, are you ready to take it away? [00:09:10][469.0]
Laura Ann: [00:09:11] Yeah, sure. Thanks so much for having me on this chuck. I I guess I kind of want to start by saying that this is one of the first clients I had as a team counselor. And one of the things I found really interesting and I was thinking about as you were talking was how much we really do tailor each team to the individual so that every team kind of feels like you’re it’s a different job almost being with each person. So this this client is someone who had been with Windhorse for a couple of months before I had joined and someone who was dealing with pretty extreme anxiety. And her experience of that anxiety was often having a hard time deciphering what she wanted versus what she felt like. Others wanted of her and and kind of freezing. So she had a really hard time seeing through things that she had begun seeing through things that others wanted her to do. And so when we kind of came in and started working with her, there was there was a little bit of this tension kind of inherently in the dynamic around this. This question of whether or not she wanted us in her space or if she it was something her parents wanted for her, or whether we were when we were working with maybe cleaning her, helping clean her house or things like that if it was our priorities or her priorities. So there was a lot of questions around that. And so for a long time, the ships I spent with, there were questions where we would. At first, we’ve kind of just be really quiet, and there was a lot of sort of parallel. I’m calling it parallel play, where she would read a book and I would read a book, or she would start water coloring. She had her own drawing practice and I would sort of do the same thing and we kind of compare. Notes and things like that. And as time went on, we started to have more conversations about this question of wanting some wanting to do something versus feeling like one should do something. And it became this sort of shorthand that we would talk about. And as our shifts went on, we would take walks, and she brought up one time feeling like she was. Curious about my relationship to gender as a trans, I’m a trans non-binary person and, you know, she would ask me questions like around when I cut my hair or what prompted that and different things around that or how how I started changing, how I wanted to dress and how I knew. And so we started to have more conversations around that and and she would bring up wanting to. Go shopping for more men’s clothing, and that came up over a couple of shifts, and then I would bring it up and say, well, maybe we could go on a shopping trip or something like that, and she would sort of go, Oh, I don’t know. You know, it was kind of this thing where it was unclear whether it was my idea or her idea, even that she had initiated it or previous version of herself who was interested in this thing. And so it’s it’s kind of interesting, ongoing thing. And then one day we were talking and we were having a conversation around gender identity and we were talking about internalized transphobia or homophobia and kind of the feeling of having to decipher for oneself if. If how I think I want to look is my own idea or something that’s come from some other source, some other culture, a parent, a community I’ve been in, or how do how do I kind of prioritize that? How do I make sense of that? And I had expressed to her that that was something that was confusing for me, and it was confusing for me for a long time and continues to be. And it was this moment where it clicked for us that she she saw me having an experience of feeling. Feeling like I didn’t always know what I wanted, if it was my own land or someone else’s. So all of a sudden we sort of had this place where she she could see someone else having that experience. And so at some point we ended up going on one of these shopping trips. And it was it was a trip where I was also looking for clothing. And so I was kind of moving between the men and women section and showing her things I wanted to try on and things I was looking at. And she and she would kind of tentatively look at certain things and then move away or things like that, but we just were able to start to develop this relationship through. Kind of exploring something together and trying to end and connecting around it. And so, anyway, that’s kind of the story I was thinking of that I wanted to share today. How long an arc of time did you just describe from the beginning when she was not sure whether you and the team were just an extension of her family’s wishes or something? You know something else and to that very frightening to other months? That was months of time. Yeah, yeah. So it was very much kind of this ongoing this ongoing question, and it would show up in all these different ways around what it meant. And, you know, and these questions of what it means to take care of oneself to each other and these other places around the environment and the house and. Things like that and and. We really had to fill out together what it meant for her to have assistance or help because that for many people can feel enabling in some kind of way or it can feel like. I don’t I I don’t deserve this kind of help or be. This is getting in my way or embarrassed that I can’t do it myself. And so we start to just get really subtle about it. I mean, in terms of who was doing what and how we would help each other. That’s a great story and a great description. And I’m wondering, there’s probably some psychotherapy that was going on in parallel with your work with her, so differentiating how those roles might might attend to this person. Well, I had a question about how it was different because there was you went to a lot of depth with this person about their inner process, you’re talking about internalized transphobia. And I guess it would be good to hear more from you, Larry, and or others about those moments when you can go really deep, you know, even if no matter where you are and then how, what’s the differentiation between your role and the intensive psychotherapy therapist where they would be meeting in a contained setting? You know, all the differences between the two roles? And just curious what came up for you as this came up between you? Yeah, I would say what I recognize in the difference in the relationship is in the role I’m in as a team counselor, I’m serving as kind of like a peer for the person. And so. There’s something about the experience that’s less about really investigating the territory of how they might relate to a certain theme or something like that. And it feels much more about a point of connection. And there’s a place where one of the things that I actually really love about this job is that there’s space for me to share experiences I’ve had in a way that would be different than to someone in psychotherapy. And so. And so there’s places in which the person is sometimes asking me questions and I’m asking them questions, but also talking about it as kind of a cultural experience. And for me, it’s also interesting to think about like we really we sort of bring all of ourselves to the job. So my experience, our work in graduate school with queer theory and things like that, like, you know, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about internalized transphobia and homophobia and what that feels like. And so there’s this part of it that’s not only talking about it as an emotional experience or can it personal experience, but also as a cultural phenomenon taking place that is being negotiated by people in marginalized positions. And so I think that that. What I like about this particular role is there’s there’s room to relate around these things that feels a little bit. Lighter and not so much about trying to get something done that makes sense, but actually just being invested in the connection. [00:18:09][538.1]
Jack: [00:18:12] Listening to you describe it, I’m guessing you didn’t like that was probably the fruition all in conversation to use the theory and things because it sounds like you just started by showing up and. Find it like just being real with yourself and letting this other person be their real self and and then things unfolded from there and you kind of found places you meet and overlap and the kind of a natural process of. It has parallels to developing any relationship and friendship and connection, and then, you know, it can lead eventually to those kind of bigger insights, but like you said, this happened over months. I’m guessing it started slower and then built as the the basic. Trust that you weren’t going to lay some. You know, agenda and the person you were just being real and they were and then they could relax and be real, and then you got into this very, you know, genuine real place between you. [00:19:18][65.6]
Laura Ann: [00:19:20] Totally. I think what I also appreciate about it is it’s not about kind of getting anyone anywhere, at least in the role linemen. I mean, it’s it’s about forming a connection and seeing what that connection can hold. [00:19:32][11.9]
Jack: [00:19:32] And I think that’s also true in at least Windhorse the psychotherapy that goes on. I mean, something it’s important to say is like we view basic attendance is kind of cutting across all roles. And in a way we’re describing here is like kind of foundational basic attendance. In some ways, I was thinking it’s the same in a psychotherapy session. We’re not trying to get anywhere per se or impose any big insights on people. We’re doing the same thing. You are in psychotherapy. The one big difference, I would say, is in the office. You’ve got the office, and pretty soon that’s all you got is the office and you’re talking, so you’re really in this conversational place in when you’re out on a shift with somebody, as we call it, where you’re out in the world, you’ve got the world, then you’re interacting with, you’ve got all these things going on out there that can support connecting and developing relationships. It’s a little different from in the office. That, to me, is a big difference between the two. [00:20:38][65.5]
Chuck: [00:20:39] So there are so many different ways that we meet with people and what they need and how we can respond and be with them as opposed to doing to them. I think it’s a kind of a key part of this, and I think it’s it’s important to understand too, that in over the course of a week, we may spend multiple hours per day with a person in basic attendance shifts like with team counselors, the psychotherapy maybe to a couple of hours a week. And in those in that kind of contained environment, you can really go into difficult, painful relationship issues and mind issues that if you did that for multiple hours a week, most people would wouldn’t benefit from that. In fact, it would be very detrimental, probably. So we’re very careful to differentiate how deep we go and how to keep people grounded in their environment and all that. So in terms of. Being attuned to. The experience of being with someone during basic attendance of whatever role, but in this case, we’re we’re with you, Laura Ann. Windhorse is also a mindfulness based approach, mindfulness and health basically all right together and wondering what any of you would have to say. Just try not to put you constantly on the hot seat or in what any of you would say about the mindfulness based part of of Windhorse and basic tenets. How would you describe that, especially in the context of what you’ve heard from Laura Ann? [00:22:17][98.1]
Jeremy: [00:22:19] You know, I’m thinking of Laur Annn’s experience of spending maybe weeks or months of shifts sitting in the rooms with someone who maybe isn’t relating very directly in Florida and called the parallel play. And for me, in moments like that, there is a certain, you know, one’s mind can one to become distracted or go to sleep or start ignoring the other person or just zone out. And I think part of what we offer through Precious is we’re constantly bringing ourselves back and into the present moment so that when a client who’s with us who’s maybe not relating much does spark up and does have an interest or desire or a passion that we kind of catch that moment with them, that moment of clarity or that moment of movement. And we’re able to not feel a sense of resisting that, that we can slow with that and help them take that into their lives and into the world. [00:23:18][59.4]
Conner: [00:23:22] Yeah, and just adding to that, when it comes time to explain what mindfulness is, I always like to contrast it. It seems easier to think of what might be mindless is because most people can relate to having times of just being mindless and not being in tune with their environment. What’s going on and. Relating to Laura Anns situation with this client, like Jeremy said, touching that, being mindful of when those opportunities arise to, you know, relate to the client in a deeper way or kind of move towards health, their goals of health, but also being mindful to be sensitive, how much that work that may have been for the client and not to push too much or try get too excited about the opportunity and put your own desires and goals for health too much into the client’s world. So that, to me, is there’s an aspect of mindfulness also. [00:24:34][71.2]
Kathy: [00:24:36] Which I think Segways right into how you were being mindful, Laura Ann, with your own experience in the moment. You were attuned to and aware of, mindful of what you were going through and then then there is other than there’s the relationship and then there’s your outer world and being present to that. You know, and I think the basic attendance practices are that’s like the ground of it is being present and letting in. I think it is the ground of all of the. Kathy, when you say being present like in the present moment. Yeah. Being in the moment. Yes. Now, you know, in the present moment of now, this whatever that means to anybody here, you have an awareness of inner, outer and really a felt sense of one’s own presence and then being in the space with other whatever arises. So you’re not lost. And I think, Conner, you and Jeremy, were both talking about this. You’re not so lost in the future or lost to the past or lost in your own tumult of your mind. But you keep coming back, so you actually are more present to be with the other person, for instance, and the intelligence that’s on the spot. [00:25:51][75.1]
Kathy: [00:25:52] Absolutely. You know what I’m curious about, can I throw out of curiosity? Yeah. The mutual pass piece of this seems really rich. How this came up and it was a it was a client’s curiosity about you. Right? That that kind of crystallized it more, and that’s what gave birth to this mutual exchange. So Laura Ann, and I wonder if you could share what this brought up for you, how this arose and just how this relates to your life experience. [00:26:27][35.0]
Laura Ann: [00:26:30] You know, one of the things that we talk about with basic attendance is we talk about it as a way of increasing connection with others and moving away from isolation. And it just what I feel so much on in this role is it reminds me how much other people and just kind of like the nuggets of wisdom and the points of connection. I’d had with other people have informed my own sense of self. And so when I’m with clients on a shift, I’m really aware of that and I’m really aware of kind of what what we give to one another, what we are understanding for one another. And sometimes, you know, there’s there’s things that can happen on the ships with a client that can be incredibly triggering for me. You know, like not not as connecting in some kind of way. And then I actually have to take some time and sift through it and go, How? I wonder what? What’s in that for me? And how do I relate to this? And so there’s there’s ways in which I feel like I’m evolving in relationship to clients just as much as they might be evolving in relationship to me. And it’s, you know, I think there’s something about mindfulness in the connection as well in terms of the mutual power in terms of not getting too excited and feeling into the kind of threshold or capacity that the relationship can hold and the connection can hold. And what my boundaries are around it, too. And how much I want to share at a time or what they’re actually asking me. And when is it if I’m sharing something? Is it for me or is it for them? You know, so these are the kinds of questions and the precision that’s required to sort of sift through in order to be in relationship. In this way, that’s not in an office. There has to be room to kind of allow yourself to keep checking in. With how much of yourself you bring? And it feels like it changes from shift to shift and from person to person. [00:28:30][119.5]
Kathy: [00:28:33] Thank you very, very well, said, we appreciate your response. [00:28:37][3.3]
Jack: [00:28:39] Something about this mutual recovery is the willingness to be affected. And I think. I don’t know if, it’s. Ever a good thing in in the art and craft of psychotherapy to just be the. See oneself as the change agent, and the client is only the only one being affected, I mean, that seems like kind of low for him. Honestly, I think that as a therapist, you have to be you have to always be risking that you’re going to be affected and and that is mutual recovery is that you’re you’re challenging and thinking about your self when you’re showing up. I mean, how else could you show up and be a genuine person? [00:29:18][39.9]
Conner: [00:29:20] It sounded like Laura Ann, from your your story of the client that. Something shifted a little bit at the point where you presented your own uncertainties around identity and how homophobia transphobia fits into your your life and your psychology, and to me, that kind of like. Give this feeling of kind of leveling the playing field between you and the client to where it’s. Gives you both like an equal opportunity to kind of explore and learn and gain trust from each other, and you’re both going to be hopefully come out changing in positive ways as a result of finding that those mutual uncertainties and how they take some exploration. [00:30:11][50.7]
Laura Ann: [00:30:13] Yeah, I think there’s something about letting oneself be impacted and also. Modeling that we all are impacting each other, that feels like is part of it in some kind of way. You know, and I think there’s there’s something about basic attendance that’s about. Finding friendship and also developing the capacity for friendship to for some, some clients, not all. And so allowing there to be room to to be a person who’s in their own process and and actually the moments in my short time at Windhorse, the moments where a client actually asks me a question is kind of an amazing moment, sometimes depending on what’s happening for the individual, that there’s space to kind of wonder about this person they’re spending time with. [00:31:03][49.9]
Jeremy: [00:31:06] You know, there is a crazy and I think I’m repeating a little bit of when Jack and Connor are said, but it just really struck me in your presentation that you were talking about identity and we said that it continues to be confusing for you. Awesome. And there’s something in me that would suggest being a human being is confusing. And if we try to pretend that it’s not, we’re doing a real disservice to folks that we’re working with and the challenge of all the challenges that they’re facing relational challenges around money, family work. We’re also facing these questions and challenges in our own life all the time. We’re constantly learning. So for me, that’s a big part of the draw. Also on this work is that I’m in a continual state of learning with the clients and with the staff that I’m working with. [00:31:55][49.0]
Laura Ann: [00:31:57] That feels so true. You just said that to me, it makes me think of what Chuck said at the beginning about how things really are tailored to the individual. And there’s this sense of finding their path towards recovery or even what recovery might look like for someone is so dependent on. On them, and it’s not actually about having these preconceived ideas that are hardened to what a person is, what a person should be, what we all should do as if we’re frozen in time and space. So I think there’s something about relating to one another as continually unfolding that feels. It’s been really nice for me to get to do that with clients. And with the rest of the team. [00:32:43][45.4]
Jeremy: [00:32:46] Yeah we’re processes, not problems, right? [00:32:48][2.2]
Laura Ann: [00:32:49] Oh, I love that. [00:32:50][0.5]
Chuck: [00:32:53] So there’s a couple of things I was just hearing and what you’re describing, one being, we’re all working on a path of some kind. And at the same time, so many of the people that come to us have more extreme state problems, which have a whole different order of challenges, oftentimes that we may be working with ourselves. At the same time, I think that where this level is out is that we we know what it feels like to be vulnerable, working our life and coming into this, this relationship with not projecting the feeling like I’m well, you’re sick and we’re going to fix you, but then we’re equals. We’re equal people. We have dignity, goodness, our own versions of sanity. I learned so much from my clients. I work with some of those brilliant, interesting people amidst the confusion, oftentimes they’ll have going on. And when you meet somebody as an equal, they feel that consciously, unconsciously, they feel it and as opposed to seem like they’re always other one down. So I think that’s a that’s another feature I think of the mindfulness aspect of this. Let me let me come back to something. I want to tie up a question about people not doing too, but being with at the same time. Oftentimes, people come to us in a place where they need to actually learn to put their lives together, that kind of thing and work with confusion. And there is a path of that. And so it’s much more effective to work on that sort of thing, if you can create this kind of relationship, that sense of equality, a sense of being safe to be with and a sense of somebody wanting to be with you because they feel seen they feel accepted. And so we oftentimes can’t help somebody move from being in a place where they actually need a lot of help just to live in their own home. And a lot of help kind of sorting out dreams from reality. And that kind of relational ground can help that whole thing moves. I’m wondering, if Laura Ann or anybody else wants to comment on this. So this all looks makes total sense from the standpoint of helping someone attach and connect with a team and connect with life and jump starting back into life. How does this work to help a person move? Away from the team to internalize what they’ve learned with the team, but then to at some point move beyond it out into ordinary life and no longer needing a team. [00:35:22][149.4]
Jack: [00:35:24] We’re talking a lot about equalness and genuineness and which is all really true. And there is a reason that, we get paid. We’re actually showing up, and there’s a certain there is something about the art of Basic attendance that, you know, as each of us people who’ve done a lot of basic attendance, we are actually, we’re responsible for helping to hold a certain frame and containers. I’m curious about that part. I guess that the inside, like we have, we are doing something that otherwise would be all volunteer because we’re all equal, right? So why would you get paid to do something where everybody’s equal? Because it’s, you know, these things are kind of paradoxical. I think that there’s also this we’re holding a form and a shape that a lot of your story Laura Ann was. I think maybe what you left out is how much form you brought to it. You know, like in the, you know, to hold the attention in a certain way that this could all happen inside of, I guess. So I just don’t want to lose track of that part of it, you know? [00:36:34][69.9]
Laura Ann: [00:36:36] It makes me think of kind of. Sensing into the capacity. For a certain person, a given time and oftentimes the role of a team counselor or the team in general is to kind of fill in, at least in the beginning, places where the client might have difficulty doing something for themselves in terms of taking care of their environment or remembering, you know, keeping a rhythm around what they’re eating or sleeping or just holding kind of a routine that has health in it. It actually makes me think about the role of the housemate in many ways is kind of holding these regular rhythms. And there’s something about that and over time. I at least I understand it as it becomes more as as the person finds more sense of. Calm in themselves and a steadiness to steadiness within the context of having that kind of support. Then there’s room to start to play with going, OK, well, what happens if you start taking over this, this task? And then and then we kind of see what happened. We’re oftentimes it seems to me that so many clients are dealing with a real experience of failure in themselves around meeting certain kinds of support or feeling like things haven’t worked well for them in the past in certain ways. And so there’s a lot of undoing of shame around meeting kind of support and also feeling brave enough to try to try to take on more responsibility in certain ways that that has to be developed a little bit. And the team makes a space. In order to kind of explore that, that’s safer than maybe what the person has experienced in the past some kind of way. [00:38:28][111.7]
Jack: [00:38:30] Your saying it kind of like the team filling in its own systems. I think it was like there the client can kind of borrow. The resourcefulness of the people like your description, you your client, was borrowing a lot of your resourcefulness and then to try out new things and then start to own them themselves. Sometimes people, I think try, because they’re trying to avoid becoming dependent, they try to separate from the team too quickly and they there is a it’s a it’s again paradox of like relaxing into being dependent on the team members, the healthy dependance, you know, humans, you know, we’re primates. We’re interdependent by nature. We’re wired to be connected to each other that, you know, when the collective can relax, then you know, the collective can relax and all of its members. There’s kind of a, you know, sometimes the words use these days as co-regulating that happens between all of our nervous systems. And then. When somebody is really grounded in that and they’re very able to use the team to experiment with new things and get stronger. Then, I mean, getting back to your question there, Chuck. Then they start to take it on, like you’re saying, Laura Ann, they can start to do things on their own and try doing it themselves that gradually they kind of incorporate the resourcefulness that they learned with the team members to a point where they integrated more and more into themselves and ideally get to where they they don’t need the team one day. [00:40:07][97.1]
Kathy: [00:40:08] And I think that’s those are rich moments when we get to that point where the person is mature to internalize the external support that’s been created for them and taking those steps. It’s part of growing up on this becoming inter, independent and independent. And and there’s there’s sadness with that. You know, it’s poignant and how I think it’s something to stay with and to experience and to wish each other well, you know, in these transitions, they’re poignant times. And I think that’s something we in this world of Windhorse. I think this is brought to our attention from families at times because they they might think we’re cultivating some kind of dependance here and there is a healthy dependance that can be experienced, you know, and actually that can help a person individuate from their family system. But now they’re attached to us. And then how do you take those next steps and how can that be a launching pad in a good way? And then it’s poignant and it can be sad, you know, because we do have these professional structures, you know that we also embody. [00:41:22][73.9]
Chuck: [00:41:25] Thank you all for this lively conversation and particularly, Laura Ann, for you describing in such a beautiful way this process that you went through with this client and your mutual mutuality of it, and it’s a beautiful example. Thank you. [00:41:42][17.3]
Laura Ann: [00:41:42] So welcome, thank you so much. [00:41:45][2.9]
Elysa: [00:42:01] We hope you enjoyed Windhorse journal entry, 80: Relationships that invite health, an overview of basic attendance part one. Stay tuned for part two of this conversation next month, where the group continues this discussion, offering even more insights on the therapeutic team dynamics and another client perspective from Connor. [00:42:21][19.3]
Lori: [00:43:10] Windhorse Journal is a publication of Windhorse Community Services supporting recovery from mental health challenges at home and in the community since 1981. [00:43:10][0.0]
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