Lori: [00:00:06] Windhorse is our innate ability to uplift ourselves and 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: [00:00:50] Welcome to Windhorse Journal Entry 88 Basic Attendance Relationships That Invite Health Team Leaders. This is the fifth episode of a series dedicated to exploring basic attendance through the lens of each role on a Windhorse team. In this conversation, team leaders discuss how their role on a team can set a foundation for care with countless manifestations within varying environments. We hope you enjoy. [00:01:14][24.0]
Chuck Knapp: [00:01:20] Welcome everyone to this podcast of the Windhorse Journal. I’m your host, Chuck Knapp, and this conversation is the fourth in our series on the clinical practice of basic attendance. It’s an honor to be joined today by this distinguished group of Windhorse clinicians. And I’ll now introduce you. Lindsay Wolf, Lindsay is a graduate of the University and Transpersonal Counseling Psychology with a concentration in art therapy. She’s worked at Windhorse Community Services for 11 years, where her involvement has included roles as team counselor, team leader and intensive psychotherapist. She also maintains a private practice serving children and adults. Kim Emmert. Kim is a graduate of Naropa University and has worked at Windhorse Community Services for almost seven years. During this time, she’s been a housemate, team counselor, team leader and is currently in training for intensive psychotherapy. Kim is also a psychotherapist and coach in private practice. A biodynamic, cranial sacral therapist and certified yoga alliance instructor. Art Gallery. Art Ginley is a team leader at Windhorse Community Services. Currently in training as an intensive psychotherapist and as a private practice working with complex trauma, detachment and chronic illness. A native Coloradan. Before coming to Windhorse, he’s been a volunteer ski patroller, a member of the Peace Corps, and also worked with foster children and adults with developmental disabilities. Jamie Emery. Hey, Jamie Emery is a graduate of Naropa University and a founding member of Windhorse Community Services. He was also the chair and a faculty member of the Office Contemplative Psychology Master’s Program. Having served in all the clinical roles of the Windhorse approach except housemate, Jamie’s particular love has been in the role of team leader. And Jamie, I think you and I have been working for about 33 plus years at this point and also business partners for most of that time. Thank you all for being here. So the team leader role, Kim, you’re going to say more about it in just a second. But I wanted to give a little preface that we had. Ed Podvall, who was the primary founder of this approach, was very active and Windhorse activity and teams were really starting to become much more active and there was more demand coming in. We’re really exploring how to do this. It was Ed’s opinion, having been in the field for a long time as an analyst and then watching this this change that the team leader role was actually the most needed role of anything he’d seen in working with people in extreme states of flexibility, the combination of environmental awareness and clinical expertize to adaptively move through the particular conditions of a person’s world. He thought that was one of the biggest innovations of the Windhorse approach, actually. So this particular discussion, he would be really happy that we were here doing this. Kim, would you please lead us off with a bit of a description about what a team leader does? [00:04:48][208.3]
Kim Emmert: [00:04:49] Yeah, yeah, what you just said. Chuck and I really do agree. The team leader, in my experience, has to hold a you know, we hold the practical. So we’re holding the schedule. We’re holding the schedule for the the client and also for the team, which means things like the schedule generally. You know, we track a schedule and we, we hand out a schedule to the team and the client every several weeks. We also hold things like being sure that our clients have groceries, that they are eating, that they oftentimes that they’re picking up their medication if they have activities that they’re going to the activities or we’re holding the practical. We’re also holding the practical in the sense of we we generally run the team meetings, which, you know, depending on the team, we have two team meetings a week and the team meetings are with just the team or the team and the client. And we’re holding the agenda. We’re remembering when there’s people away, we’re providing coverage for when there’s people away. I think, you know, we could go on and on about the practical. So that’s one part of the role. But then there’s this other part of the role which is, you know, I think we’re holding the ground of both supporting the client practically and helping them engage in that world. But my experience is, is that it’s in such a subtle way. There’s so much also sitting back and and allowing and giving space for the client to find their own way. And, you know, that’s to me, that’s probably the most important role. I literally think it’s the most important role of a team leader because it isn’t a goal that we’re their team leader forever and they just do what we say and they follow us along. The goal is, is that they, in my opinion, that they begin to find their own way and want and and have a relationship to their own desire to move in the world. So so it’s very it feels like it’s, you know, my experience is the team in a role is very much a give suggestions and then wait and see what happens and then hold whatever, you know, whatever expectations the family of the team has lightly you so the client can actually start to find their own impulse. There’s so much more to say, and I want to open it up to other team leaders that you can throw in what you think the role of a team leader is. Lindsay, you’re smiling. [00:07:28][158.9]
Lindsay Wolf: [00:07:28] I think what you said was spot on. And I made me sort of thinking about just. How? Beneficial it can be to have the consistency of the relationship that the team leader holds at the client. Even if things get uncomfortable. Iraqi and the team leader holds a lot of projections for can. So like on one team I can think of. I definitely was in this position where the client threw a lot at me in terms of what I was doing wrong and a lot of judgments and all sorts of things. So but I stayed, you know, I didn’t budge. I just held steady and. It was overall a really enriching relationship for her. And for me. So, yeah, that’s what came to mind. Do any of you have thoughts? [00:08:28][60.4]
Art Ginley: [00:08:30] You know, the thing I’m thinking of is kind of from a developmental attachment perspective, which is more the you know, when little kids are growing up, they need boundaries to feel safe. They need to know where the limits of their world are so that they can kind of have that sense of security in relating to their parents, their friends, everything around them. And I think his team leaders, there’s a certain responsibility, too, of creating a safe environment and making sure there’s safety. And the people that are working with this person, that’s part of the team, the client. And I just think of that as a really kind of. Tough role that we have because we have to kind of figure out when do I need to maybe be a little firmer? When do I need to say, hey, here’s a limit that you’re going to run into and when do I need to open that up and say, hey, here’s a place for you to start exploring and you can start going into maybe things that are challenging or scary or a little uncomfortable. And and I don’t think of it as I have to become like a parent to the client that I’m working with. But I do think that I have to have a bit of that perspective of creating safety and then encouraging growth and encouraging them to step outside of that comfort zone so that they can maybe find things that are healthier or better for them or they can move into the challenges that, you know, there’s a lot of things that all of us don’t want to do in our lives that we have to do. And it can be really hard to find that balance. Jamie, you got anything? [00:10:15][105.0]
Jamie Emery: [00:10:16] You know, the word that comes to mind for me with team leading is hosting. And you see it in a hosting. The all the energies that we were talking about for hosting the dilemma that can come up for family and our client as far as, for example, pacing, is the recovery happening fast enough or soon enough? You know, the whole timing thing and the issue inevitably is that the clients we work with, they set the pacing of their own life, of their own recovery, of their own, expanding out into the world and so forth. So we host the energy, but pragmatically in the team meeting, a new team leader can think that they run the show. They’re the boss, they’re running the show, they’re the team leader, you know. And it’s it’s really interesting to see inevitably new team leaders start, start that way. I did, you know, also and then I was reminded by a psychiatrist, I don’t run the show here. So in a team meeting, there may be a check in at the beginning of of the team meeting. Inevitably, a new or a new team leader will always start with themselves. The check in will start with them. But but a more seasoned team leader will usually go last or jump in when it’s natural, but let other people. So there’s some, some general sense of hosting and, you know, having the chair set up and maybe a team leader can bring in some you know, I’ve you know, I’ve done this. You bring in some tea or something to eat people, something people may want to eat in a team meeting. And there’s just some general sense of hosting, hosting the meeting and then helping to guide a specific the time. You know, they’re the timekeeper, right? The team leader for the for the team meeting. So it’s a rich role. And I think that the team leader can also be aware that they don’t have to fix everything. They don’t have to do everything. They don’t have to know everything they’re hosting. They’re hosting, unknowing. They’re hosting. Don’t know mind. They’re hosting insight in any given moment, you know, and so and within the team and the team meeting. So I just trying to acknowledge that aspect of it. [00:12:33][137.3]
Chuck Knapp: [00:12:35] To me, what’s running the show is is natural hierarchy the kind of insight that the group generates that that at any given time, actually, the team leader might have an insight that carries the day, but not necessarily might be the housemate might be the the whomever, which is part of the hosting facilitation of a team leader is to bring the best out of the intelligence of the group. [00:12:58][23.6]
Jamie Emery: [00:13:00] I think part of the team leader also is understanding there is a vertical hierarchy and there is a horizontal hierarchy. And I think Chuck gets long lines of what you just said as far as a brutal hierarchy is that, you know, they’re the team leaders in charge of certain things, you know, and they you know, there’s a certain vertical reference point that the team really needs for the team to do things. But there’s also the charge, as you were saying, more of the horizontal hierarchy of insight. And the way that I’ve heard it described by a psychiatrist we worked with many years ago was that we’re all we’re we’re actually all equal distance from the sun. So at any given moment, any of us can have an insight that just is is spot on and really connected. And it can be from someone who’s been on the team for months and months, or it can be from somebody who just started two days before, you know. So I think that knowing that there’s a time and place for vertical hierarchy and and acknowledging the general reference point of horizontal hierarchy, I think is an important piece as well. [00:14:10][69.5]
Art Ginley: [00:14:11] I, I would say on the other side of that. There’s also the potential for a lot of especially because we’re working in relationship. There’s the potential for a lot of naivete and not great insights and not great help coming from everybody on the team. There’s also a role that I think the team leader is having to sort out. When is there some kind of really, you know, wonderful insight coming from someone and when is there maybe somebody who’s feeling really frustrated and just wants to get their way and wants to make something happen on the team that might not be the best for the client. There’s a navigation of everybody. I think, you know, every member of the team and trying to sort out how do you blend all of this together in a way that’s going to be healthy for the whole team and maybe needing to work with team kind of interpersonal relationships that might be showing up and working with, you know, how people are feeling with the client and helping all of that to come together into a way that still is in the best support of the client. [00:15:23][72.2]
Chuck Knapp: [00:15:25] Ah, that’s a really good point, too. And what it brings to mind is in, in our series so far, we’ve, we’ve had discussion with housemates, team councilors and now this team leader. Next will be the intensive psychotherapist, and after that will be the team supervisors. So part of the team leader’s role is, of course, as as as a member of the full team, which includes a client. And just when when the family’s around and available, they’re part of the team, too, in their own way. But the team supervisor and psychotherapist that and the team leader, that’s the team leadership bunch. So part of the team leader is working in collaboration to do the very kinds of things you’re talking about two artists trying to sort through. When we when anybody on the team, including a team leader or a team supervisor, has a lousy idea, and then how do we all kind of play with it? So to ferret out where the lousy ideas come from or what’s the intelligence in that too, is usually there’s some mix of. Sanity and confusion that come together. What we’re trying to do. That was really interesting to hear you again, cure people’s lenses on this. What a team leader does and I think it would be helpful to bring this into a story a bit more of a story. And Kim, you had something that you could share. [00:16:52][86.4]
Kim Emmert: [00:16:54] You know, when we when we talk about the role of a team leader, one of the things that comes to mind in my experience is how we navigate as a team leader, the expectations of the family, because families have expectations. They’re different depending on the person and the client, but they do. They’re generally, in my experience at least, they have goals for their family member and and dreams and also challenges and old kind of bold behaviors that sometimes show up and are noticeable. And so the story that. That I think about is is one from several years ago I was I joined a team that already was in place and the family lived nearby, which we don’t always the team doesn’t necessarily have a lot of contact with the family team supervisor generally does. But I think when families live nearby, we do more. The family lived nearby and and fairly quickly. It was very noticeable to everyone that there was a lot of dynamics around money between the client. I’m going to call Richard and the family. A lot of old history of broken promises, broken expectations. You know, just confusion. And it was really it was really noticeable that it was impacting the relationship of the client to the father and mother. And so I, I guess I’m obviously asked permission at the idea of suggesting that that the team take over handling the money that the client got for spending money instead of the parent. And. The team agreed. And and so, you know, we sat down the Richard the client and the client’s father and I and we talked through and we came up with an idea of how much money was needed. And one of the things that had been noticeable to me is that the allowance will say for the client wasn’t really enough money. And so there was always manipulation and fighting. It’s just really hard. So we this father was quite open. And so my suggestion that we add in more money, the father agreed to. And then I began to be the one that worked with Richard instead of the family. And that went on for a while where I was handing out I was basically giving money for the things food, groceries, spending money. You know, I forget all the different categories we had. This client liked spending money. So I did that for a while. And then we started again. You know, it was really my idea, but it was the wisdom of the team and and my own experience as a as a young person not being good with money. You know, I learned how to do a budget, and so I created a budget, which Richard did do. So first, you know, he was just tracking all of his money. And then over time, you know, we we made it the budget more complex so that he started to actually manage his spending. This was someone who could and had gone and spent, you know. Is literally hundreds of dollars, you know, just randomly on things online. So tracking is spending to the degree that you started to save a little bit of money. And, you know, it’s a little unusual because I don’t know if it was unusual. It was you know, there was I had I had a certain amount of freedom, you know, working with the with the parent to figure out how to do it. But at one point, the team went down to just a much smaller team and and I left the team. But by that time, the client had had shifted his relationship to money. But not only that, it had shifted his relationship to his parents, especially his father, who he had, you know, had a pretty tough dynamic around money with, you know, because that whole thing had relaxed between them. You know, we we as the team and especially the team leader, because we’re of the role we’re in, we can take some of the pressure that’s been in the family system off of the family and so that so that there can be some kind of recovery of relationship. So it’s not all about money or, you know, keeping the bedrooms clean or washing the dishes or whatever the challenges that exist in the family when there’s these kind of struggles. So, you know, and I still do that. I, you know, I’m working currently with another client on budgeting, and we had to make it very, very simple. And the learning is slow. But I think it’s an important part and I think it probably shows up a lot that we work with money in budgeting and teaching, you know, supporting our clients to to learn. So that’s my story. Jamie’s smiling. [00:22:01][307.1]
Jamie Emery: [00:22:03] Well, I think I know this person. Yeah. And it was a significant event. It was like an event for the team. Therapeutically, positive, therapeutically speaking, where working with the money became a unifying principle for health within the whole team structure. You know, and there was a time also where you worked with the family around don’t give extra money outside of the budget. Or if you do. Why do you do it and how do we work with it? You know, so it was a whole kind of continuing to work with the with the family culture around money and the history of their around money and all the different things that come up between parents and and children and adult children. And Richard was in their twenties. And so they were, you know, early 20th. So they were just really learning about all this. And it was really it just became a unifying principle through the whole treatment of with with the family and with this with Richard. So it was really great, actually. Kim did an amazing job. [00:23:23][80.4]
Kim Emmert: [00:23:24] I always think my brother, because he taught me. He taught me the exact same budgeting when I was around that age and I was pretty bad with money. So, you know, we are bringing our own past and the things we’ve learned. [00:23:36][11.5]
Jamie Emery: [00:23:37] Right. Yeah. A lot of mutual recovery, I think. And the team around looking at our own budgeting, our own money issues that inevitably comes up on a team. Everybody, you know, everybody’s teaching each other about these things. [00:23:49][12.1]
Chuck Knapp: [00:23:51] Part of the work I think that everybody’s doing with when when families are involved is how to help people find the right distance from each other. Oftentimes, I think a client with their family can they may have been too close, too far or alternating like that. And I think we we in some of what we can provide, for instance, in a budgeting exploration, is helping to regulate that distance, which I think can be quite calming for a family system. [00:24:21][30.0]
Kim Emmert: [00:24:22] Money is such a part of. Of life in and. And complicated. You know, this this other situation where I’m, you know, also working with the budget. This is a. The client doesn’t have to have known how to handle money or at all. And now this guy has a job and the groceries and allowance comes from the job. And we all had to try so many different things. And it’s not like we have this great idea and it’s perfect. And then we’re all like, Yeah, we did, we did it. You know, we’ve had to change and keep trying. And, you know, but this, this client is, is learning how to have a job, choose to go or not and run out of money. And and then, you know, part of the job is to sit on our hands and say, okay, you know, do you have enough groceries for a week until you get paid, you know? So this is the subtlety of both Windhorse and. Being a team leader is really caring and caring with so much. It’s kind of intelligence and. [00:25:36][74.5]
Chuck Knapp: [00:25:38] A theme is rolling through. Here is how we invite someone to their health. How do we create an environment that invites people to their health? And earlier, that term, mutual recovery was named. And Kim, you mentioned also your own confusion about working with money and budgeting. And I’m curious. What you all would say about how much our own kind of maturation and who we are as people shapes what we know and what we do and how we relate to our clients and the rest of the team, for that matter, in terms of promoting and inviting health. I would say. [00:26:27][49.3]
Art Ginley: [00:26:29] Absolutely. My own growth and learning play a role in what I’m able to provide, and I would bring in the piece around mutual recovery. In that. There’s a lot of things I’ve learned from clients that I’ve worked with. And, you know, one of those big things might be something I see for someone that really isn’t working for them, that I realize I’m doing myself and isn’t working for me. And when I can learn how to work with that, I might be able to help them learn how to work with that. And on the other side, there’s a lot of clients that I’ve seen that do things better than I do. And I have to, you know, set aside my own ego and my own sense of self pride and and recognize, Oh, you’re doing something really cool here. And I could learn how to do that and be able to do that. And then I am bringing a whole bunch of my life. I’m a parent, I, you know, support my own family. I try to, you know, make ends meet for all of our finances and food and other things at home. And and I have to be thinking about that at home. And I have to be thinking about how I bring that into every interaction, all the people that I meet with. And also I’d bring it back to the team, too, because I bring that into the team. And I think the team leader plays a certain role in, you know, that sense of leadership can be a different team leader on a team can have a really different effect. What I bring might be very specific to me and my social location and what somebody else might bring might be a lot better than what I can bring because I’m kind of stuck in my ways. And so so I just see that that balance there, too, is I’m not just bringing it to the client, I’m bringing it to the whole team because I’m kind of leading into how are we setting this up? How are we setting up budget? If I’m the team leader, I might be the one in charge of that and I might be asking and delegating for other people on the team to help out with some of this. But it might be how I do that. That plays a really big role and if this can be beneficial and healthy for the client or not. [00:28:44][134.7]
Chuck Knapp: [00:28:46] That was a really interesting setup you just shared there in terms of learning from our clients and also seeing them doing things better than we do. And also how our our growth our growth can come really along as part of these these roles we’re doing and deficits we may have like budget, for instance, and sometimes the team can help actually develop our skills to you know, that was a nice thing to share the. [00:29:15][29.0]
Lindsay Wolf: [00:29:16] The idea of inviting our clients into their own house just made me think of the importance of. Patience and spaciousness around them because people, although they might want to. Change some things to enhance their health. That’s not always the case. They might like where they’re at in their case. But the team is there to hold space and it’s just important to be gentle in our encouragement so that the client can have enough room to have things reflected back to them in a way that doesn’t feel attacking or like they’re doing something wrong. But I think the way the team. Exists around them. In their own house is really can be really helpful in just providing an example and. An option, maybe. What it can look like. And but it doesn’t necessarily have to be this monumental shift. It can sometimes be very subtle, but. Just send these ripples out. That influences health in a surprising ways. [00:30:41][84.9]
Chuck Knapp: [00:30:44] So mutual recovery and. Our own health, working with our own health and our own curiosity urges toward growth, openness towards growth. That all creates quite an atmosphere, actually invitation to someone as opposed to them coming in. And we push really hard on them to change in ways that we think they’re supposed to change sometimes. Sometimes there’s definitely places that you have to hold limits and push a little bit here and there. But but that’s your invitation, as is generally, we’ve found to be much more conducive to helping someone grow with our own our own intentions, to be growing people. That creates an atmosphere, an environment. Including being willing to be wrong and make mistakes and work with our own mistakes and not be perfect in the situation. But but to how we work with our are the mistakes we made sometimes is the best work we do. [00:31:41][57.4]
Kim Emmert: [00:31:42] Because as you were talking, Chuck and Lindsey, you too. I was thinking. You were with clients for many hours a week, depending on how many hours. Sometimes it’s 6 hours for know, often for a year or a couple of years and we’re living and changing and existing equal to them too. And they’re experiencing us doing that. And in some ways that are talked about in and really open in some ways just energetically. The mutual recovery is such a big part of what we do in ways that aren’t, you know, not like I’m walking into a shift and saying I’m going to show ways that I’m mutually recovering today. But it’s like, is this what’s happening? And, you know, it’s it’s it’s probably one of the most precious parts of Windhorse. One of the things that I just wanted to say real quick is I think there’s there’s times there’s definitely times in my experience with with clients that they help me in small ways, you know. When? When we had the Marshall Fire last, you know, I literally was on the shift when it happened and I lived out near where the fire was. And and randomly my dog was out. I wasn’t in the fire danger, but I was out there like my car doors, got locked with my keys and cell phone. And I was really upset, you know, and I am at that for that moment. And I was without the space. For me being upset, you know. And another time when I did a shift on my birthday and the client bought me like cupcakes and put candles on him and sang songs to me over guitar. You know, I’m sure all of us can mention things like that. And, you know, there’s this levels of what we do that is just so human and not planned. You know, that is a big part of where recovery comes in. I’m sure everyone has stories like this. [00:33:58][135.4]
Jamie Emery: [00:33:58] Well, yeah, I was going to say I was with a client once and they we were out at a restaurant and in another town, not in Boulder, but in another town. And we’re out in the parking lot. And I we were all ready to go. And I was towards the end of the shift, we’d had our meal together and I got into the car and, you know, and was going to roll down the windows, but I had to get something in the back seat. So I got up and I got out and I threw the keys onto the driver’s seat and I and I got out to get that thing in the in the back seat. And as I got out of car, it was really Wendy, the wind slammed the door shut and lock the keys in the car. And my client and I just started, you know, kind of laughing. And I’m not laughing, you know, I ended up having to call someone to get the keys out. And and the my client was just just very chill and it was really helpful. [00:34:53][54.7]
Chuck Knapp: [00:34:58] So as we progressed through the roles that a team is made of, again, the housemate, team counselor, team leader, psychotherapist and team supervisor. As you get into leadership, one’s sense of environment and environmental awareness starts to expand. It’s less into the dyadic qualities of basic attendance, and it’s more into environment, which of course includes dyadic relationship with team members of clients and so on. But we start looking at how. Basic attendance is so effective in being able to create healing environments not just in the home, but in where we find ourselves, where a person’s passion and interests take, which directions those take us exploring what those might be. And it can be anything from the ordinary life that the client is in and in their world can also include something a little bit more adventurous, like taking a trip together. Sometimes people travel to see family. Sometimes the best thing is to get out and go for a little vacation or something. Does anyone have anything they would like to share about the move? Ability of environment even as much as is traveling with someone? [00:36:19][81.1]
Lindsay Wolf: [00:36:21] Yeah, shifts are unique because you can really do a lot of different things and. I. I took a client to pick out a dog she was going to adopt and then later picked her up a couple of weeks later and. We. She got the address wrong, so we ended up going 2 hours in the wrong direction. Realizing that. And then 2 hours from there in the right direction and into this person’s home, who is a breeder, and she chose a dog. And then we went to ours home and just being able to sit in the. Mistake of it, which isn’t really it wasn’t a mistake is a funny word because it created an opportunity to just connect. In a different environment and. And what do we do when we go 2 hours in the wrong direction? Well, I guess we just make the most of it and just keep going instead of. And any negative reaction either of us could have had. There was flexibility and and just an openness to embrace embracing experience together. But I also explore different environments with clients in terms of. Other activities, like when someone I worked with had a history, or she had past experience scuba diving and so do I. So we went scuba diving on a shift at the Dove Shop in town, and she hadn’t done it for years, an experience she had just in her body during that. It was really great for her. In another time, that same clan and I went rock climbing and she was able to blame me. We trusted each other to hold each other’s weight. Which can be said physically and metaphorically and. In all these different ways. So. It’s really quite remarkable how we can. Explore ourselves in our worlds and each other and the relationship in the environment through all sorts of different places together. [00:38:58][157.6]
Art Ginley: [00:39:00] I could add a bit of a different experience of, you know, someone that I worked with who? Had to move out of their home that they’ve been in for a long time and, you know, move to. A new location and then from there had to move into a skilled nursing facility because of an injury and. So definitely getting out. And, you know, I remember one of the first teams I was on at Windhorse, I went and did a lot of climbing and just hiking and going out and being outside. And I thought, This is great and this is, you know, this is going to be Windhorse. I’m just going to be going out all the time. And that doesn’t always happen. And sometimes people can be kind of stuck in their homes or in certain environments because either they’re they’re physically incapable of getting out as much as they might like or they might have other reasons for staying in their home. And so making different environments, moving with clients, helping them, helping them pick locations to live, helping set up the environment so that it’s pretty comfortable and they can enjoy what they may have. The person I’m thinking of, he, you know, has a very small room now in this nursing facility. And it’s a challenge because, you know, everything that that he had gathered over the course of his life can’t necessarily fit in there with him. And so how do we bring in enough to make it a place that feels nice and feels like there can be health and recovery and, you know, make changes and talk about how to make changes so that, you know, he can be a participant in the environment. And it’s not just, you know, I think of, you know, not just having the environment out there and then I’m stuck here unable to do anything but being involved in the environment and having action that we can actually take. [00:41:20][140.2]
Chuck Knapp: [00:41:22] What I’m struck with in what you’re describing there. Likewise, Lindsay, you’re all familiar with the term outside in treatment. It’s part of the of chase creating environments of sanity that oftentimes the outer parts of the environment like what you’re talking about, the activities, budgets having to move that sort of thing, traveling from place to place, it’s influencing us a lot. So the treatment that we do, the therapeutic processes we create aren’t so completely psychologically driven. A psychotherapist we’ll get to that in our next next podcast. But but the overall physical, social, emotional and cognitive kind of psychological environment, that’s the whole person environment that’s so much of what we’re doing. Has this outside in quality of working with everything in somebody’s life to help with learning and growth. Clarifying confusion. Is there in the sense of that notion of of form in the environment and kind of outside in? Is there anything that you would think of worth touching on right now? In the last 5 minutes we have. [00:42:43][81.4]
Jamie Emery: [00:42:45] I mentioned something really briefly, Chuck, that you just keyed into, and that is is the importance of coming back to some kind of basic grounding principle. And one of the main grounding principles that we have is coming back to our senses. And I think that’s what you’re talking about as far as the outside in. I mean, it’s kind of like we come back. It’s well, it’s it’s it’s the relationship between outside and inside. And if somebody is having a difficult time, if any of us are having a difficult time in the midst of that, we can come we can also come back in any given moment to our senses, you know, and that can be helpful and very grounding. And I think that’s part of the Windhorse environmental principle, that there is a mindfulness component of being mindful of the ability to come back and smell and taste and touch and, you know, and see the environment. And if our mind inside is so chaotic to come back to an environment that’s fairly orderly, that’s fairly uplifted, that has a sense of delight or care to it, that can help the internal experience. [00:43:57][72.5]
Art Ginley: [00:43:59] You know, I think of an interesting situation I have had where there’s two clients living in the same home and working with that environment, working with that home and working with, you know, a housemate, being in the home and the team coming in and two separate teams that that work in that household that it can be. Chaotic, as Jamie put it, can be kind of messy and hard to figure things out because, you know, it’s no longer just, you know, thinking of a bunch of people on a team coming in and taking care of the home for the client. It’s thinking about, you know, how do we set up the rhythms? How do we set up a way to keep the household clean for three people that are living in that same household that might not all have the same rhythms of how they relate to what cleanliness is or how they relate to where things need to be organized. And sometimes, you know, we’ll we’ll talk about how things need to be moved around just to make the space more accommodating. And then there’s a little conflict there trying to figure out, like, whose voice to listen to or how do we find a nice compromise that works for everyone in the household. And there’s a whole bunch of, you know, relational stuff that comes up with that with people may be feeling some tension or conflict with each other. And then as a team leader, I feel my role is to step in there and, you know, encourage a lot of these processes of how do we talk about how we keep the space clean, how do we come to something that’s doable, workable for everyone in the household, and maybe also looking for times for team members to step in and delegate some responsibility or say, take someone out of the household and get them to go for a walk because the household is getting to be, you know, too tense or they’re getting you know, the client is getting kind of frustrated or feeling kind of stuck in the household and just needing to get some space and get out of that environment into a different environment. And it feels like the role of a team leader is stepping in and kind of looking at all those different aspects. If you’re talking about outside and inside, it’s looking at the outside environment, but then trying to get a sense of the inside environment and how to work with with both of those and know when to maybe yeah, focus on we got to keep this clean. We got to really do something about what’s going on around us or we got to just get you out into, you know, a hike so that you can get a little space and, you know, feel a little better and then be able to move back into your home or whatever that might be. [00:47:01][182.0]
Jamie Emery: [00:47:06] When you describe that art being somewhat also involved in the household and watching. You honestly as a team leader? It kind of. Really shines a light on again. I think what I. See, is it a role of holding a lot of chaos? And you know, knowing, holding it and having the space and grace, I guess, and skill to hold. A lot of chaos and compassion for the clients in the house and and then making choices. You know, and hoping that the right ones do the wrong ones, then try again, you know. Yeah. So when you describe that and knowing you in that role, you know, really is literally what a team leader is to me. [00:48:03][57.5]
Elysa: [00:48:30] Thank you for listening to Windhorse Journal Entry Edition. Stay tuned for next month’s episode that will host a conversation on basic attendance within the role of a Windhorse intensive psychotherapist. Check out Windhorsecommunityservices.com/journal to find the past episodes and relevant Windhorse Journal Written Content. This podcast can also be found on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. [00:48:53][22.4]
Lori: [00:49:30] Windhorse Journal is a publication of Windhorse Community Services supporting recovery from mental health challenges at home and in the community since 1981. [00:49:30][0.0]
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Key words: Team Leader, Therapeutic Team, relational medicine, Home based psychological care, Buddhist psychology, contemplative psychotherapy, Mindfulness based therapy, Residential treatment, extreme mental states, major mental illness, schizophrenia, psychosis, mood disorder