Home-Based Recovery of Mental Health, Inc.
The Windhorse Journal’s mission is to inspire compassionate approaches to recovering sanity.
We do this by creating an evolving forum dedicated to exploring contemplative psychotherapy and the creation of therapeutic environments for the wellbeing of all persons involved. We envision this to be a rich dialogue among people with lived experience, family members, psychology professionals, and anyone interested in whole person-mental health and the diverse expressions of human sanity.
Dear Readers,
You will notice that we have been focusing on the role of medication in mental health recovery in recent posts. One of those offerings was a podcast discussion between Windhorse clinicians with a collaborating psychiatrist, Earle Shugerman, and another was a written excerpt on the Windhorse view of medications from the core text, Recovering Sanity, by Dr. Ed Podvoll. The perspective of mental health professionals, as in these two offerings, is obviously important, but it is incomplete. What of the view from actual clients—who have first-hand experience of psychiatric medications? Most clients come to Windhorse on various prescribed medications and remain on at least one, albeit ideally at a reduced dosage or after changing to a more effective drug with fewer side effects. [Read more…]
Dear Friends,
In this podcast, we return to the conversation between Dr. Earle Shugerman and Windhorse senior clinicians Jeffrey Fortuna, Gretchen Kahre, and myself. Chuck Knapp hosts and facilitates the discussion.
In Part One, Dr. Shugerman reflected on what it is like for him to work with Windhorse teams and what makes the Windhorse approach unique in the field of mental health treatment. We also heard from members of Windhorse teams about their experiences in partnering together with clients and Dr. Shugerman. [Read more…]
Dear Readers,
Yesterday, my colleague Jeff Fortuna and I had the pleasure of spending the afternoon with our dear friend Joanne Greenberg. Many of you may know her as the author of the semi-autobiographical novel I Never Promised You A Rose Garden, and also as one of the very highly respected voices of authority around recovery from mental illness—the term she prefers over others such as mental health challenges. As we were leaving the hospitality of her wonderful mountain home, I shared with her that I’d be writing this introduction today and asked if she had anything to pass along about the use, or non-use, of psychotropic medication. [Read more…]
Dear Friends,
I hope you enjoyed the previous journal entry about my experiences as a psychotherapist with clients as they navigate their journeys with psychiatrists and medications. Here, we present you with a podcast which continues to explore the subject of medications and the relationship between psychiatry and Windhorse teams. This is a small group discussion between some of Windhorse’s senior clinicians and Dr. Earle Shugerman.
Dr. Shugerman has been a close colleague of Windhorse Community Services for many years. He is the treating psychiatrist for many of our clients, he participates in periodic team meetings, and he consults with our Team Supervisor group once a month. [Read more…]
Dear Readers,
This week’s entry introduces the complex topic of how we approach the use, or non-use, of psychotropic medications. Jeanne Christensen, one of our most senior clinicians, offers a window into the partnership she develops with the client while in the role of Intensive Psychotherapist (IP). Supporting, clarifying, creating as much safety as possible, and always working to develop a collaborative relationship between the client and the psychiatrist, what she’s describing is an aspect of how we attempt to tailor our therapeutic environments to the very specific needs of each of our clients and families.
Underlying the IP-client alliance around medications is a key element of our view, stated succinctly by Ed Podvoll, MD: “The major point of medication usage is to ensure that the integrity of the wakeful mind is protected. The natural and inherent precision that can accurately discriminate dream from reality requires protection.” Of course, in order for us to be of aid in that highly subtle process, developing an open, honest, and trusting relationship with the client is paramount. [Read more…]
Dear Readers,
Over the past year, Windhorse Journal has presented five entries on the topic of TSEWA. The entry you’re now reading will be the sixth. By now, it could be said, we have some kind of fascination with tsewa.
Admittedly, six journal entries examining a Tibetan word is perhaps excessive. Since there are two additional tsewa related entries planned for the near future, it might be a little premature to cry “excessive!” just yet. Let’s instead say that our present fascination with tsewa would be more accurately identified as “inspiration”. [Read more…]
Dear Friends,
Tsewa is a Tibetan word that we explored in Windhorse Journal entries 009, 010, 024 and 025—with the guidance of Buddhist teacher Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche. Tsewa can be most simply described as the warmth and tenderness we feel toward others. Rinpoche encourages us to see tsewa as an experience we should cherish and one we should learn to trust as the skill most responsible for assuring our own happiness and the happiness of others. Kongtrul Rinpoche’s thoughts and instructions on the topic are far from simplistic, but rather deeply reasoned and profoundly potent in the face of the polarity, conflict, distrust and meanness that many of us perceive in today’s social interaction. He compares Tsewa to oxygen—as something fundamental and essential to our well being: “. . . our lungs always yearn for oxygen, our heart always yearns to be open, to give and receive tsewa.” [Read more…]
Dear Friends,
In the last journal entry we offered a paper by Carrie Doehring, discussing the necessity for body- centered spiritual practices when searching for wholeness amidst traumatic grief. Now, for this journal entry—a podcast—she is joined in conversation by Alan Johnson, Bill Forbes, Pedro Silva, Don Blomberg and Chuck Knapp. Together they discuss the topic of moral injury and moral stress, and how people search for meaning amidst suffering. [Read more…]
Dear Readers,
I appreciate the following paper by Carrie Doehring very much. Although academic, she speaks with much heart and vulnerability, sharing the loss of her son to suicide and how she uses the practice of listening to sacred choral music to experience the traumatic grief of her loss. She shares her personal story to make her argument that body-centered spiritual practices, such as listening to sacred choral music, are necessary for one to find the safety necessary to fully experience one’s grief and wholeness.
Traumatic grief experienced in the body can be quite overwhelming, and without the container of a body-centered practice, it can be hard to tolerate all of the difficult feelings that arise from the experience. From my own life, I know how hard it can be to step into the experience because it brings up a tremendous amount of fear, shame and self aggression… [Read more…]
Dear Friends,
We conclude a short series on the contemplative practice of Maitri Space Awareness with a podcast. This is the second half of a conversation among clinicians Kathy Emery, Anne Marie DiGiacomo, Daniel Green, and Jeremy Ellis.
In it, they discuss how maitri—as “unlimited friendliness”—has shown up in their personal contemplative practice and each one’s work. They also address its impact on the community at large, as acceptance of the variety of mind states within oneself allows space for others. Jeremy, Daniel, Anne Marie, and Kathy illustrate—through personal anecdotes and musings—how paying more attention leads to a bigger view of every situation, and a commitment to stay with it despite any discomfort… [Read more…]