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,
We continue our focus on the role of medication in mental health recovery with the second half of an article about clients’ lived experiences. Again, this is based on interviews with clients, who spoke candidly of the ways prescribed substances have figured in the management of their mental health issues. Acknowledging their act of trust, I bear the responsibility of accurately representing the variety of their experiences. And I hope I have done so.
Part One of this subject, posted on October 4, presented clients’ experiences with side effects, the process of finding a suitable medication (or combination thereof), and the perceived purpose of meds. Here, in Part Two, we explore the issues of autonomy and personal choice, social supports, and true collaboration with professionals in this process of reclaiming one’s mind and life. I hope you will find our clients’ experiences and insights illuminating. And we invite you to share your thoughts.
Thank you for reading,
Lori S. Heintzelman [Read more…]
Dear Friends!
Today’s podcast (part one of a two-part series) features the recording of an important conversation I recently participated in about the efficacy and pitfalls of using psychiatric medications. Joining me were members of the Windhorse community: Emily Ashley, Eugenie Morton, and Joe Calcagno.
This topic hits close to home for me as someone who was diagnosed with a chronic mental illness but no longer uses these medications for wellness. In this podcast, you will hear a variety of perspectives on this controversial topic from staff and clients who currently take or used to take these substances. We share our experiences, weigh the pros and cons of use, explore the nature of stigma, and offer what has helped us along our path. [Read more…]
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…]