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,
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…]
Dear Friends,
As we continue a short series on the contemplative practice of Maitri Space Awareness, our entry this week is another written piece from Anne Marie DiGiacomo—Windhorse senior clinician, former Co-Director, and seasoned teacher of the practice.
In this offering, Anne Marie focuses on one of the five wisdom energies within maitri practice—Ratna—and reflects on its implications for inclusivity. Within the relational approach of Windhorse, the openness of Ratna welcomes all voices and all states of being as it encourages judgments about them to fall away… [Read more…]
Dear Friends,
Maitri Space Awareness practice, as described in this Podcast, has played a very significant role in my personal and professional life and development.
I was first introduced to this view and practice at the (then) Naropa Institute in the summer of 1977. The class was taught by Marvin Casper who—as indicated in the Podcast—was instrumental in the early therapeutic development and application of the work with these practices and in the subsequent development of such practices as a key element in the training of Contemplative psychotherapists. This was my introduction to meditation and Space Awareness practice… [Read more…]
Dear Friends,
This written offering is the first in a series of posts about Maitri Space Awareness—a type of contemplative practice from Tibetan Buddhism that is drawn upon in Windhorse work. Its author—Anne Marie DiGiacomo—is a Windhorse senior clinician, former Co-Director, and seasoned teacher of the practice. Maitri Space Awareness is intended to identify universal energies and illuminate patterns of thought and action—those of ourselves and others. The experience invites compassion—the kindness and friendliness that is maitri—for variable mind states. At Windhorse Community Services, Maitri Space Awareness is conducted in supervision groups of those in a shared role (e.g. Basic Attenders), or a particular clinical team may go through the practice together… [Read more…]
Welcome!
In this podcast, Jamie Emery and I explore our connection to Windhorse Community Services, a community we have been members of for over three decades. Windhorse is an intentional community and clinical service that works with people who experience the complexity of extreme states. It is a place that stretches, grows and cultivates health. It is a place to overcome loneliness and isolation—where people come to feel valued as they are.
The Windhorse community is a diverse array of families, clients and staff who have joined in partnership to explore the workings of community and how it can promote health. What draws us together and binds us is deeply personal and yet universal… [Read more…]