FALL 2005 VOL. 5 , NO.

WINDHORSENEWS
FOR THE COMMUNITY AND FRIENDS OF WINDHORSE ASSOCIATES
A Greeting from Michael Herrick, Executive Director: It is a fundamental Windhorse principal that restoring connections restores health. This includes taking up practices that connect our minds with our bodies, connect our heads, hearts, and hands with each other as a community, connect our daily life with our spiritual path, and connect our Windhorse community with the larger world. We hope that this newsletter will help you stay connected to us, and us to you.

Spirituality and Psychotherapy

by Bruce McCarter, Psy.D.
THE TOPIC OF SPIRITUALITY AND

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Art: David Levy, father of Windhorse housemate Michael Levy

is very much a hot one in the fields of psychology and mental health. Its roots date back to William James and Jung but for many years it was considered unscientific, in the last 15 years or so there has been a steadily increasing interest and acceptance in the importance of attending to not only the mind but also the body and the spirit. We have come to recognize some of the limitations of our scientific reductionist heritage. The experience of clients and providers alike revealed that our tendency to compartmentalize the mind and body, and usually ignore the spirit, often resulted in temporary fixes without healing at the core. While whole person care used to be associated with alternative or new age approaches, it has become much more mainstream. One potential danger in including issues of spirit in the mental health equation is that the provider may in some way impose his or her beliefs on the client. It is possible, however, to encourage people to cultivate the vitality of whatever spiritual tradition is already present in their life.
PSYCHOTHERAPY

If there is no active connection to a spiritual path then the provider may simply encourage the individual to explore and pursue whatever path or tradition feels right to them. For some this may simply mean taking time to honor their inner life through such activities as journal writing, walking in nature, artwork, or taking time for quiet contemplation. By taking care of ourselves in these ways we are exercising some of the few areas that we actually have some control over in our lives. This can be very empowering. Currently one of the most common techniques that is being applied from a spiritual tradition is that of mindfulness training. Mindfulness is most frequently associated with Buddhist meditation, but as a mental skill Buddhism does not have a monopoly on it. Mindfulness refers to the trained capacity to reflect and bear witness to ones unfolding mental process and emotions without judgment, without reactivity. This ability has many benefits and applications. From chronic pain to anxiety and depression, mindfulness has helped people arrive at new insights and perspectives on their moment-to-moment experience. Here at Windhorse mindfulness is cultivated through contemplative practice, primarily on the part of staff, and basic attendance. When staff engage in mindfulness and contemplative practices it helps them find

WINDHORSE NEWS

FALL 2005

Peer Support at Windhorse: A Brief History

by David Stark
as Peer Support Coordinator, I can gladly say that it has been the best job I have ever had. While my treatment as a Windhorse client provided me many valuable experiences, it was not until I began working at peer support that I found the inspiration and gusto to expand my recovery toward impassioned independence. The beginning of the peer support program was simple and inauspicious, even humble, yet somehow infused with the robust sense of optimism that makes Windhorse irreplaceable. Following the work of Sally Clay, as the first Windhorse advocate and peer organizer, the first group to attain longterm success was a hiking group. It followed a simple formula; take a healthy activity, like hiking, add a group of willing walkers, choose a setting such as a nearby path or trail, add publicity and friendly reminders as needed, and support from a culture steeped in principles of wellness, and see what benefits can occur. Plenty of healthy consequences did arise, physically, socially, and spiritually. Over time the formula was refined. Antioch College interns such as Phoebe Murray and later Sara Watters joined in the organizing. Destinations grew further distant, and what had begun as local hikes soon evolved into interest in regional travel, and a travel club was born. We rafted down the Deerfield River from Charlemont,
LOOKING BACK OVER SIX AND ONE-HALF YEARS

explored southern Vermont and New Hampshire with help from staff members Nick Luchetti, David Downs, Phoebe Murray, and Eric Friedland. It soon became clear that clients enjoyed each others company, and that a sense of adventure, merriment, and spontaneous connection helped inspire people to new heights at Windhorse, in recovery, and beyond. While the outings were vivid experiences in nature and in the broader community beyond Windhorse, they depended on good weather, careful planning, travel budgets, and excluded those less inclined to explore the out of doors. One day a client asked for more simple opportunities to socialize with others, and his request generated an indoor group that would meet weekly to explore the social landscape, and greet new minds through the words they offered. A peer social hour had come into being, requiring only snacks, chairs, and chatter. This gave rise to new acquaintances, helping to diminish the boundaries often felt between clients who predominately interacted with members of their own clinical team. As groups arose to meet the needs, interests, and requests of clients, a Peer Support Program had fully emerged, and blossomed. A consciousness was developing, both among clients themselves and within the larger organization, which expressed the view that Windhorse was not simply about importing wisdom to those seeking to recover, or delineating the elusive internal dimensions of illness and struggle, but

Spirituality and Psychotherapy

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greater balance and calm in their mental states. They are thus able to be more present and attuned in their basic attendance shifts with clients. Mindfulness has been proven a formidable antidote to burnout. Basic attendance benefits clients on many levels, helping people shift from disturbing mental content to focusing on

UPCOMING EVENTS:

The Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology will be hosting a conference, The Connection Between Spirituality and Mental Health: Building Community, on December 3 in Boston.

what is happening right now, in their body, in their interactions with others, and in the tasks we all need to complete in order to function in our lives. Basic attendance also fosters a different quality of therapeutic relationship, a spaciousness that leaves more room for people to be authentically themselves, to find trust, and to find common ground. In short, we are not really adding spiritual issues to our therapeutic work as much as we are simply recognizing that a spiritual component is already there. Intrinsically unfolding in our efforts to negotiate lives in which there are so many paradoxes and mysteries.

The Psychology and Religion Division (Div, 36)

of the American Psychological Association will be hosting a conference at Loyola College in Maryland on March 34, 2006.

Dr. McCarter is vice president of the board of directors here at Windhorse. He is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He is the founder and director of the Ahimsa Institute for Buddhist and Peace Studies. He welcomes further dialogue on this topic with any who might be interested.

about ultimately facing the world, if not alone, then with group support, not simply paid and individualized companionship. Clients could convene, congregate, commiserate with or congratulate each other, condemn inferior treatment experiences, or converse about the latest news stories, linking themselves first to each other, then to the larger world, thereby softening their past discomforts, straightening their stands for the future, and shifting their perceptions of themselves. Group inclusion strengthened individual identities with a type of Windhorse-informed moral support. Clients found both geographical and experiential points of similarity, both terrestrially and chronologically shared paths, as mind and body synchronized in a peer, rather than a clinical context, expanding treatment successes and conjoining community members in a linked convergence of formerly isolated, personalized realities. A more focused attempt to enable client experiences to inform others directly was the Boston University Recovery Workshops, co-facilitated by senior clinician Mary Cape, the first of which ran for thirty weeks in 2000. The workshop oriented clients toward voicing and exploring in-depth perspectives on numerous issues in recovery, informed by personal struggles they had endured. This forum for sharing, commenting, analyzing, theorizing and even speculating on the nature, course, outcome, potential and imagined possibilities for recovery helped both minds and hearts to grow capaciously. Discussions supplemented and advanced the traditional Windhorse teachings by promoting a new type of knowledge, created by consumer discussants, not

professionals, that could expand the approach by offering improvements to the intrinsic limitations of its professional constructed principles. Clients were astutely digesting and brilliantly exploring the very underpinnings and perpetual dilemmas of that elusive concept, recovery, guided only by their own lived experiences, abundant curiosity, and ambitious approaches to inquiry. The success of the first year led to its recurrence twice more, though in abbreviated formats. In 2003, Windhorse offered its first Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP), co-sponsored by the Department of Mental Health. Clients trained in the methods proposed by Mary Ellen Copeland to devise responses to difficult periods in recovery by observing signs of deterioration, and linking them to criteria for action. Like BU Recovery, WRAP expanded both client-led offerings and knowledge of recovery. Meanwhile, as the organization had taken note of the potential and performance of peer support program possibilities, yet another idea had come to fruition. Jeff Fortuna, founder and then executive director, envisioned recovering clients and former clients undertaking a training course that would qualify them to work on clinical teams. The bold idea evoked both anticipation and skepticism, as it argued that clients could not only recover but could play instrumental roles in the recoveries of others. It also placed persevering clients beyond the peer support programming and squarely within the team domain, hoping that their skills and experiences would earn them inclusion in the professional setting, while inevitably exposing them to the dreaded possibility of failure. The first course, held in spring of 2001, was co-taught by Cheryl Stevens, M.D., of the Department of Mental Health office of Consumer and Ex-Patient Relations, and of the Windhorse board. Lasting twelve weeks and covering Basic Attendance, Team Participation, Self-Care, and Peer Supportit enrolled three pioneering students, graduated two, and sent one to the completion of a successful internship. The course repeated in 2003, beginning with twelve students, graduated most, and spurred four to complete internships to date. Interns who successfully complete internships may apply to work as paid peer counselors; five have assumed those duties, with two remaining at present. Finally, a word should be said about the challenges facing peer support at Windhorse. Attendance at peer support groups has varied widely over time. As new groups come into being, older ones may disappear. Clients interests vary and change, as do their alliance with peer support principles and their desires to practice forms of relating that may require effort or discipline. Furthermore, as many clients choose Windhorse for the dignity and autonomy it affords them as individuals, they may not desire to congregate in peer groups. Fortunately at Windhorse, a poorly attended program or function never finds itself on the chopping block immediately. The culture recognizes that recovery takes time, and that proclivities may meander, but that clients often value having

Laura Kays, Windhorse community member

FALL 2005

WINDHORSE NEWS

4
Eben Herrick, son of Michael Herrick

access to opportunities even when they do not choose to pursue them. Peer counseling embraces a more specific challenge. Individuals who become peer counselors must move from interacting as clients with an organization that strives to meet their needs to serving the organization as counselors to meet the needs of others. The transition may be chaotic, painful, and pressured, and even engender strong feelings of inadequacy, role confusions, and fears of professional failure while allowing for positive transformations of identity, deeply felt devotion to others, concerted effort, newly found purpose and surprisingly beautiful successes. Windhorse accommodates these transitions gracefully, trying to serve the greater good by supporting the best interests of individuals who ultimately may no longer serve its own mission. The peer support program and peer counselor training often provide aspiring clients the resources and wherewithal needed to transcend treatment-based lifestyles and make fresh, viable starts as equal citizens, free to move on with their lives, formidable in their courage.
A NEW BOOK TO LOOK FOR ON THE TOPIC OF PEER SUPPORT:

On Our Own Together Edited by Sally Clay. Vanderbilt University Press, 2005

In the final analysis, the hope of every person is simply peace of mind.
DALAI LAMA
W I N D H O R S E S TA F F

Resources on the Internet for peers/consumers Visit our website for a more complete listing of resources. The views expressed on these websites may not entirely align with the policies and approaches of Windhorse Associates.
Alliance for Human Resource Protection current news articles: http://www.ahrp.org/ American Bar Association: Commission on Mental and Physical Disability Law: http:// www.abanet.org/disability/home.html Consumer Organization and Networking Technical Assistance Center: http://www.contac.org/ Consumer/survivor/expatient resources: http://zyra.org.uk/madlinks.htm Freedom Center Northampton MAMain Page: http://www.freedom-center.org/ Information on Electroconvulsive Therapy: http://www.ect.org Mental Disability Rights International: http://www.mdri.org/ Mind Freedom: http://www.mindfreedom.org/ Narrative Approaches, Adelaide, Australia: http://www.narrativeapproaches.com/ welcome.html National Disability Rights Network: Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Disabilities: http://www.napas.org/ National Empowerment Center: http://www.power2u.org/ Otherwise SpecifiedA psychiatric survivor and reform group: http://www.otherwisespecified.org

Jeff Bliss, CSW, development director Vanessa Brackett, BA, team counselor Mary Cape, MSW, senior clinician,
family coordinator

Seana Carmean, BA, social work intern Marilyn Clare, MSW, housemate Gineen Cooper, BA, housemate Anne Marie DiGiacomo, LICSW,
admissions coordinator

David Downs, BBA, bookkeeper Eric Friedland, MA, senior clinician Bruce Goderez, MD, psychiatrist Michael Herrick, MA, executive director,
clinical director

Rahel Hiwet-Herzog, housemate Julia Kuhns, development intern Mike Levy, BA, housemate Nick Luchetti, MS, housemate Marilyn Marks, LICSW, team leader Rene Mendez, RN, MA, director of
wellness

Phoebe Murray, MA, team leader Robert Picariello, MA, team leader Harold Raush, PhD, elder Deb Reed, BS, counselor Kate Richardson, office manager Sparky Shooting Star, adjunct therapist Ilina Singh, RN, nurse Steve Smith, BA, counselor David Stark, BA, peer counselor, peer
coordinator

Gabrielle Vitiello, LICSW, team leader Sara Watters, MA, team leader Stu Weatherbe housemate Elise White, peer counselor

BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Rene Anderson, MA Reuven Goldstein, MEd, treasurer Bruce McCarter, PsyD, vice president John McNally, JD, president Constance Packard, MSW David Stark, BA, clerk

Do you have a website that can add to our resources? Please share it with us.

WINDHORSE NEWS

FALL 2005

On Visiting the Megaliths on Vieques Island

Even the sun will dwindle and snuff out some day. So too will these stones laid by the ancestors, be split by the unknowing workings of trees, wash away in eons of unthinking rain. But for now they speak their message: we were here, you are not alone. Ilina Singh, Windhorse Nurse

Windhorse Associates, a non-prot therapeutic and educational organization, is pioneering a whole-person approach to recovery from psychiatric disorders. We offer comprehensive, individually designed therapeutic programs in the community. Care is based in the clients home or in a therapeutic household shared with a staff housemate in the Northampton area. Mindfulness, attention to the whole person, restoration of personal and social connections, and belief in recovery are basic principles under-lying our approach. Windhorse also offers education and training in recovery skills and consultation to individuals and families. For more information, to request a brochure describing our programs, or to make a referral or inquire about admission, contact Jeff Bliss by phone (ext. 113), mail, or e-mail.

Windhorse Associates, Inc. Tel: 413-586-0207 Toll Free: 877-844-8181 [email protected] www.WindhorseAssociates.org

Comings and Goings

We feel fortunate to have Kate Richardson join our staff as the office manager. She brings a depth of nonprofit board and management experience to her role. Long standing employees, Victoria Yoshen and R.B. Stewart are moving on from their work here. R.B. has moved to Colorado and Victoria has taken a position in a favorite environment of hers, a bookstore. The organization has grown and changed in many positive ways due to their influences. We remain grateful. We welcome Gineen Cooper, Stu Weatherbe, Heidi Stucker to their roles as Windhorse housemates. We also welcome Mike Levy back as a returning housemate. In addition please welcome Vanessa Brackett as a team counselor and Jen Stuart as a respite counselor.

Dave Downs has increased his role by moving from his position as our bookkeeper to becoming the Windhorse accountant. Dave continues to provide a steady lively presence in our team room. Norma Friedman, a past Windhorse board president, has joined the Nominating Committee. Joe Arak, a supporter of Windhorse, has joined the Fundraising Committee. Joe brings fundraising and marketing savvy to our efforts. We are grateful for their expertise and commitment. Seana Carmean has joined the clinical staff as a Graduate Intern from the Smith College School of Social Work. Julia Kuhns, an undergraduate senior at Smith College is here as a Development Intern. We deeply appreciate board member Connie Packards help with making this position possible. We thank Oryx Cohen, co-founder of The Freedom Center, for his volunteer commitment to helping shape Windhorse as a board member. He will remain a good friend of ours in the future.

Bob Picariello, MA, joins the staff as a team leader.

His extensive therapeutic experience and outdoor interests will inform his valuable contribution here. We thank Mike Todrin, Kay Werner, and Matt Douglas, for their service as Windhorse housemates.

Community News
Following the board visioning process last spring we held
a response session for supporters of Windhorse in Gordon Thornes APE gallery space in Northampton. Those responses and further work by the Steering Committee have honed the focus of our work and growth for the next 5 years down to a series of action steps that the staff and clients will react to. The result will be the pathway for our growth and change.

The poetry/prose writing group continues to meet and

the Qi Gong (breathing) class, the peer support group, and the Yoga classes are all continuing to meet weekly in the Windhorse offices.

Mya Hayes, a community member, has dedicated a great

deal of volunteer time to working on the library project here at Windhorse. We so appreciate her efforts.

The Windhorse Ultimate Frisbee games have continued

during the spring, summer, and fall and have added a visit to a local Frisbee golf course. With the approaching cold weather everyone is wondering who is stoic enough to continue playing?

The Founding Day dinner, held in the Willow Brook

shelter at Look Park on a raining Friday evening in September was attended by present and former staff members, clients, family members, and board members. It was not a large gathering, but had a lovely quality of warmth and camaraderie. It marked 12 years of Windhorse Associates existence. We especially thank Ilina Singh, RN for the wood fire she provided.

Sara Watters, a senior

clinician at Windhorse, recently traveled to Boulder, Colorado to present at the Third annual Wilderness Therapy Symposium. Her session focused on everyday wilderness therapy for those experiencing extreme states of mind.

Adam Erlbaum goes long, Dave Downs, Dave Stark, and Michael Herrick defend, Jeff Bliss hopes for the best.

Windhorse Associates, Inc. 211 North Street, Suite 1 Northampton, MA 01060

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RESTORING CONNECTIONS, RESTORING HEALTH