For the Community and Friends of Windhorse Integrative Mental Health

spring 2012 | vol. 12, no. 1

An Interview with Sherri L. Kimbell, PhDc

Clinical Director for Windhorse Integrative Mental Health - San Luis Obispo

What attracted you to the Windhorse approach?

I became attracted to the Windhorse approach as a student in the Masters of Contemplative Psychotherapy program at Naropa Institute, now a University. It was the late 1990s, and for years I had been a campaign director for Greenpeace USA, working on climate change and global warming. I felt I had failed miserably, because things were only getting worse. Disheartened, I turned to deepening my Buddhist studies and meditation practice, initially via retreats with Thich Nhat Hanh, my root teacher. I had become interested in how change and acceptance happen at the individual level. My work at the global level had been an exercise in futility, and I felt that there had to be a better way. During my studies, I was awestruck by Recovering Sanity, (originally titled The Seduction of Madness) by the founder of the Windhorse approach, Dr. Ed Podvoll. For the first time in my life, someone had expressed the experience I had of being part of a family
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Dr. Ed Podvoll (left), founder of the Windhorse approach, and Sherri Kimbell (right), Clinical Director of Windhorse IMHWest

Courageous Aloneness
By Nick Luchetti, MS Senior Clinician/Education Coordinator

Essential Loneliness and the Value of Contemplative Practice

One of the core components of the Windhorse approach to recovery is the vital role that contemplative practice plays in our clinical therapeutic relational discipline of Basic Attendance. Basic Attendance is the practice of interpersonal mindfulness while engaged in everyday activities with those in recovery. While there are many reasons why contemplative practice is beneficial for providers of basic attendance, the following examines one of the primary benefits i.e. the potential to transform essential loneliness into courageous aloneness and thereby offer an interpersonal remedy to one of the root causes of psychological disturbance. If those who care for individuals enduring extreme states of consciousness can convey such a courageous presence, then the interpersonal environment can become a remedial source of healing.

Perhaps the greatest irony of the post-modern era is that as means for communication proliferate, we are becoming increasingly isolated. In the sociological analysis of modern-day loneliness entitled Shades of Loneliness: Pathologies of a Technological Society author Richard Stivers argues that in spite of the illusion of digital connectivity through such innovations as social media, we are collectively suffering an epidemic of loneliness. Stivers claims that modern culture fosters the development of a fragmented technological personality which sets the stage for even more severe forms of disconnection. He goes on to make the claim that psychological disorders, particularly psychoses, are fostered by this technologically induced loneliness. Stivers wasnt the first to make this correlation between loneliness and psychosis. In fact, one of the most important theoretical contributions to the
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{Sherri Kimball, page 1}

with individuals frequently experiencing extreme states of mind and body. This was the norm I had grown up with from such an early age that I didnt know it was different. I always saw the pieces of sanity in the surrounding psychosis, and it came naturally to me to appreciate the sanity while remaining present with the psychosis. Since childhood, I had essentially been practicing what Dr. Podvoll describes as Basic Attendance.

any given moment. The best clinicians want to learn how to trust the honest, open space of not knowing (with their conceptual minds) what is happening between people. They can doubt conviction their own first, and then that of others skillfully and with a helpful sense of humor and levity. I was never taught this when I grew up, nor was anyone else I knew. I was taught to seek knowledge with certainty first, and with the conceptual mind, not through my direct embodied experience. I certainly was not taught to lean into the skill of not knowing that we all live in on a daily basis. I did not learn to trust my direct experience to guide me wisely through any moment. It takes a certain kind of person to get excited about learning how to trust something greater than a priori conceptual knowing.

How did you begin to apply what you were learning?

I was already working for Windhorse in Boulder when Dr. Podvoll came out of a long period of retreat. When he died of cancer in 2003, I was serving as the Team Leader of a support group. He taught me a lot before he died, and affirmed what I already knew that all people do Basic Attendance innately and naturally. When I met him to thank him for his compassionate, intelligent understanding, I cried with gratitude. In his work, he articulated experiences that for many of us have been largely non-verbal and innate, though often confusing. He postulated a healing way of being and relating amidst extremes states of being. By making this method visible and offering it a voice, he brought it to life in such a way that it could be taught thereafter, and I became one of its teachers. After I graduated from Naropa, I continued to work with Windhorse and went on to become Core Faculty and Co-Chair of the Masters of Contemplative Psychology department (which had actually been co-founded by Dr. Podvoll). I worked there for almost ten years and had the opportunity to teach the Windhorse approach to hundreds of student therapists in training. In doing this work, I have always felt like I am coming home to something I know in my heart is true.

Why, in your experience, have clients been able to experience recovery in the Windhorse approach, especially some of the long-term chronically mentally ill?
First and foremost, I think clients recover so well because of the commitment our clinicians make to cultivating their grounded minds. When all of your clinical team members can keep their seats and see the sanity in you, no matter how extreme your state of mind and body is, it helps you come back to yourself, to your nonthinking, body-based wisdom in the present moment. Being in your body and in the moment is healing. Its an antidote to too much thinking, which is one way to describe psychosis. Generally, when we are in extreme states, we are living in our heads, stuck in cul-de-sacs of

What kind of therapists or counselors do best in this approach / work?

Those who are curious and courageous. The most successful clinicians are curious about their own minds and experiences, as well as those of other people. They are courageous enough to be open, willing to let go of needing to know things with certainty, and ready to step into relationship despite the unknown. They like to explore the spontaneous creative wisdom that comes from exploring relationships to oneself and to others in

WINDHORSE NEWS | SPRING 2012

thought-worlds of our own making. We take flight from our direct experience and dream while awake. Many, if not most, chronically mentally ill people do not have the opportunity to be around others who help them come back to their bodies, back to present reality operating at pedestrian speed and doing ordinary things, like vacuuming, washing laundry, walking the dog, taking out the trash, or making a meal. People who have been repeatedly hospitalized in asylums for years have been disconnected and isolated from ordinary, embodied reality for far too long. When people have been warehoused for years on end, they can lose touch with the ordinary rhythms and tasks of daily life that ground us all. Without embodied tasks or ordinary chores of daily life to do, we can drift and dream and never return from dreaming about who we think we are or want to be. Our bodies bring us back to grounded ordinariness.

We stop focusing on reviewing the pain of the past or projecting fears into the future, and start being present in the moment. At Windhorse, we are doing more than just meditating for ourselves. We cultivate contemplative practices of interpersonal mindfulness, which increase our awareness of ourselves, others, and our environment, all simultaneously. Mindfulness-based psychotherapy has become quite popular in the past ten years, and is prevalent in the field of psychology today, but what we are doing at Windhorse is different. Most forms of mindfulness-based therapy focus on cultivating the psychotherapists personal mindfulness or on teaching mindfulnessbased techniques to clients. At Windhorse, we have found it most effective to cultivate e M a tri-part interpersonal mindfulkah be ness of self, others, and environment, y Re dala B Man all at once. This allows the wisdom which naturally arises from the interplay of all participating energies to inform the path of recovery unfolding thereafter. As we interact with each other and with our environment, together we experience and consciously cultivate a shared, collective awareness which is greater than the individual awareness of therapist or client. At Windhorse, we recognize the fact that our conceptual minds and individual thinking often get in the way of the innate, experiential, shared intelligence which is operating and available to us all the time. Ultimately, contemplative practice helps us each realize experientially, not theoretically or conceptually that non-aggression does work and compassionate action is healing. Through practice, we become able to accept who we are and not aggress upon ourselves. We learn to honor and be present with our own experiences and the experiences of others, all simultaneously. Then we become able to help others do the same. When you first plant a seed, you have to wait for it to sprout.
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Why is the Windhorse work based on contemplative practice and meditation? How do they support recovery?
Contemplative practice helps us learn how to slow down and be present and aware of the information in our bodies. It helps us cut through our addiction to wanting to know everything with such conceptual certainty that it actually takes us away from our own direct embodied experience. We have become so addicted to mental clarity that we have actually lost the ability to tolerate the intelligent function of doubt that is trying to wake us up every day. Contemplative practice helps us develop the ability to be with the entirety of our own experience. First, we learn acceptance and compassion for ourselves, and later that naturally extends toward others. How does contemplative practice do this? It helps us shift our allegiance from mind thinking to embodied being. Instead of being absorbed in conceptual thoughtworlds, we become aware of direct somatic experience.

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WINDHORSE NEWS | SPRING 2012

{Sherri Kimball, page 3}

{Courageous Aloneness, page 1}

You carefully and patiently water it, fertilize it, nurture it, protect it from being trampled, and make sure it gets the proper amount of sunlight. You cultivate it. You dont reach down into the ground and try to pull the seed or sprout up quickly or violently; that kind of speed and aggression would kill it. Sanity needs to be protected and cultivated in the same manner. Sadly, most people lose their patience and get speedy, judgmental, and aggressive in response to psychosis. In extreme states of mind, there is such intense and quick certitude and conviction that we forget how to slow down and question our selfimages. I can tell you with certainty that it is healing to slow down and discuss together our doubts about our convictions. Truly, it is. Unless, of course, you are certain and convinced that it is not, and, you believe your thoughts. The bumper sticker, Dont Believe Everything You Think! is a good summary of the kind of work we do at Windhorse.

understanding of the phenomenon of loneliness was written by one of our psychotherapeutic ancestors and this contribution almost never saw the light of day. Toward the end of her life, the gifted Chestnut Lodge psychotherapist Frieda Fromm-Reichmann authored a paper entitled On Loneliness. While Frieda had a professional interest in loneliness due to her long-time work with those struggling with psychosis, she had a personal interest as well. For many years, she herself struggled with loneliness, a problem that became even more pronounced after she lost her hearing late in life. Dissatisfied with her writing on the subject and convinced it was not worthy of publishing, she placed the unfinished paper in a desk drawer. Fortunately, following her death in 1957, her friends and family chose to publish the paper posthumously. Her short essay contains many seminal psychological concepts related to the issue of loneliness. In her paper, Fromm-Reichmann differentiates between what she termed voluntary loneliness and the disintegrative, physically and psychologically damaging essential loneliness. As the term implies, voluntary loneliness is freely chosen one can move in and out of it at will. Many choose this form of loneliness for constructive purposes. Think of the writer who enters into a voluntary retreat in order to access levels of creativity that may be elusive in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, or consider the monk who freely chooses a life of solitude in order to open to levels of being that lie beyond the bounds of ordinary awareness. Essential loneliness, on the other hand, is not freely chosen, and unlike the constructive version, essential loneliness carries the risk of deleterious effects on both our physical and mental health. According to Fromm-Reichmann, Loneliness in its own right plays a much more significant role in the dynamics of mental disturbance than we have been ready to acknowledge so far. She believed that it was the universal fear of loneliness that caused theorists to avoid this most central of concepts. Fromm-Reichmann was not alone in these conclusions. Her colleague, the maverick psychoanalyst Harry Stack Sullivan, had reached similar conclusions based on his own personal and
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What you are saying helps me see just how unique the Windhorse approach is. Are there other aspects of the approach that are different from what is typical for residential care?
I believe most people want to stay in relationship, not be isolated. People want to be respected and treated with dignity and regard, not stigmatized and made to feel less than or other. Most people want to continue to live as part of the larger community and stay engaged in the world, living their daily lives as best they can, and not be warehoused in the back wards of county facilities or hospitals. One particular and unique gift of the Windhorse work is that people stay in relationship, in community, engaged in daily life in the world. They live in their own homes or apartments, which we help them establish. It is a wonderfully normal approach. Im so grateful I get to do this work every day!

Any last words you would like to share for people to know?
Yes, I want people to know that recovery is possible, from any state of mind. Aggression toward oneself or others is not conducive to recovery. A gentle invitation to come home to ourselves and each other in relationship, and with support, again and again is far more helpful than aggressively trying to transform ourselves, no matter what we are suffering from.

WINDHORSE NEWS | SPRING 2012

Having Taken Heart and Learned

By Zachary B. Gedelman Having taken heart and learned That Love loves me, and what that means, When whole communities merge All across everywhere, to restore My lonesome despairing being To the wholeness I have realized in one year. Once round the sun, and I have become A fire that burns, burns, burns, steady-like A light that dances, a beam that glows. A ray of Love, whether to or from My soul, I do not know.

I could speak to you for hours And hours, of my gratitude To all the people who have Restored my faith in humanity. I could list them, with care, And attribute to them the accolade Of their undying attendance, saving my life, Which established trust that I had Never once experienced before. One year ago, I would have destroyed My being, pitiful and despondent. And yet, I started a journey Walked with nothing but faith in God And a suitcase, into what I thought Might be a prison, but was in fact A prisons opposite.

Three months inside a hospital, And my soul was unlocked, Unchained, and understood, And sent forth to a program Called Windhorse, where good fortune Finds its origin in basic goodness A richness we all possess, Even me. Today, I can celebrate Seven months in relationship With a romantic partner, A teaching job that uses my skills, And pays my bills, Friends! So many, unnumbered Known and unaccounted for. My network is a safety net. Despair not!, lonely heart. You have not any idea What would happen If trust busted your chains And broke you free Into a life of Love.

Broadening Vocational Rehabilitation Services at Windhorse

By David Stark,BA Peer Coordinator

During this year, WIMH will offer a group for interested individuals seeking to explore career interests and ambitions, collaborate on problem-solving and strategizing, and offer support and encouragement to each other. Group members will learn from each others experiences and emphasize each others unique abilities, talents, and gifts. This peer-to-peer model will expand upon our current employment support activities, which have been primarily clinician-to-client. The new group represents the culmination of a year-long certificate program in psychiatric vocational rehabilitation counseling that David Stark, Peer Coordinator, will complete at Boston University in June. The group focuses on both working and learning environments, so it is appropriate for those seeking a return to academic life as well as for those seeking employment. Many years ago, a Windhorse team supported the interests of several recovering clients as they created the successful moving and hauling company, Four Guys and a Big Truck. Since that time, David has noticed an increase in clients desire to work or go to college, so he decided to improve his skills to help them.

The BU training is designed to give participants direct experience in one-on-one work with aspiring individuals. Students study effective techniques for guiding people through initial exploration of their hopes and interests, developing a sense of readiness, meeting with prospective employers for informational interviews, learning to market their strengths, and perhaps obtaining employment or applying for college entrance. At WIMH, the group format will catalyze growth and aspiration by drawing on the natural strengths of the peer-to-peer approach: reduced stigma, non-hierarchical relationships, learning from the lived experience of others, direct communication styles, and an arguably more open manner of sharing and exchanging. Aspiring to work or go to college is an act of great courage and determination for people in recovery from extreme mind states, and no successes can be guaranteed in advance. Nonetheless, this is a time in our organizational life to prepare ourselves for the work that lies ahead, and fulfill the promise of enabling all people to pursue their dreams, however challenging the struggles may be.

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{Courageous Aloneness, page 4}

professional experiences. Sullivan argued that intimacy is a fundamental human need on the same order as our need for food. He concluded that our unconscious aversion to loneliness forces psychological theorists and clinicians to deal only with their clients secondary symptoms of loneliness, such as anxiety and depression. If we are to be of therapeutic service and effectively address root causes, how can we overcome this fundamental avoidance? One of the values of contemplative practice is the possibility of developing a new relationship to loneliness. If we resist the pull toward superficial distractions a force that can be overwhelming today we can learn to sit with our loneliness and confront the fear of our existential condition. As the founder of the Windhorse Project, psychiatrist Ed Podvoll, wrote in Recovering Sanity, The profundity of the experience of loneliness needs to be recognized and appreciated for its great potential in any healing relationship... loneliness leads to the source of insanity and, at the same time, can

become a wellspring of insight and courage. Contemplative practice provides a necessary discipline for working with our avoidance of the despair of loneliness, and it helps us discover the hidden potentials within. If we aspire to address the source of essential loneliness, those offering basic attendance can work with their own isolation to discover the gifts of aloneness. These gifts include the possibility of awakening to the genuine sources of interpersonal connectivity that underlie the illusion of separateness. The possibility of confronting fear and opening to the common ground of interpersonal connection makes contemplative practice an essential component of the ongoing development of Windhorse clinical staff. Our own fears are triggered by the extreme states of mind in the people we help. As Dr. Podvoll advised, we can become more effective in the face of these fears if we take up a contemplative discipline to enable us to transmute our own loneliness into courageous aloneness.

Windhorse IMH Community News

Windhorse staff, clients, and family members have just completed an eight-week training course on the founding text for the Windhorse approach, Recovering Sanity (originally titled The Seduction of Madness). It was powerful and informative for all, with great depth and range of discussions about the experience of extreme mind states. In November, Co-Clinical Director Mary Tibbetts and housemate Tim Ness led a workshop at the International gathering of INTAR (International Network of Treatment Alternatives & Recovery) in Toronto, Canada. This past winter, senior clinician Nick Luchetti taught a professional development training for the Certificate Program in Mindfulness and Psychotherapy at the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy in Boston. We are thrilled to have new groups springing up all the time! During the last six months, we instituted the Hearing Voices Group, open to the general public and facilitated by Elise White and Tim Ness. A Windhorse client recently began another new group, a knitting circle affectionately called Twisted Stitches. The next few weeks will also see the beginning of a drumming and music group led by another recent client. Senior clinician Pauline Ovens and wellness nurse Jonathan Langmuir are co-facilitating a professional development workshop on trauma care for the clinical staff. This workshop will nurture a basic understanding, from a sensorimotor perspective, of traumatic experience and stress.

WINDHORSE NEWS | SPRING 2012

Comings Goings
We are delighted by the addition of three wonderful new board members: Steven Greenberg, MD offers governance advice, James Wilson, PhD brings strategic development expertise, and Guillermo Cuellar, PhD provides helpful experience in organizational practice. We pay tribute to John Copen for his service to Windhorse IMH, most recently in his role as Board President. John has been a tireless advocate for our organization and we will miss his sound advice. John, you were the best; thank you. Board elections occurred this past fall and leadership roles are now filled by: Guillermo Cuellar, PhD as President, Peter Dulchinos, JD as Vice-President, Mike Stein as Treasurer, and James Wilson, PhD as Clerk. We welcome to our staff Gary Blaser, MA as a Team Leader and Jonathon Langmuir, RN as a Wellness Nurse. We welcome Leila Kaplan as a housemate on a Windhorse team. We also thank and appreciate both Sean Speers and Loren Halman, who brought their compassionate spirit to their work as housemates and fed this community in many ways. In Northampton, we have said goodbye to Renee Mendez, RN and to Nick Boutros, LMHC. They brought insightful clinical care to each client they worked with, and we wish them well in all of their future pursuits. In San Luis Obispo, we say goodbye to Sara Carr, MA, who served tirelessly as a Co-Clinical Director. We know that she will apply her compassionate and skillful care to whatever she does in the future. Please extend a warm welcome to Sherri Kimbell, PhDc, our new Clinical Director, and read her interview on Page 1.

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Please think of Windhorse IMH in your donation giving

We use your gifts to provide direct financial aid for those who desperately want to heal with us but can not afford the cost of services. Every day we speak with wonderful families who find their way to us and whose loved ones would benefit from this approach. Please help us bring a few more individuals into this setting every year.

Nick Luchetti and Phoebe Walker are part of a year-long training in the Open Dialogue approach developed by Dr. Jakku Seikkula in Finland and under development in the US by Mary Olson, PhD of the Mill River Institute. Nick joined Dr. Seikkula in conducting a dialogic process with a family during Dr. Seikkulas recent training visit. This spring Sherri Kimbell, Clinical Director at our San Luis Obispo location, will be offering workshops at the Arizona and Washington state locations of the FACES Conference on The Art and Science of Mindfulness and Counseling. Thanks to a generous contribution from William R. Hearst III we are in the process of creating a brief film about the Windhorse approach, both here in Northampton and in San Luis Obispo. Keep your eyes on the website in the coming months for this. The filmmaker Roger Sorkin is directing the venture.

WINDHORSE NEWS | SPRING 2012

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WINDHORSE INTEGRATIVE MENTAL HEALTH, a non-profit 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. Mindfulness, attention to the whole person, restoration of personal and social connections, and belief in recovery are basic principles underlying 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 Admissions by phone (ext. 303), mail, or e-mail.

WINDHORSE IMH-EAST Northampton Staff Judy Barclay Still Point Manager Jeff Bliss, MSW Director, Admissions & Marketing Gary Blaser, MA Team Leader Annie Collins Fiscal Manager Eric Friedland-Kays, MA, Co-Clinical Director/ Admissions Manager Bruce Goderez, MD, Psychiatrist Cynthia Johnson, LCSW, Team Leader Leila Kaplan, Housemate Jonathan Langmuir, RN, Wellness Nurse Nick Luchetti, MS, Senior Clinician/Education & Training Tim Ness, BA, CPS, Team Counselor, Housemate, Admin Assistant Pauline Ovens, LICSW, Team Leader Sparky Shooting Star, Spiritual Counselor David Stark, BA, CPS Peer Coordinator Mary Tibbetts, LICSW Co-Clinical Director, Family Coordinator Melissa Vermey, BA Office Coordinator Phoebe Murray, MA Senior Clinician, Admissions Lindsay Weremay, BA Team Counselor Stephanie Westphal, BS, RN Wellness Nurse Stuart Wetherbe Foster Family Caregiver/ Senior Housemate Elise White, BA Peer Counselor, Bookkeeping Victoria Yoshen Executive Director Windhorse IMHEast 211 North Street, Suite #1 Northampton, MA 01060 (413) 586-0207, ext. 33

WINDHORSE IMH-WEST San Luis Obispo Staff Par Andreasson, MFT Brian Atwell, LPT Wellness Nurse Dimitri Egan, LMST Team Leader Dana Franz Office Manager Anahata Lovely Day Housemate Stacy Guisse, PsyD, MFT Team Leader Sherri Kimbell, MA, LPC, PhDc Clinical Director Coraline Robinson, LMFT Team Leader Lisa Teague Director, Admissions & Marketing Adam Woodward Housemate Windhorse IMHWest 1411 Marsh Street Suite 103 San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 (805) 548-8931, ext. 10 BOARD OF DIRECTORS Guillermo Cuellar, PhD Sera Davidow Peter Dulchinos, JD Steven Greenberg, MD Michele Hoffman Herbst, MS Michael Stein James M. Wilson III, Phd David Stark, BA

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