Article on Recovery Dialogues by Dan Fisher, Steve Goldman and Sabine Tibbetts Introduction: By recovery dialogue we mean using the principles and practices of dialogue to facilitate consumers and providers to think together about how to implement recovery components into mental health programs. The dialogical principles have been the basis of organizational development as well as treatment. In this context these principles are used for learning together about how to develop a recovery-oriented system and society. When people connect as equal human beings--heart, mind, and spirit--they can come together with the shared purpose of co-creating a recovery-oriented, wellness-based community. Those who have gone through their own recovery are uniquely suited to inspire, connect, and encourage their peers to develop meaningful and fulfilling lives. Authentic sharing of heartfelt communication through dialogue is an important process in bringing these experiences to all stakeholders, as well as the means for creating a sense of community. Purpose In this workshop, the providers and the persons with lived experience of severe emotional distress will enter into a new dialogue, by growing beyond the monologues and limited roles they have assumed within the mental health system as well as in life. Dialogue will transform the group into a community, freeing all Six Principles of Dialogue The first four are adapted from William Isaacs, Dialogue, the Art of Thinking Together, 1999 and the fifth is from my research, sixth from Yankelovich, Miracle of Dialogue, 2000.. All of these principles need to be practiced in the present moment. 1. Using your authentic Voice Before speaking, take a moment to take a deep breath and bring your awareness to your heart, your vital center. This is where you will find your deepest truth and your most authentic voice. Speak what is true for you in this moment. This - our deepest Voice - which most closely expresses who we are at that moment. 2. Listening together without resistance Be willing to enter a neutral place where you suspend preconceived notions about the other participants, where you release any agenda or resistance. See if you can listen with your heart as well as your ears. See if you can be curious about the person who is speaking. What is being said beneath the words? What meaning is the person trying to convey?
The Chinese character for listening, ting, contains representations of the ear, the eye and the heart 3. Respecting A: Respecting the other. Try to see a person as a whole being, by practicing respect. To respect someone is to look for the springs that feed the pool of their experience from their vital center. The word comes from the Latin respecere, which means "to look again. Where once we saw one aspect of a person, we look again and realize how much of them we had missed. This second look can let us take in more fully the fact that here before me is a living, breathing being. When we respect someone, we accept that they have things to teach us. B: Respecting differences.[ ] a group of people must learn to respect the polarizations that may arise without making any effort to fix them. Another description of respecting differences is allophilia, or love of differences. This term means that it is useful to hold an attitude of curiosity; to look for value in thoughts and behaviors different from our own. In dialogue, one learns that agreement on a mission or action rarely requires total agreement of perspectives, values and worldviews. Seeing each person as equal in our humanity or our unbuntu as they say in South Africa. 4. Suspending our belief When we listen to someone speak, we face a critical choice. If we begin to form an opinion we can do one of two things: first, we can choose to defend our view, thereby resisting theirs. We can try to get the other person to understand and accept the right way to see things (ours!). We can look for evidence to support our view that they are mistaken, and discount evidence that may point to flaws in our own logic. Or, we can learn to suspend our opinion and the certainty that lies behind it. Suspension means that we neither suppress what we think nor advocate it with unilateral conviction. Rather, we display our thinking in a way that lets us and others see and understand it. We simply acknowledge and observe our thoughts and feelings as they arise without being compelled to act on them. This can release a tremendous amount of creative energy. 5. Genuine dialogue is heart-to-heart By allowing yourself to feel another person's emotions and show your own vulnerability, you are encouraging the flow of emotions. This flow unblocks thoughts that trap us in monologue, opening emotional dialogue, which enables each person to better tap into a deeper wisdom. Emotional dialogue also allows each of the participants to understand the deeper, heartfelt meaning another is trying to express, which may be the first step in shifting from monologue to dialogue.
6. Equality and the absence of coercive influences Though each person has a different status or position in society outside of the dialogue, within the dialogue, it is vital that each person sees that everyone has something to offer. In one-to-one assistance, the supporter can shed symbols of power or rank such as a coat and tie. In a group, sitting in a circle further reinforces equality. All voices count equally is also the basis of polyphony. (see Figure 1 for a handout used to explain the principles of dialogue) Steps Involved in setting up a Recovery Dialogue The following steps emerged from our experience over the last 3 years in bringing these dialogues to Riverside Community Care. Presently there are 3 monthly dialogues taking place in the Riverside system. 1. Pick a co-facilitator, someone you trust who is comfortable conducting groups. Best for the facilitator to have had training in working in dialogical groups or at least groups facilitating communication 2. Find a few champions in the organization who are at management level and have standing 3. Hold a planning meeting, with the champions, co-facilitator, and someone like who has experience conducting the dialogues 4. Decide on the participants, place (to accommodate at least 20-25 participants in a circle, as neutral and non-clinical as possible), flyer, time, beverage 5. Outreach with respect, come when you can, no right or wrong answer, no agenda, just principles of dialogue and a comfort agreement, "abandon your fear of being judged when you walk through the door." 6. Get buy in by administrators and financial support (staff time and for facilitators). 7. Since a majority of emotional communication is nonverbal, it is essential that everyone sit in a circle and be able to easily see and hear each other clearly. This channel of communication is best achieved with fewer than 25 people. 8. Often good to start with an icebreaker to connect on an emotional level. Just introduce yourselves by first name, so you keep your hat or role at the door. There are usually co-facilitators who have an understanding of these 6 principles of dialogue. They may start with a theme, such as recovery, spirituality, or how to go from programs to community. Otherwise have no agenda. Then the group creates the conversation. 9. Someone familiar with the principles of dialogue is asked to read the underlined part of each of the principles. 10. The co-facilitators gently work to include as many voices from the group as possible and to remind the group of the theme they have agreed upon when group seems to get too far off topic. Also the facilitators try to steer group away from a therapy focus where people go deeply into issues in their lives and brings it back to the present moment in the group 11. Hand out an evaluation form 5 minutes before the end to see how it went. 12. Agree on the next time to meet, the co-facilitators, and a theme if possible
Testimonials: by Dannielle Ford-Allen, Director of Neponset Clubhouse: "The day was no different than others; a hundred things to do and not enough time to do them. In my rapid step, I said my good mornings heading for my office; as I turned the corner I saw Steve Goldman, Riverside Community Care Peer Specialist, preparing the circle of seats. It was in that moment that I stopped; I breathed deep letting out a huge sigh of relief, and a huge smile took over my face. Today we hosted the Recovery Dialogue and I was going to be there. While it may sound simplistic in the concept; discussing recovery, it is so much more. It is an opportunity to leave your hat at the door regardless if you a provider or individual receiving services, a place to actively listen; sometimes challenging your way of thinking or validating the complexity of your experiences. It is a place to share struggles and strategies; honestly and from the heart without judgment. At the end it always gives me a renewed sense of hope that we all are people first and we are truly never alone. We have come so far in seeing the whole person in the holistic approach of recovery. Recovery Dialogue is the catalyst needed to evolve our mental health system further and to have participants that are not just those who provide or receive direct services but to those that hold the powers to reform the policies and challenge the archaic systems that still exist." by Steve Goldman, peer facilitator: "The Recovery Dialogue I have known about for about 2 to 3 years. It has helped me grow as someone in Recovery. With each month that passes by I look forward to participating in the dialogue. Peers, mentors and other people with lived experience all share ideas of wellness and recovery. Each positive topic that we talk about, gives me more ideas on how to help myself and others with any challenges they and I might have." "Usually there is a group of people from 7 to 15 that are all listening and sharing together. We share stories of hope, and we share stories of troubled times. As I listen actively to everyone, I try to share what has worked for me. The Recovery Dialogue overall, is a place where people can be honest and speak from the heart. Everyone is equal, which means people with lived experience, providers, and colleagues leave their hats at the door." By Sabine Tibbetts, person in recovery and manager in community based flexible support programs: This is the real stuff. The Recover Dialogue is for me the time where we all give it our best to get down to what it s really about. Human Connection in its purest honesty We let go of roles, titles, positions we are getting naked and therefore equal in a way that allows healthy and still protected openness. Human beings with various levels of intensity
in the way our emotions, experiences, and thoughts impact our lives. People just out of college and eager to work in the field of helping others hear and experience the worlds of people who have lived through and with much more intensity and still there is a way to connect to understand to believe. I am touched every single time and it strengthens me in my belief in the power of human connections. I have been facilitating and participating in Recovery Dialogues for 4 years now and will continue to help this way of growing supportive communities expand. by Daniel Fisher, person in recovery and psychiatrist: " I have learned so much from facilitating recovery dialogues for 4 years. By starting without an agenda, and leaving our hats at the door, we genuinely are learning to connect on our most equal and human level. This process allows us to truly start to think and feel together. In being together, in the present moment, beautiful new, unexpected feelings and thoughts emerge. I am amazed at how indeed every person, no matter what their position in life or place in recovery has so much to offer the group. I also marvel at the change in conversation that the setting allows. Persons with lived experience and staff feel safer to interact as full human beings instead of their roles as identified by the system of care. " Figure 1: Illustration of the principles of dialogue