Clinical Approach
Our Clinical Model Genuine Recovery Windhorse
Program Scenarios
Our Clinical Model
Two
central principles, three core practices
The Windhorse model is
organized around two central principles.
First, that each person
is fundamentally
healthy and sane and that a mental disorder exists as a secondary
overlay to that sanity.
Second, that a person's health is inseparable
from that of the environment. Therefore, if a person can be properly
worked with in a relatively healthy environment, then the strength
of his or her intrinsic health and sanity can emerge and recovery
will be more possible.
The success of the Windhorse model is due to the accurate treatment of a particular condition within a healthy and supportive environment. Particular conditions can include schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, Asperger’s, autism, and dual diagnosis.) We view a client’s environment as having three primary aspects:
- His or her physical, domestic life,
- Interpersonal
relationships and emotions, and
- Mind, which includes thoughts,
attention, and
the general sense of personal presence and meaning.
These three
aspects relate directly to our three core therapeutic practices:
- Close attention
to domestic activities: Both the therapeutic team and
the client attend to the everyday workings of domestic life,
including food
preparation and cleanup, good diet, housekeeping, laundry,
yard work, hygiene,
finances, physical exercise, and other appropriate jobs.
The client's
household is the locus of the team's work.
- Establishment
of healthy relationships: At first, the members of the therapeutic
team provide the client's primary relationships. Later, those
relationships become a bridge for the client to establish
healthy, nontreatment-related
contacts in the wider community.
- Stabilized schedule: Mental
disorders disturb basic rhythms of eating, sleeping, rest,
and activity. Restoring
and stabilizing life rhythms through careful attention to
daily living patterns is critical to recovery. By working closely
with
both the
client and his or her environment, the whole situation becomes
integrated. This integration minimizes conflicts that undermine
recovery and maximizes
the client's sense of security.
Our essential clinical practice for integrating a person with
his or her environment is "basic attendance." This
is a subtle combination of being with the person with the
skill and understanding of a therapist and the warmth and
empathy of a friend. It involves engaging with the person
in ordinary activities of daily living. We provide help to
the client in accomplishing problematic tasks, expanding
into areas of interest, scheduling sane rhythms of activities,
and furthering personal awareness. In some cases, basic attendance
can be provided by a sole team member.
If the client's
needs are greater, then a team is assembled. Coordination
of communication among all Windhorse clinicians and outside
service providers is carried out through regular team meetings.
Family members are included as active collaborators throughout
the treatment process so that our work is informed by them
and they, in turn, are supported and educated by us. Constant
attention to collaborative learning among family members,
the client, team members, and outside providers arouses
the real spirit of the Windhorse work. We promote a client's
genuine recovery by helping him or her develop a wholesome
domestic environment, healthy relationships, and self-knowledge.
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There is something magical, something hard to name,
that happened in my Windhorse team. It had to do with connections created
through gentle attentiveness and genuine care in the midst of, what
for me was, a time of disconnection and extreme despair.
I felt held by the team in a supportive way, not
stigmatized as the “sick patient” as I’d experienced
in hospital settings. My basic well-being was attended to and cultivated
in a climate of trust, collaboration and open communication. Everyone
on the team, not just me as the client, learned and grew from the experience.
The Windhorse shift or Basic
Attendance can look quite ordinary from the outside, involving
activities such as walks, meal preparation, cleaning the living space
or simply sitting together. But from the inside the extraordinary
is taking place. The extraordinary is human contact. It is the recognition
and practice of humanness that really sets Windhorse apart from other
mental health models
— A client-graduate.
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