Dr. Dan Fisher: "when we are disconnected and lose touch with our feelings, we die inside."

To contact us Click HERE
The work that I do today provides me with a unique and incredible opportunity to work with some of the greatest minds in the Behavioral Health field.  That in itself is humbling enough, but some of the folks I get to work alongside are preeminent leaders in various specialties within the field, and the opportunity for learning is frankly endless.

(Left: Dr. Fisher, 3rd from left: lauren Spiro
Image courtesy:  http://ncmhr.org/  )

Take Dr. Daniel "Dan" Fisher and Lauren Spiro as examples.  I first heard of Dan a few years ago while attending an Alternatives conference out in sunny California. Dan is the Executive Director of the National Empowerment Center (NEC) and is a key subcontractor on many of the tasks associated with the Bringing Recovery Supports to Scale, Technical Assistance Center Strategy (BRSS TACS) contract I currently help to direct for the Center for Social Innovation.

I heard of Lauren Spiro around the same time - which is no surprise once you know both of them as they're like brother and sister fighting together against common challenges in our work- and I have been an avid supporter of them both since I discovered them.  I also work closely with Lauren, (who is the Director of the National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery,)  on the BRSS TACS contract, and am continually impressed not only with her incredible knowledge around peer involvement in the mental health field, but with her joyous yet consummately professional approach to everything she is involved in.

Okay, enough of my starry eyed gushing, but you have to understand, from my perspective, Dan and Lauren are people who have not only brought gargantuan change to the way in which we peers are viewed and involved in our recovery, but they continue to battle every day against political, social and medical forces (not to mention trying to have a life somewhere in the middle of all that), in order to provide those of us who are coming after them with a solid foundation upon which we are able to continue building.  This is no easy task, folks, you can believe that, and to make matters worse, there ain't a lot of money being tossed our way, either. Think of the Peer movement as the flea on the flea that is Behavioral Health that is living on the ass of the elephant that is Primary Health.   That Dan and Lauren have been even modestly successful in such an environment is phenomenal.  That they've been able to help motivate change in the field is monumental.

On to my reason for writing this in the first place; Dan and I were chatting by phone the other day and were discussing community dialogue and the Dialogical approach as a method to increase the ability of connection and success in working with our peers, our clients, our colleagues and our community.

Dan went on to write a brilliant piece on his own understanding and evolution towards the use of Dialogical recovery and I not only enjoyed it immensely, it resonated so loudly with my own experiences, both my personal recovery journey and the journeys I've helped others embark upon, that I wanted to share an excerpt here. I encourage you to check it out in its entirety when you can spare 5 minutes, because I think it's applicable for everyone.  And if you work with folks dealing with substance use and/or mental health challenges, you'll definitely want to hear what Dan has to say, as it may change the way you engage with your clients and those supporting your clients:

From Dialogical Recovery of Life (Dr. Dan Fisher)

It seems that all of us in this society need to recover from the constricting effect of isolation and the black and white thinking that separates us from our feelings.  Implementing recovery needs to occur beyond the clinical context. Recovery principles and culture needs to be adopted throughout society because every relationship we engage in has the capacity to enhance or degrade our recovery by nourishing or smothering our life force.
I think that a major aspect of bringing recovery to society is through understanding and practicing dialogical relationships in every day life. This might be considered a type of community dialogue. I have carried out several training programs here in Mass. based on six basic principles of dialogue (the first 4 come from Isaacs, 1999, the 5th from my own experience and the sixth from Yankolivich, 1999):
1. Listening deeply together
2. Suspending our own beliefs, going beyond categorical thinking
3. Respecting and valuing differences and the wholeness of each of us
4. Speaking from our deepest truth, from our heart
5. Connecting on a heart to heart level
6. Valuing each other’s humanity deeply enough to see we are all equals
But why are these principles of dialogue so important. Because they create a space that we all want and need. A psychological space in which we experience our life more fully. On the other hand, the top down monological world of everyday life in the present is killing our life forces within and between us. To this degree, the green movement, the recovery movement in mental health , and the dialogue movement have a common unifying goal: to create a society which nourishes the life force in each and every living being through dialogical relationships.

(Read the entire piece here)