"An Artful Approach to Healing
Communication"
by Gayle Bluebird
The title of my talk is an "Artful Approach to Healing Communication."
To give a little background, Jean Campbell called me about a month ago and asked me to
speak at this luncheon. She said she wanted something different. "Researchers,"
she said, "tend to be a little dry. They talk about data and numbers and think in
terms of qualitative and quantitative. They wouldn’t speak about art, or dialogue, or
healing as part of research."
It was in the same spirit that Jean asked me to be a consultant to the Coordinating
Center for the Consumer Operated Services Research Project, months earlier. We had been
talking on the phone about the dialogue manual I was writing. I was telling her that
dialogues could be used in different ways, including as an evaluation tool. Creating a
dialogue with staff and participants in programs you are evaluating allows you to obtain a
much fuller perspective on success as well as problem areas. When you include the
providers/participants point of view on how to correct problems, you are much more likely
to get cooperation on changing policies and procedures because they are part of the
solution. It is; in fact, a form of Participatory Action Research, which is being used
particularly in underdeveloped countries to include, disenfranchised people in social
change.
"Well," Jean said, "maybe you could conduct dialogues for the consumer
research project. You could go to all of the study sites and gather information using your
dialogue technique. You would be able to determine the type of technical assistance that
is needed."
Of course I was honored to be included. Jean called back several weeks ago, following
up on her request to have me speak. "I hope you don’t mind," she said,
"I gave your talk a title—‘The Artful Approach to Healing
Communication.’ I said I didn’t mind at all. In fact, I thought, what a
wonderful title!
Healing Communication—the two words gave me a lot to think about. I could talk
about the communicative power of dialogue, dialogue as an art form, dialogue as healing--
or I could talk about the arts, how consumers are using creativity and the expressive arts
for healing. Or I could recognize "mad" performers who are developing acts that
convey a message through dance, song, theater, and poetry. How many people in the audience
would have heard about the Visionary Art Museum? I could tell the audience about the
unusual art works done by people who are marginalized in society, many of them our
folks—mental patients who have been institutionalized and who used art as survival.
It would be important for researchers to know that art has been identified in Jean
Campbell’s Well Being Survey as being an important component of recovery for many
consumer/survivors. Over 60% of 500 consumers believe the arts are of great importance in
their healing process.
My reaction to the words, "healing communication" was much more personal.
Just hearing the words caused a visceral reaction—something deep inside that tugged
at me.
I decided that healing interactions are common, everyday experiences. Our conversations
with each other. In order to talk about healing communications, we needed to start with
ourselves.
I wondered whether I was a healing communicator. Did I use healing communication in my
everyday life? I started to see and feel those words in front of me every day. Healing
Communication. I began to measure whether I had been a healing communicator or not. I
created my own barometer or research tool.
I graded myself as ’super great’, ‘pretty good’, ‘ fairly
good’, and ‘not so hot.’ Suffice it to say, some days I did better than
others. Some days I was a "pretty good" healing communicator, other days,
"not so hot."
I wasn’t sure on what basis I measured myself, but I knew that it included being
interested in the other party, listening more than speaking, being non-judgmental, being
positive rather than negative, and feeling good at the end of the day.
I thought I would ask other friends who might have more insight. I asked my friend
Sally Clay what she thought about the artful approach to healing communication, thinking
she would give me a spiritual answer. "Well," she said, "there was this
character, Artful Dodger, in the book Oliver Twist, but he was a manipulator. He was a
pick pocket and a thief."
I didn’t think Sally’s answer was the answer I was looking for.
A few days before coming to this meeting, I spent a few days with Natalie
Reatig. Most
of you know her because she was the national director of the Protection and Advocacy
agency until two years ago. Natalie is known for being a great communicator at her weekly
artsy conversational gatherings called "Salons." I broached her about the
subject. "What do you think is meant by "healing communication," I asked
her. We were sitting at an outdoor café having a glass of wine; the weather was
unseasonably warm.
"Well," she said, "Healing communication presumes that one of the
communicators is wounded. Someone has an injury."
I replied: "Actually, that is not what I am trying to say. It may mean that
someone needs help, but I am really talking about communication that is equal between two
parties. That in itself, is healing. To me, it means that both parties allow their own
vulnerability and openness to pain. Neither party is more knowledgeable or more powerful.
"Oh," Natalie said, "I understand. Because if we take the mental health
system, for example, there is an automatic assumption that a person with mental illness
has nothing important to say. It is rare that a person with mental illness is treated as
an equal in a conversation, and there is almost always a power imbalance. Many people are
questioning whether mental patients should participate in research projects at all,
because it is believed that they are not competent, which, if people’s rights are
taken away to give informed consent, their right to altruism is taken away. Their concern
for others besides themselves is taken away."
I wasn’t sure if I yet had a complete definition of "healing
communication."
Later in the day in a subsequent conversation, Natalie suddenly said,
"Respect."
"What?" I said.
"Respect is another word for ‘healing communication.’ Respect and
inclusion."
Yes, I thought the word inclusion and respect. We were on our way to a play called,
"Make my Funk the P Funk." I decided the play was relevant to the discussion.
The audience, equally mixed between African Americans and white people were mostly
intellectual playwrights and theatergoers. The play was a hilarious presentation of a
black mayor torn between black and white culture. Music was used as a metaphor. In the
black community, it was funky music, in the white community it was waltzing to Barry
Manilow music. It was funny, down and dirty, and irreverent. The audience loved it and
gave it a standing ovation. The lesson about racist culture was the underlying theme and
lesson. After the play, the audience delighted in a dialogue about the deeper meanings of
the play.
I asked myself whether all of these thoughts were relevant. What did they have to do
with my subject? I decided that I was talking about the Power of the Ordinary. If we are
to communicate in healing ways, we must first do it in our everyday lives. If we are to
change racism and hatred, we must live in non-racist ways. We must work with people of
other cultures in our daily living, not wait for a workshop on cultural competence. If we
are to be healing communicators, we need to have friends to do it with and nice places to
be in to practice.
The dialogue meetings are an excellent opportunity to bring people to practice healing
communication while talking together over differences. One of the main goals of a dialogue
is to allow participants to speak from their own individual experiences and belief
systems. The dialogue is created to facilitate changes in the mental health system as a
result of compromised solutions to problems. The meetings are divided equally between
consumers and providers. For providers, particularly psychiatrists, it may be the first
time they have actually listened as an equal to a person labeled with a mental illness.
Each person comes with an open mind. Participants are told that the dialogue is not a
debate or forum for explaining a correct position or judgmental views. It is primarily for
listening and creating understanding.
Some people would say that outcomes are important, that what happens after the meetings
is the most important. It is my belief that the most important outcome is what happens
during the communication process. What is healing is what is said—what stays in the
mind.
A consumer survivor will talk about how it feels to be picked up in the middle of the
night and taken involuntarily to a hospital, because of expressed suicidal feelings.
Another person will talk about isolation—the difficulties experienced when living on
disability or another, how they were treated in a mental hospital or given shock
treatment.
Psychiatrists, on the other hand, will talk about their responsibility, their fear of
legal actions when too many risks are taken. They know very little about how to treat
mental health consumers as equals, but they are eager to listen.
One psychiatrist’s story stands out. A patient of his kept coming into the
hospital emergency room, usually screaming, acting out uncontrollably. The situation
repeated itself over and over. Finally, the psychiatrist said to her, "Mary, what can
I do that would be helpful? What would make you stop doing this?"
She said, "The next time I come in, tell me to ‘Cut The Shit’!"
He thought about it. The next time she came into the hospital he decided to try it.
"Mary," he said, "Cut The Shit."
He never saw Mary in the ER again. I suspect that what Mary wanted was someone to care
about her enough to tell her to stop it. He probably offered additional healing
communication in another setting.
The human everyday healing interaction that I spoke of earlier is what happens in a
dialogue. There is an importance placed on time for networking. Food served is shared
communally, and is selected carefully for taste and quality.
In order for change to happen, people are given the opportunity to just talk to each
other and listen. One organized group that conducts dialogues calls them
"Constructive Conversations."
One of the criticisms of dialogues is that communication does not continue after the
dialogue. Sometimes consumers have felt used. They spill their guts, but people walk away
separately—the psychiatrists in their group, the consumers in theirs. It is my
contention that we should not expect great changes. If just one thought heals some part of
a person’s thinking, the process is valuable.
Yesterday, Yvette Sanger talked about advocates learning negotiation and mediation
skills. This is another form of "healing communication." The skill is specific,
but is based on the act of empathetic listening.
The other day, I was walking in the residential neighborhood in Adams Morgan, when I
noticed a bumper sticker that said, "Mediators do it until everyone is
satisfied." I laughed to myself at first, and then I said, "That’s it.
Healing Communications are ones that never give up. There is not such a thing as failure,
because there is always the possibility of going
back—re-negotiating—talking—healing—forgiving.
The arts are another source of pleasure and healing for mental health consumers. While
it used to be that art in the mental health arena was used as therapy, consumers are now
recognizing that their talents do not need to be analyzed. Their creativity needs only to
have meaning to themselves. Arts programs are being organized as self-help programs and
even providing a source of income.
Yesterday, Paolo mentioned Howie the Harp, one of the founders of our self-help
movement. Many of us think of the healing arts as a movement unto itself and we claim
Howie as one of its founders. In fact, in 1991, four of us sat down at the Alternatives
Conference in Pittsburgh and created an organization called Altered States of the Arts.
Howie, of course, has passed on to the intergalactic movement, but Sally Clay and Dianne
Côté are here as part of the founding four.
We created Altered States so mental health consumers would have a forum to display or
publish their works. The numbers of visual artists, writers, poets, looking for a place
for themselves is phenomenal. Today, there are two national organizations that bring
artists together. Altered States, and National Artists for Mental Health.
A national arts conference is held yearly in New York. Over 100 people participated
this year in Albany, N.Y. Frank Marquit deserves credit for an amazing amount of hard work
to bring this about.
The Center for Mental Health Services recognizes the importance of art and healing as
part of recovery for mental health consumers, and recently funded a self-help arts manual
that outlines how-to develop arts programs and activities. As the editor of the manual, I
have had the opportunity to read books on the subject of creativity and healing. There are
lots of such books, two that are of special interest. Arts and Madness, by Panter is a
psychological study of famous troubled artists. The book explores how art was used by
people with psychological difficulties including famous artists like Van Gogh, Pollock,
Elizabeth Layton, Edvard Munch.
Another book, a beautiful book called, Creative Healing, tells us that the arts were
historically the primary sources of healing, drumming, dancing, meditating. In the
industrial age the arts were separated from healing and are now are being re-connected as
people look for alternative ways to heal themselves. From a research point of view, it is
exciting to note that there are studies being made that show a correlation between art and
physical changes in the body. Samuels, the author of the book I just mentioned, states
that there are actually physiological changes in the brain when attention is focused away
from worries and pain. The hypothalamus is activated which in turn activates the autonomic
nervous system, which maintains blood flow and breathing. They have even created a term
for this; psychoneuroimmunology—the mind, nerves, and immune system.
Many of you might have heard about a new movie coming out about Patch Adams, in which
Robin Williams plays the lead role. The movie explores the whole realm of physical healing
and the arts. Patch is a clown and has gone into hospitals to delight children and other
persons with terminal illness. He is part of a phenomena to use clowns and other forms of
art to routinely entertain patients in hospitals.
The art that I like to talk about is art that contains a message that we can use to
produce changes in the mental health system in the same way we use dialogue. We have many
performers who have specific acts with specific messages. If you have not heard of them,
you will hopefully see them at future conferences. Names like Michael Mundis, PA, Nancy
Bowker, ME, Sheilah Hill, NY, Jeanne Matulis, CA, (a songwriter who started singing in the
seventies—songs that were used in early demonstrations and protests), Barbara Farr,
CA. Bonnie Schell is recognized for her own poetry but also as editor of a poetry column
in Dendron Magazine.
Healing Communication—
Two recent experiences at the PEER Center in Fort Lauderdale taught me something about
healing communication. One experience was on Thanksgiving Day. I took my cooked turkey
over for their annual dinner, this year serving well over 100 consumers. I decided to
spend time there. Right now, I’m serving as Assistant Director, but rarely have time
to just sit down and talk. I sat at one of the many tables after eating my meal and just
looked around. People were talking. Several people were doing a jigsaw puzzle. Several
people were watching TV. Many people were engaged in conversation. The pool players were
playing pool. The staff was still cutting turkey. There were twinkling lights on around
the mirror. I started to engage in the conversation about Kavorkian. But all of a sudden,
I started to cry. What I was crying about was just the simple joy of watching healing
communication in action between people whose conversations have not been thought important
by the rest of the world.
Just last Friday night, I organized a Friday night Coffee House at the PEER Center. It
hadn’t been well organized, so I wasn’t expecting a large crowd. However,
approximately 30 people gathered to share popcorn, coffee, and soft candlelight for
atmosphere.
At first, nobody wanted to get up to perform. But soon, one by one, each person got up.
Someone sang a song. Someone told a joke. Another, a funny story. Eventually everyone got
up and shared something about themselves. They all had creativity to share.
My lessons for my subject, Healing Communication, were right here in my own backyard at
the PEER Center. I say to you that our lessons are ordinary—that what is powerful
about our healing communications are our every day interactions. People’s healing
friendships, people’s healing art and creativity, people doing it and loving it,
finding source and strength in self-help.
What I think we are researching is what I think is not measurable, But isn’t it
exciting that we are going to try to do it with this special project, bringing healing,
communication, the arts, and research together.
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