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WOUNDED HEALER - WOUNDED
GROUP
A Laceweb Paper Prepared
for the Sixth International Holistic Health Conference Convened by the
Faculty of Medicine, Monash University at Cumberland Resort - Lorne Victoria,
Australia
Last
Updated April 2014.
AUTHORSHIP
This Laceweb paper has
been evolved by oral historians and enablers action researching within an
informal network of indigenous, small minority and intercultural healers for over
25 years. This network has been evolving in the Oceania, East Asia,
Australasia region since the early sixties. Action research themes include
sociology of knowledge, clinical sociology, behavioural science,
sociomedicine, sociotherapy, psychotherapy, neuro-psychology and the healing
implications of psycho-neurobiology. ABSTRACT
This paper explores sociomedicine and sociotherapy as modes of preventative
and remedial holistic healing. Australian Aboriginal use of sociomedicine for
social cohesion is briefly introduced. The psychosocial wellbeing
implications of the life-ways of the Tikopia Island people of the Solomon
Islands are outlined. Aboriginal and Tikopian sociomedicine and sociotherapy
is discussed as models for the setting up and running of a psychiatric unit
called Fraser House in North Ryde, Sydney between 1959 and 1968. The paper
then traces that Unit's influence in the evolving of an informal network of
indigenous socio-therapeutic healers. The sociomedicine and sociotherapy ways
of the Rataiku people of Bougainville are briefly outlined. The paper ends
with healing implications for wounded healers - in joining in sociotherapy
with other wounded healers. The experiential workshop at the Holistic Health
Conference provide a practical, joyful, playful, whimsical, enchanting,
replicable experience of sociotherapy - flirting with life. OUTBACK AND OVER THE HILL
For Australian Indigenous
people living as nomadic hunter-gatherers, social cohesion is a central component of healing. The concept
'sociomedicine' is implicit in Transcultural Psychiatrist John Cawte's
book, 'Medicine is the Law' and other writings (Cawte, J., 1974, 1996). If
enough people in a nomadic group are too sick to travel and there is little
or no local food and water - there's big trouble. The bush remedies for a
wide range of troubles are both widely known and widely used in the group.
However, if sickness is deemed to have its source in social trouble - if social
cohesion is under threat - sociomedicine
is used by only a few law people who know the ways. The focus for healing or
prevention is the whole group
and all become involved. This
holistic sociomedicine perspective is maintained when Australian Aboriginals
and Islanders use the 'combined' term, 'social, emotional, cultural, and
spiritual health', rather than the 'mainstream' term 'mental health'. In a different indigenous
context, the following story has been passed about the Tikopia Island people
of the Solomon Islands having socio-healing and social wellbeing woven into
the fabric of everyday life-ways. When anthropologist
Raymond Firth was exploring their ways in the 1930's, the 1,200 Tikopians
spoke of themselves as 'tatou na Tikopia' - 'We the Tikopia', to declare
their unity and distinguish themselves from other islanders (Firth, R.,
1957). The Tikopia celebrated difference to maintain unity.
They have social unifying processes that recognise, acknowledge, play
with, respect and celebrate what Firth called, 'cleavages'
(difference/diversity). Their socio-healing-wellbeing processes repeatedly
involve 'unifying-cleavage'. Some examples: They engage in ceremonial
distributions of property, where the principle is that as far as possible,
goods go to the villagers on the most opposite side of the island - to
those most different. There are periodic friendly inter-generational
competitive assemblies among those from differing villages, clans, and
valleys. At these wellbeing gatherings, the Tikopians engage in friendly
competitive dancing and games, and share food and friendly fireside banter. Tikopia Island at heart
is a small extinct volcano with a crater lake. There is an intricate system
of reciprocal exchange spread like a network over the whole community of
communities. This reciprocity is continually 'binding (unifying) people of
different (cleavered) villages and both sides of the island (the two major
regions) in close alliance' (Firth, R., 1957).
According to the stories,
the men from the East only marry the women of the West. The opposite applies
to the men of the West. That is, people only marry those most
different. The new brides live with their husband's family. As land is passed
from mother to daughter, the couple set up gardens on land belonging to her
mother, - that is, on the opposite side to where the couple are living. Each morning all the
gardening couples from the East get up at sunrise, bath and have breakfast.
They then make the climb to the top and wait viewing the crater lake. The sun
rises a little later for those on the West and when the couples from the West
reached the top, the other partners act as hosts as they have a small party
for a while. They also exchange news and banter before going to their respective
gardens.
The process is reversed
in the evening. The sun sets first for those gardening in the East. So they
climb first and wait to be hosts for another party. There is more chatting,
drumming and dancing in the late afternoon light, and as the tropical sun set
in the West, they all return to their respective villages. There they have
exchanges of vegetables for fish with the villagers who are the seafarers -
another different group to celebrate with. Often these beach exchanges are
occasions for more dancing and friendly play. After dinner the party resumes on the beach or perhaps some walk
around headlands and across the smaller ridges to visit villagers in the
neighbouring valleys. In all this celebrated
difference, villagers are always in constant contact as they passed each
other on the mountain trails and meet on the beaches. There are multiple
unifying links between valleys and across ridges. The Tikopia people celebrate
their diversity to create social unity and cohesion. Their communal living
and mores help constitute and sustain individual and communal psycho-social
wellbeing. Notice that their
psycho-social wellbeing processes are woven completely into every
aspect of their lives together. There is constant linking within and between
people of differing generations, gender, clan, village, locality, status
(chief/non chief families) and occupation (that is, differing sociological
categories). Their lives create public space. Public space is community space
- where people are in continual close social exchange - where friendships
blossom and are sustained by regular contact (Cf. Tönnies' Gessellschaft
(Tönnies, 1955)). The top of the mountain, along all the mountain trails,
within the villages, on the beaches - these are all public spaces - places
for sharing, caring, and nurturing. Social news is
continually circulating. Tikopia life is not without some contention and
strife. Any strife soon becomes common knowledge. Typically, it is
interrupted before it can start. There is always a support network to call on
to resolve any issue. The common stock of practical wisdom is so readily
passed on, that it is widely held in the communities. People know 'what
works'. Socio-healing is not an 'add on'. All of this socially embedded
wellbeing action is pervasively holistic. These socio-healing actions are
preventive. They sustain wellbeing. They are the norm. They constitute their
good life. Their social life world is 'self authenticating' (Pelz, 1974, p.6)
and self-healing and sustaining societal, clan, village, and personal
wellness. It is therapeutic community in celebratory links with other
therapeutic communities. With dysfunction at a minimum, the term 'therapeutic
community' more appropriately becomes, 'wellbeing community'. REFLECTING
Have you and others
created your own urban/rural village? Was there any rejection by you of any
action implied by these questions? 'Wouldn't want to do that.' 'People are
trouble.' 'They're not my kind.' Reflect on your own life.
How does it match or differ from the Tikopia? How much public space is there?
How much socialising occurs in these public spaces? How much socialising do
you do in public spaces? How extensive is your personal face-to-face relating
in social network(s)? How many people can you call on for support? For
different kinds of support? How many sources of wisdom do you have? How many
close friends? How many of different generations to yourself? How many have
local knowings? How much of what is happening in your street - in your
neighbourhood - do you link into? How much celebrating do you do? How often?
With whom? How much do you share what you have with others? How close are you
to local geography? How grounded are you? How
often are you linked to the cycles of sunrise and sunset? How often do
you engage with others very different to yourself? How often do you celebrate
difference? How often do you play and rejoice? MAD BAD CLEAVING
Consider the Tikopia way
of life. It presents a practical working model for exploring sociomedicine,
sociotherapy and therapeutic community - a practical model for restoring
psycho-social health and wellbeing in dysfunctional people, families and
communities - in whole societies. This possibility was recognised back in
1959 by a psychiatrist, Dr. Neville Yeomans. As founding director, he set up
a psychiatric unit called Fraser House in the North Ryde Psychiatric Hospital
(Clark and Yeomans, 1969). It is little known that Yeomans modelled the Unit
upon the socio-processes of Tikopia. This was not mentioned by Clark and
Yeomans in their book. As well, Dr. Yeomans had a childhood where he was
often in the nurturing care of Australian Aboriginals. Lost as a young child
in the Northern Territory outback, Yeomans owes his life to an Aboriginal
tracker. He experienced the healing power of their sociomedicine and
introduced aspects of this healing way into Fraser House as well. Only a brief over-view of
Fraser House is possible in a paper of this size. Information has been posted
on the Internet at Laceweb Home Page.
Fraser House was an 80
bed residential Unit taking male and female patients in equal number. Balanced
numbers of people from all diagnostic categories were admitted. As well, half
of the people admitted were from the prison system. Dr. Yeomans wanted, in
lay terms, to have both the 'mad' and the 'bad'. He wanted to test whether it
was possible for these two groups together, to help themselves back to
functionality. If this could be done, then it would be a micro-model for the
healing of a society broken and traumatised by war. From the results of
Fraser House and subsequent experience, it seems possible that self help
socio-therapy may be a model for healing places like East Timor and
Bougainville, where the sheer size of psycho-social problems following
conflict would stretch conventional health and trauma support services beyond
capacity. (Refer Laceweb Self Help Action Fraser House was
structured so that, in a massive number of micro-ways, it was a
therapeutic community. It was not just setting up a 'unit' where people then tried
to make it therapeutic and where something called 'community' hopefully
developed. It was socially structured so that people's common humanity meant
that they had to change - it was
therapeutic. ‘Therapeutic Community’ was not just a name; it was a
Community that was Therapeutic. In the forward to Clark
and Yeoman's book, Dr. Maxwell Jones, the pioneer of therapeutic communities
in the United Kingdom said of Fraser House, 'given such a carefully worked
out structure, evolution is an inevitable consequence'. Four senior staffers (a
psychologist, an anthropologist/psychologist, a psychiatrist and a senior
charge nurse) who was interviewed, all agreed that in Fraser House, all staff
were 'in therapy' along with the patients and outpatients - it was
inevitable. The staff-patient distinction was maintained, though not in
Goffman's 'Asylum' terms (Goffman, E., 1961). Staff were 'enablers'
supporting 'residents' in self help. All involved were being transformed by
the Fraser House experience. Such was Fraser House's
reputation in the new field of 'community psychiatry' that Fraser House
became the place providing community mental health training in community
psychiatry for students preparing to become members of the Royal Australian
and New Zealand College of Psychiatry. Students were allocated to Fraser
House for six month periods. Social worker students from both the University
of Sydney and the University of NSW were also trained. A precondition for
admittance to Fraser House as a resident was that friends and family of the
patient were to regularly attend both Big and Small therapy groups as
outpatients. In the early 60's, the Unit was having between 10,000 and 13,000
outpatient visits a year. The focus of therapy was the patient-family-friend network. The primary healing process was
'corrective emotional experience' emerging from struggling with, and
discovering how to live close together well in therapeutic community. Big Group was held
morning and night for one hour on weekdays. All staff, including cleaners and
administrators, attended Big Group along with patients and family/friend
outpatients - typically around 160-180 people (with a maximum attendance of
300!). People were literally shoulder to shoulder and audience to other's
change-work. Moveable platforms made a two tiered amphitheatre effect. Big
Group lasted exactly one hour. Big Group would be active from the moment
people sat down, till finish was called. Behaviour was tightly controlled by
the Big Group Leader and by internalised group norms relating to wellbeing. It
was not a T Group. Initially Dr. Yeomans led big group. A number of senior
staff became very skilled in leading Big Group. In keeping with the
Tikopia 'cleavered-unities' concept, dysfunctional patient networks were
cleavered so that they could be restructured in functional ways, as a
reformed unity, or disbanded; there were also processes for constituting a
new functional network for a patient. A key component of this cleavering was
the combination of Big and Small therapy Groups. Immediately after both AM
and PM Big Group and a small refreshment break, residents and outpatients
would be divided into small groups of between 10 and 18 (depending on
outpatient attendance). The daily division of
family friendship networks within small groups was based upon a rotation of
six sociological categories. For example, on one day, people would be divided
by locality. This meant that patients and outpatients would have scope to
form friendships with people from their own locality in Sydney. Largely as a
result of just this process, most patients left Fraser House with a
restructured family friendship network of around 70 people! Typically, these
people had gained highly refined social and healing skills. Some ex-patients
so missed the Fraser House Group experience that they started the self-help
group called 'Recovery', which became 'Grow', a self help group that has
spread internationally. Other categories used for
dividing up Big Group into small groups were (i) age, (ii) married/single
status, (iii) kinship, (iv) social order (manual, clerical,
semi-professional, and professional), and (v) age and sex (cf. Tikopia).
Sketch of a Fraser House Small Group based on Age by
Harry Campbell The Unit was a set of
buildings joined by covered walkways stretching for over 200 metres. An
administration block was in the middle (including the big group room at one
end). A double story dormitory was at either end of the Administration block.
The Unit was designed
(contrary to Dr. Yeoman's intention) as separate male and female units with
separate dining rooms at either end. Dr. Yeoman saw this separation of the
sexes as isomorphic with cleavered dysfunctional community. Once the Unit was
under way, Dr. Yeomans integrated both male and female Units and used one
dining room as the dining room. The other dining room was set up as the games
and recreation room. Separate male and female rooms were spread throughout
the building. This meant that there was a continual flow of people from one
end of the Unit to another. This approximated the mountain trails of Tikopia.
The dining room, the recreation room, big room and all passageways were
'public space' where social contact was inevitable. Neville was very attuned
to the links between topography, social topography and the geo-social.
While modelled on
Indigenous ways, Fraser House generated many innovative sociotherapy and
sociomedicine processes. For example, eight family units were set up within
Fraser House allowing full family residential healing. Fraser House may well
have been a World first in providing full family therapeutic community. Other
innovative aspects of Fraser House will be discussed below and in later
papers to be posted on the Internet site mentioned previously. In Fraser House their
living together, tasks were allocated to those who could not do them -
so they could learn - with the support, forbearance and patience of all. And
if people's initial incompetence was a source of anger and annoyance in others,
then these others had to learn to live with it and/or change their own
responses. Patients and Outpatients
alike were given the role of assuming responsibility for their own healing.
One by one, patient committees were set up and some aspect of the Unit's
administration was handed over to these patient-run committees. Ultimately, every
aspect of the administration was administered by the patients and outpatients
through the staff-resident committee process. This freed up all staff to have
a healing, and healing support role. For patients, it was pervasively
self-help and mutual-help. They learned how to heal themselves and each
other, as well as how to administer a very large organisation. They also
administered their own little shop and used the funds to buy and run a red Volkswagen Kombi van. Patients used this van
to set up Australia's first telephone suicide crisis hotline and call out
service (influencing the start up of 'lifeline) and were regularly called out
to the Gap on Sydney's South Head to talk potential suiciders out of jumping
off the cliff often in the early hours of the morning They also used the van to
start Australia's first domiciliary home visit service. Patients (up to six
at a time) who were within weeks of returning home themselves were making
home calls on ex-patients to resolve any issues they and/or their family and
friends were having. The domiciliary team were supporting those who had left
before the members of the team had left Fraser House themselves. As an example of
delegating to those who can't do something, an incorrigible thief was
intentionally placed in charge of the little shop and as anticipated, stole
incessantly. This threatened the viability of both the domiciliary van visits
and the telephone crisis hotline service. The other patients brought his
stealing up in Big Group. The thief had to live with 180 people, who were
very mad or very bad. This social milieu quickly sorted out and stopped the
thief's stealing. The mainstream norm of 'madness being expected, and
accepted in patients by both staff and patients' was dropped. The new norm
was established that 'no madness or badness is tolerated by any staff,
patient or out-patient'. Any breach of this norm was noted and interrupted by
both patients and staff, and/or brought up within Big and Small Groups. Initially, patients could
only stay six months. This was later reduced to 12 weeks. This was to ensure
that people started immediately to get on with their personal change. Upon
leaving the Unit, the timing for possible return to Fraser House would be
negotiated with each patient. Patients could only return three times. Another mirroring of
Tikopia ways was that Fraser House established many links and outreaches
within the local community. Dr. Yeomans and others were continually speaking
about Fraser House at functions, and inviting visitors to Fraser House. It
was the first institution in Australia to identify surrounding suburbs as an
area of 'special interest' - 'catchment areas'. During the early days of
Fraser House, the Psychiatric Research Study Group was set up by Dr. Yeomans
on the grounds of the North Ryde Hospital, adjacent Fraser House. This Group
met fortnightly and was a forum for the discussion and exploration of
innovative healing ideas. The study group networked for, and attracted, very
talented people. Students of psychiatry, medicine, psychology, sociology,
social work, pastoral work, criminology and education attended from the
University of NSW and University of Sydney, and other places. For example,
prison officers and parole officers with whom Neville had been working within
the prison and corrective system (as another Fraser House outreach) also
attended the Study Group. This study group was itself sociotherapy and
evolved as a support network. Students and others would present papers and
passionate discussion would follow. In the spirit of the times (early 60's) many
of the attendees could not, or would not discuss their ideas within their
respective university departments. Some were scared of presenting certain of
their papers in the university environment because of their innovative and
groundbreaking content. Some had tried and could not get an audience for
their ideas. The Study Group provided
a space where ideas that would in all probability have been rejected
out-of-hand in other forums would be enthusiastically received and discussed.
Anything raised that seemed to fit the milieu in Fraser House was immediately
tried. Everything at Fraser House was 'tentative' and could be reviewed,
modified, or dropped if it was not working, or if something better was found.
Margaret Mead the
anthropologist was a co-founder of the World Federation of Mental Health.
Mead attended Fraser House and chaired both Big Group and a Small Group when
she informally visited Fraser House in the 60's. Mead stated that she
considered Fraser House the most advanced therapeutic community she had
visited anywhere in the World. Margaret Mead also chaired the Psychiatric
Research Study Group on the same visit. Dr Yeomans accepted every
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander in NSW mental institutions into Fraser
House. From Fraser House almost all were returned to their family networks
back in the community. Fraser House was
pervasively subjected to empirical research by both an internal and external
research team (Bruen, W., 1968; Clark, A. W. & Yeomans N. T., 1969; Webb,
R. A. J. & Bruen W. J. 1968; Yeomans, N., 1961; Yeomans, N., 1961a;
Yeomans N., Clark A. W., Cockett M., & Gee K. M., 1970). Fraser House
costs were way below alternative treatments and the rate of return and length
of stay, were significantly below. Bayview House within Cullen Park in NSW
was modelled on Fraser House by Dr Madew. Research on Bayview also found that
costs and treatment effects were significantly superior to alternative
treatments (Madew L., Singer G., & MacIndoe, I., 1966). George Singer
went on to be appointed to the Foundation Chair of Psychological Science at
La Trobe University in 1972. From 1973 to 1978 he also served as Dean of the
School of Behavioural Science and as Director of the influential
Brain-Behaviour Research Institute (BBRI) which he established in the School
at La Trobe University. Paul and Lentz, (1977)
based their United States research into therapeutic community on aspects of
the Fraser House model. They found that their psycho-social change programs
were significantly ahead of the hospital group on all measures. THE LACEWEB
After leaving Fraser
House in the late sixties, Dr. Yeomans, in his new role as the first Director
of Community Mental Health in NSW, set up the first community mental health
centre in NSW. This was in the vestry at the back of the Methodist Church in
Oxford Street in Paddington. It was perhaps the first of such centres in
Australia. Mangold, in his delightful photographic record of the history of
the Paddington Bazaar speaks of Dr. Yeomans being the primary inspiration for
realising Reverend Peter Holden's dream of 'villaging the church' (Mangold,
1993, p4). Dr. Yeomans' suggestion was to surround the Paddington Community
Mental Health Centre and the Church with a Saturday community bazaar. This
was fully consistent with the Fraser House model of imbedding the Unit within
the local community - and resonant with Tikopia way. Paddington Bazaar
thrives to this day.
The psychiatrist
Professor Max Kamien discusses Aboriginal human relations workshops modelled
on Fraser House Big Group and facilitated by Dr. Yeomans. These were held in Armidale
and Grafton in NSW during 1971-73 (Kamien M. 1978). Eddie Mabo was one of the
attendees at these gatherings. Socio-therapy models
evolved at Fraser House have since been picked up and extended by an informal
network of indigenous and small minority healers. This network is called by
some 'the Laceweb. This Network has
been slowly evolving throughout the Oceania, East Asia Australasia region.
Energy is growing towards these Fraser House and Laceweb socio-therapy and
socio-healing insights, processes and
practices been used in supporting tens of thousands of Bougainville
people traumatised by over ten years of crisis on that Island. It is resonant
that this healing possibility on Bougainville is not many sea miles from the
Island of Tikopia - the inspiration for Fraser House. Action is also evolving
around Safe Havens
near Cairns and Darwin in Northern Australia RATAIKU - LOVING WISDOM
IN ACTION From deep within
Bougainville may be found another example of sociomedicine and sociotherapy
as a way of life. I speak of the Rataiku people who live in the South of
Bougainville. Some of their oral history has been passed to me by
Bougainville people born in that region. The name is pronounced 'Rat Tay E
Queue'. 'Rataiku' simultaneously means a distinct people, place, way of life,
language, way of relating with loving wisdom, and most importantly, being and
doing all of the foregoing. Rataiku as 'place' is only
a 300 acres clearing in the bottom of a valley surrounded by thick jungle.
There are dwellings for 700 people with gardens interspersed. The dense
terrain holds them close together. From Rataiku, narrow paths radiate in five
directions. Apart from these paths, the jungle is so dense, no one can roam
more than a few metres into it. The five paths go to the surrounding
territory and communities of five different language groups. The Rataiku are
in the centre. Every Rataiku speaks Rataiku and each of the other five
languages. In the centre of Rataiku is a sports field - a place of many
reconcilings between neighbouring peoples who would come to this special
place for mediation therapy by Rataiku peace healers. Rataiku is the source of
three highly prized commodities - special nuts which grow only in Rataiku,
carry bags made from a special fibre tree growing only in their village, and
thirdly, high grade pottery. All five language groups travel to Rataiku to
trade items for these three commodities. Rataiku chiefs are
respected. Rataiku people follow the chief's ideas. However, chiefs behave as
they are first among equals. If chiefs from any of the neighbouring five
peoples visit their village, Rataiku chiefs humbly disappear to the gardens
and allow other village members to be hosts. A central concept and
pervasive aspect of the Rataiku way of life is 'haharusingo'. It means
'loving wisdom in action'. Another is 'horuro' meaning 'visiting to give'. A
third concept is 'apaapaatu' meaning 'visiting to give and receive'.
Respectful humour and jokes are a pervasive part of Rataiku life and hearty
belly laughs ring out through the valley during day and night. All carry-bags and their
contents belong to all Rataiku. Anyone returning from their gardens with
fresh vegetables will share the contents with everyone they meet on the way
home. They meet others with carry bags, so all get a bit of everyone's
produce. During the conflict, the
population swelled to three times the size as people sought refuge there. Rataiku,
as 'sanctuary', was never violated by the PNG forces, the BRA or any faction.
There was never trouble between different opposing factions staying at
Rataiku as refugees. Rataiku was always respected despite awful atrocities
occurring throughout the Island. Despite the chaos elsewhere on Bougainville,
the conflict had little impact on the Rataiku way of life. On one occasion
early in the conflict, the PNG forces swept into the valley. After being with
the Rataiku only a short time they recognised 'they had no reason to be in
this special place with these special people' and they all packed up and
left. Rataiku 'haharusingo' or loving wisdom in action had worked its way
with PNG forces. With all of these refugees coming and going in successive
waves, the Rataiku way of life was unchanged. The Rataiku people are
universally described as 'good people'. Imagine a way of living - loving
wisdom in action - which is so palpable that it interrupts and stops the
awful carnage of war in its tracks. Powerful stuff! HEALING PLACE AND PUBLIC
SPACE Notice how sociomedicine
and socio-therapy ways link people together in their place. Tikopia island
life was up and over the three dimensional normal curves between valleys and
across the island. The Rataiku were placed in the middle of the jungle in the
middle of the valley in the middle of their neighbours. The Australian
Aboriginals were linked together with the harsh vastness of their place. Each
of their 'cohesive' ways merged them in their geography. Our Western life in
many ways tends to sever us from our geography and each other - our cars, our
houses, our public transport, our buildings, our artificial climates and
processed air. The 7:45AM train on the
Hurstbridge line comes to mind. Jammed in like sardines we were; and all eyes
just managed to miss each other and ignore each other's presence. And then
the train stops between Victoria Park and Collingwood. Silent train, silent
people. Long wait. After time a conversation starts, then another. Soon a
hundred conversations are under way and people who had stood beside another
for ten years were discovering they had a common interest in fly-fishing, or
growing dahlias, or in finding a mate. We eventually abandoned the faulty
train, helping each other down. We all laughed, and en masse all lost in deep
conversations, we walked off together towards the Collingwood station. The
stiff breeze was hardly noticed. I wonder how many did get married after that
morning's chat? Another story about
trains - Rowan Ireland, a Melbourne sociologist had been researching in the
late eighties an urban renewal social movement among the shanty town
residents on the outskirts of São Paulo in Brazil. Ireland writes of his
returning to São Paulo to investigate the social movement ten years later
(Ireland, 1998). The first part of his article paints a very gloomy picture.
'I had lost sight of my social movement. I would find myself recording only
happenings of chaos, breakdown and anomic disintegration'. He describes
conditions as 'pathetic'. The destitute people were consumed with survival
from one day to the next. They were surrounded by despair and criminal
violence. The destitute were so concerned with sheer survival that there was
no energy for any 'social movement'. Ireland had been regularly
travelling backwards and forwards by train along the 55 kilometres between
the out-lying shantytowns and São Paulo. While so travelling he had been
engrossed in his academic reflections as to what could have killed the social
movement he had been studying. Then there is this
delightful moment in the train where Ireland suddenly looks up and sees his
social movement. He is surrounded by it. Instead of it being dead as he
thought, it is very much alive and well in this public space of the workers'
train. He had been blind to what was surrounding him. Now before him he
suddenly sees a profusion of zest and community, avid conversations and
debates; orators talking on all manner of subjects; the repartee of hecklers
and the belly laughs of the audiences. There were also poets, musicians,
jugglers and other buskers - beggars’ banquets and a thriving paupers'
market, extending even to coals-roasted peanuts from the kerosene tin. Here on the train, alive
and well, Ireland finds ongoing 'invention' and 'structuration' - change
potential bubbling within everyday socio-cultural life. Here in front of his
very eyes was sociomedicine at work. It was his social movement, but in a
different form. Perhaps this form had existed all along and he like other
theorists just hadn't seen it. Now instead of power being the focus – it is
all about social relating and creating new social forms. Among the human
energy on the train all manner of happenings and ideas were being passed on
as stories - fragments of subjective experience were being melded for the
possibilities of enriching life. THE CHIRON MYTH IN ACTION
All of the patients and
outpatients at Fraser House were wounded healers. Dr Yeomans himself was a
wounded healer - suffering the aftermath of two major childhood traumas. The
Laceweb is made up of wounded healers. Evolving Laceweb action with West
Papuans, Bougainvillians, East Timorese all involve wounded healers
supporting each other towards wellbeing. The term 'wounded healer' goes back
to the character 'Chiron' in Greek mythology. Chiron a centaur (half man half
horse god) was twice wounded. He was rejected at birth by his mother. He
didn't look right - back-end decidedly like a horse! Couldn't she remember
the father? As an immortal, Chiron placed himself in the bind of having a
painful wound that would never heal. Centaurs were typically
rambunctious fellows who did not get on with humans very well at all. Chiron,
as archetypal healer, was very different from other Centaurs. An outsider
among his own, he drew on his experience of his own suffering to bring very
special qualities to his healing role among humans. The word ‘Chiropractic’
comes from Chiron. At the Healing Arts
Festival energised by Dr. Marc Cohen in December 1998, there were many
wounded healers. Decided then to hold the 'Wounded Healer' workshop at the
December, 1999 Healing Arts Festival. Thirty five attended the workshops -
all wounded healers in their own way. How many others are around? Some set
high standards for themselves - putting their own needs second. Some had the
notion, 'I must be excellent before I can be of any use to others', in the
context of denying their own need for personal healing. Incidentally, the
campout ambience of the Healing Arts Festival is resonant with Tikopia socio-therapy
and is thoroughly recommended. Ask anyone who has experienced it! And so, drawing upon some
of the sharings from the Wounded healer workshops - what of your
self-nurturing? Simple things usually. Smelling the flowers. Watching the sun
set. A long aromatherapy soak in a warm bath. Soft candlelight dinners. So
many may come to mind. Though how long since we have done any of them? And,
with the foregoing in mind, what support networks do we have for ourselves?
What of simple fun? Gatherings and celebration? Or is all this 'wasting
time'. To what end. Think of the Tikopia. The joy of the extended friendship
- days (daze) passed in the company of friends - good conversation, relaxing.
And the possibility of 'the profound' emerging from 'the trivial'. 'Rejoicing'. Interesting
word - to 're-joy' ourselves. So in this Wounded Healer
- Wounded Group Workshop at the Holistic Healing Conference, and indeed
throughout the whole Conference, we have opportunity to create a healing
mood. That's a micro-bit from sociotherapy - 'mood' can heal and shared moods
may heal a multitude. The German language has a word for it. - 'stimmung'
(Pelz, J, 1974, p84). 'Stimmung' means 'a mood that colours or constitutes
reality - gives it meaning'. It also has connotations of 'being in tune with'
or 'attuned' to others and the context. 'Stimmen' is to tune an instrument
until it is 'tuned' correctly and hence able to convey 'stimmung'. And during the workshop
we can explore healing storytelling - as I have been doing in this paper -
and sociohealing - moving, for example, into enchanting mode - being playful
with profound respect for each other - as princes and princesses of the realm
- respecting the sovereignty of each other - as in the Celtic tradition. And
we can notice what this frame setting does to us. The de-framing - the
letting go - in merging together in emerging contexts for possibilities - the
organic unfoldings as alternative metaphor. The subtle shifts to sense of
time and other things - as all is linked to all. As we said, in other
words - the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone - and for all this, the
wounded healers can have fun with the wounded group, for celebrating the
wellbeing of all - if all that makes sense at some level in the healing
use of words. And after we return to
everyday life we may want to explore creating low or no-cost sharing
gatherings where we can revel in each other's life experience and nurturing.
Ring a few friends. Tell them where to meet. Bring food to share. Have a
party. Network with nurturers and have a day of mini-workshops. Perhaps start
a Holistic Healing Research Study Group that meets fortnightly as per the
Fraser House model. A link to one such energy - Spiral
Sunday.
Another is Healing Sunday. A delight to share with you. REFERENCES
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