Rising Stars: Meet Dr. Susan Swim

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Susan Swim.

Hi Dr. Swim, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
After decades as a professor, author, theorist, international educator, researcher, and supervisor Dr. Swim created Now I See a Person Institute–Healing Under Served Populations from Trauma—using the Collaborative-Dialogical Practices of Community Engagement: A Collaborative Recovery Model (CEACRM). I was a professor when I received an email reflecting on working with horses and nature. It was 2007, and along with my master’s and doctoral students, we began offering individual and relational therapy for the most hopeless of people on a horse ranch. We used the horses my father had gifted me when my daughter was young. These initial horses were only too happy to participate and see people daily. They were like family pets and the whole therapeutic experience was of normalcy and nurturance regardless of the initial trauma or chronic traumas. On the first day, I realized something invaluable was happening, and soon after opened Now I See A Person Institute (NISAPI) as a nonprofit. NISAPI is a research, training, and clinical institute providing services for populations who have not previously experienced success in prior treatment for a broad range of symptoms. We use a systemic theory I helped develop in the eighties and that is used worldwide. We include the family with each client service.

Our evidence-based approach yields significant transformation. What made us different was an environment where clinician and client looked alike, all at a horse ranch, and with the normalcy and the nurturance of the horses, severe mental illness narratives dissipated. It was/is an egalitarian community of one person or persons (as in a therapeutic team) embracing and being in conversation with Others (those which suffer). People with severe symptoms evolved to see their symptoms as coping mechanisms, and they learned to rediscover and redesign their lives with awe-inspiring transformations. People with their families actively assist in creating their preferred paths. There was/is no familial cutoff but the collective generation of new possibilities and self-identities, even when family histories have been conflictual. Soon, we witnessed significant healing and dissolving of symptoms with every person/family who attended. And this continues today but with more flexibility. With the family members being involved, everyone has a voice and is a stakeholder for change. Instead of individual services where the clinician only hears of the family, there is active involvement. Because of a therapeutic team, the time limits are extended to allow for new familial relationships to flourish.

We have evolved to research, author, and utilize “Out of the Office” environments of a horse ranch, people’s gardens/backyards, and Telehealth. We provide safe, nurturing, and normal environments where children, teens or adults can identify as a person and not be bound to the definitions or limitations of a diagnosis or previous trauma. People completely recover. We see the clients as the experts and are client-led. And collaboratively, we all co-create new possibilities and opportunities that are lifelong and sustainable.

In “Out of the Offices” venues, clients are surrounded by normalcy, & nurturance to heal. Via Telehealth or “in the home” services, our clients also receive the normalcy and nurturance to heal by entering into the safety of their homes. We try to foremost provide environments where the client is the expert. This reflects therapy where the client’s voices are heard and respected. Collectively, with a therapeutic team, clients and their families are encouraged to collaborate and create self-tailored solutions. We are a systemic approach for people with lengthy histories of suffering, conflictual family relationships, and unresolved severe symptoms.

Learners from various states and countries come to learn and study with Dr. Swim and the NISAPI faculty team of national and international educators.

NISAPI offers training and workshops in the Collaborative-Dialogical Practices (CDP) of CEACRM and provides an International Certificate in Collaborative Dialogical Practices. We added Collaborative-Dialogical-Educational Virtual Learning in addition to in-person classes in July. Participants will have the opportunity to learn about the Collaborative-Dialogical Practices of Community Engagement: A Collaborative Recovery Model through a self-paced approach with access to faculty resources, strategies, and support (Anderson, 1997, Swim, Priest & Makawa, 2013 & Swim, Stephan, Abramovitch & Stone, Swim, Abramovitch, 2018, Wilson, Kadler & Takeda, 2020, Swim 2021, Swim, 2022 and Swim, 2023). See www.nowiseeaperson.com. for additional information and to sign up for courses or clinical efforts.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The road for the clients, learners, faculty, and the horse has been very smooth and so incredibly proficient. We write continuously and present nationally and internationally. Finding a ranch to house our nonprofit has been difficult. We need a ranch. We are on our tenth move and still desire to have our own place. Even leasing a partial space on a ranch proves difficult. Our last ranch was for ten years. Unfortunately, it was not sustainable. It was not ours to do what we do best. If anyone has read Jaycee Duggard’s Healing by Horses one will understand what miracles can happen.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I helped develop a family therapy theory in the eighties, and it has been my passion to train and educate clinicians in ways to reduce harm. This type of therapy and life coaching we espouse to empowers and allows the client’s voice to be valued and believed. We do not see people as a disease but for the trauma they have experienced. When people can see how they are heroes and heroines, they quickly heal. When people are not afraid of themselves but realize they have inherent strengths despite the trauma that drives their symptoms, they have immense strength and self-knowledge. Collectively, clients and clinicians and families find ingenious approaches that far outweigh a theory. Theories can not do therapy, but people can. It is the caring support of clinicians that are the “tools” in therapy and not a roadmap of one size fits all. We started calling our nonprofit Now I See A Person Institute after a learner was able to put aside prejudice and pre-judgment with a “difficult” client who was not progressing many decades ago.

When she was able to connect, she and other learners used the words, “Now I see a person.” This described genuinely listening and believing the “clients” and seeing their potential and strengths instead of just their symptoms. We have found for forty years that seeing and listening is the key to success. And how hard this is to do in reality. Using the horses was brilliant because it evened the playing field between clients and clinicians. It helped the therapeutic conversions evolve in a natural, honest, respectful, genuine, and strength-based manner. A therapeutic team, family members, and horses led to self-tailored, genuine, and meaningful solutions for those who didn’t succeed in previous therapies, medication treatments, hospitalizations, and institutionalizations. We see people heal, we see families reunite, and we see generations of young people having choices.

Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
Using horses and nature to create amazing change was almost unheard of when we started. Although we have evolved to parks, people’s backyards, and Telehealth, and we teach this in various countries, I feel this “Out of the Office” paradigm has always been seen as a bit unusual. But to us, it makes the most sense for sustainable change, especially with those who are considered unchangeable. We see the hopeless and have the first session change. For myself and our faculty, it has been an inspiring and humbling journey.

Pricing:

• Our fees run from 300.00 to 0

Contact Info:

• Website: www.nowiseeaperson.com
• Instagram: @nowiseeaperson
• Facebook: Susan Swim
• Linkedin: Dr. Susan Swim
• Twitter: @nowiseeaperson
• Youtube: Nowiseeaperson
• Other: Now I See A Person Institute Spotify, Now I See A Person Podcast Spotify,