When I visited the UK in April/May 2024, I saw three recovery communities that are true healing environments: North Wales Recovery Communities (NWRC) in Bangor; BAC O’Connor in Burton-on Trent, and ARC Fitness in London/Londonderry. I spent time with people who had sought out help from these communities, and also with members of staff. The atmosphere in these places was so very special.
Over the years, I’ve come to learn more and more about what is necessary to create a true healing environment for people with serious substance use problems, mental health problems, and past traumatic experiences. In more recent times, I have become a strong advocate for the work of leading trauma expert, Dr Bruce Perry. His book with Oprah Winfrey, What Happened To You?: Conversations in Trauma, Resilience, and Healing is one of the most important and inspiring books I have ever read.
When I was back in the UK last year, I gave talks on Bruce’s work in each of the three recovery communities I visited and mentioned above. And early this year I gave a Zoom presentation to members of NWRC and other local people.
Recently, Bruce and Oprah released a new YouTube film of a conversation they had when they recently got together again. It’s well worth watching. At the end, they discussed the nature of a true healing environment. You can watch this part of the conversation in the film below from 51 mins 45 secs. I have transcribed this conversation, ‘cleaning it up’ a little without changing meaning.
These words are SO important!
Oprah: Once we become aware of our trauma and how that trauma is showing up in our lives, how do we break the self-destructive patterns?
Bruce: One of the things that you have to always remember is that the brain is capable of change, and the kind of change you want is going to require specific kinds of repetitive experiences. You can go through all kinds of relational experiences, you can go through sensory experiences, you can go through all sorts of cognitive intellectual experiences, and they will all lead to growth.
But the key to change, honestly, is that you have a healing environment that’s filled with people who see you. Who make you feel that you belong. Because what they then allow you to do, is that when you are in need of a regulatory interaction where somebody just is present, you can do that. When you’re in need of somebody who is going to do something where you are needing some guidance, intellectual guidance, you have somebody who can do that.
It’s like having this big, beautiful, incredible extended family with people that are good at horseplay, people that are good at telling stories, people that are good at jokes, people that are good at teaching you how to do a fire, and you use them in your life at the time you need them, in the dose that you need them. In other words, you don’t just want to have one person responsible for every single thing that you’re learning.
You know, the village is filled with an elder who’s really good at telling stories, but he’s not any good at teaching you how to knit. And over here, the person who can teach you how to knit is different than the person who’s going to teach you how to hunt. And the person who’s going to be just a good listener, is going to sit next to you. If you have all of these people present in your life, you have this rich library of relationships that you can use as you grow. And I think that because different people have different timing to their trauma, and they have different kinds of trauma, they’re all going to need different books from the library.
The problem with the current mental health system is that we give everybody the same book. Instead of having a little one-shelf book mobile, which is kind of what mental health treatment is right now, we need a Library of Congress of opportunities that are culturally specific, that can focus on movement, and music, and art, and all the things that are part of the world that help us heal.
If you are seen and you are relationally connected in a community, you have a rich library of resources that you can tap into to help you heal and to help you grow. And to help you buffer whatever current stressors you’re having right now.
Oprah: And it doesn’t have to come from the person that you think it was supposed to come from.
Bruce: Absolutely.
Oprah: It could be anybody who actually fully sees you and values you as a human being. And for me, that was teachers.
Bruce: It can be moments. And it doesn’t have to be a 45 minute session once a week. It’s just one little thing. It’s a little dose of someone’s, ‘Oh, I see you.’
Here is the whole conversation. As a reminder, if you want to just watch the above part of the conversation, go to 51 mins 45 secs.
