PART XIV: Expansion in the State and Veterans Hospitals
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TREASURE: Well, Phil, as we approach Recovery's 35th Anniversary celebration what's on your mind for this issue?
PHIL: What I have in mind is the goal Dr. Low set for Recovery, of offering our Method to all who have need of it...including, of course, offering it to the patients from state hospitals so they will have a method to show them how to prevent relapses.
TREASURE: We state it in our pamphlet as "making Recovery available to all who have need of it."
PHIL: True. But I think we need to do more than make it available. We need to offer it. In a brief article written by Dr. Low (an excerpt from which is republished in this issue, entitled "Reflections on the Expansion Drive") (Ed. Note: The portions of this article are part of the 11th Historical Dialogue) you will note that Dr. Low uses the word "offer," not "make available".
TREASURE: In other words you are stressing Dr. Low's use of the word "offer." As I think of it, I realize that you are not just splitting hairs. I think you are correct! We can make it available from now 'til doomsday, but if we don't actively offer it to the state and veterans' hospitals, we may very likely be by-passed because we have failed to do all we can to cooperate with them. How can we offer it, Phil?
PHIL: Well, at the present time some areas are or have been approaching those professionals who are in charge of state and veterans' hospitals for the purpose of offering our Method to discharged patients. We have been giving demonstration panels for both the staff and patients (in many locations for several years now). But the most encouraging indication to me that we are beginning to really offer our Method to the state hospitals is the fact that several groups have now been started either directly across the street from the hospital, or in a nearby location. There are arrangements made with the hospital for them to take responsibility for seeing that patients, about to be discharged, get to a Recovery group meeting. Some of these groups are led by people who were formerly patients in the same hospital.
TREASURE: We are encouraged by this development and you have clarified for me a very important point. There has been confusion about what we mean by cooperation with hospitals. Some have felt that groups must be started within the hospital itself. But with the groups mentioned above, Recovery stays in the community, as a self-help after-care method, as it was intended by Dr. Low. And with the excellent cooperation we have been getting from professionals, I think we have found a way to offer AND make available our Method through a mutually cooperative effort with professionals.
PHIL: Those professionals who have seen this arrangement work out are certainly in agreement that Recovery should keep its base in the community. They feel we can best serve their patients there. Those areas which have had this experience are quite satisfied that this is the approach to use.
TREASURE: I'm sure it is only a matter of time until all areas will follow the lead of those who have started projects, Phil. When this happens then we will certainly be offering Dr. Low's method to the state and veterans' hospitals all across the country and in Canada.
PHIL: Of course, as this program develops it will become even more important for leaders to be thoroughly trained in the group procedures that Dr. Low insisted on. Our Leaders' Training Committee is hard at work developing our plan of action to see that this is carried out.
TREASURE: Recovery's Board of Directors is completely backing this program, as the Leaders' Training Committee works closely with you, Phil. All Recovery members will hear more about it as we make progress with it.
PHIL: As we plan our 35th Anniversary get-together, I'd say this is probably the best news we can think of. The fact that Recovery has grown; that we are having success is being recognized by professionals -- these are both items of good news, of course. But even more gratifying to all of us is the fact that we are accomplishing the direction which Dr. Low mentions in the article we are reprinting in this issue.
TREASURE: Thanks, Phil, for making it clearer as to what Recovery has to do to follow Dr. Low's wishes on this. As he says in the article, "We have the method and we are eager to offer our services to the hospitals." We now have the experience of having those offers accepted by state hospitals, which cooperate in sending patients to our Recovery groups established nearby.
