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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media, Hello, and welcome to Cool People who

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Speaker 1: did cool stuff. You were a weekly reminder that with

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Speaker 1: all of the bad things, there's people trying to do

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Speaker 1: good things. Sometimes those people are even successful. A lot

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Speaker 1: of times on the show, people are not so successful,

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Speaker 1: and it's more of the thought that counts. This time

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Speaker 1: they're successful. But speaking of successful, our guest today is

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Speaker 1: Alison Ruskin, who is a New York Times bestselling author,

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Speaker 1: a podcaster, a mental health advocate, and a relationship coach.

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Speaker 1: How are you today?

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Speaker 2: I really loved that. That was my tie in with

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well the successful people you've You've dedicated hours

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Speaker 2: of research too, so I feel very honored to be here.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Also with us, of course, is our producer Sophie Hi.

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Speaker 1: Sophie Hi, it's me British Sophie. You have a new

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Speaker 1: accent Jamestown, I mean Sophie Lichterman.

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Speaker 3: That's right. I've been boom but watching Harry Potter films

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Speaker 3: and I will speak like this from now and no

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Speaker 3: one else said, but no one else eb it changes

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Speaker 3: your accent when they're speaking to me. It's not a

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Speaker 3: thing that plagues me throughout my life.

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Speaker 1: So wait, do people do that? Do people start talking

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Speaker 1: British to you all the time. Yes, I promise I

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Speaker 1: will never do that because I'm incapable good that has

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Speaker 1: not historically been a barrier to others. Okay, fair enough,

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Speaker 1: So Sophie is out and this is not a permanent thing.

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Speaker 1: This is just James is stepping in as a guest

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Speaker 1: producer today, and we're all very grateful.

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Speaker 3: Thank you. Yeah, I'm excited.

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Speaker 1: We're also grateful to our audio engineer, Rory. Everyone has

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Speaker 1: to say hi to Rory. Hi, Rory, Hi, Rory Hi

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Speaker 1: ROI And our theme music was written for us by

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Speaker 1: Unwoman and Allison. When I was looking through your bio

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Speaker 1: and I was thinking to myself, what topics should I

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Speaker 1: cover this week? Last week, well, this week as we

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Speaker 1: record this, but last week, as anyone's listening, we covered

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Speaker 1: people who tried to kill Mussolini. And one of those

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Speaker 1: people was a woman who was far from neurotypical, deeply religious,

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Speaker 1: and her aim was steadied by an angel as she

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Speaker 1: shot Mussolini in the nose. Her name was Violet Gibson.

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Speaker 1: She spent the rest of her life institutionalized, and I

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Speaker 1: kept thinking about her, and I kept thinking about how

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Speaker 1: mental health historically and currently has been handled in our

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Speaker 1: society because I'm of the opinion that we should free

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Speaker 1: Violet Gibson, except that she died seventy years ago. And

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Speaker 1: I thought to myself, well, I know some people who

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Speaker 1: do really good stuff around supporting people with what gets

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Speaker 1: called the serious mental illness, and so I started digging

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Speaker 1: into it. And this week is going to be one

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Speaker 1: of the most relentlessly positive episodes of this show to date.

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Speaker 2: Oh, I'm so excited.

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Speaker 1: I know last week was like eight people who basically

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Speaker 1: died trying to kill Mussolini. We're gonna one to eighty that, Alison.

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Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of the Clubhouse model or its

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Speaker 1: flagship fountain House?

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Speaker 2: I don't think so. I think of fountain that fountain

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Speaker 2: Head that.

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Speaker 1: Was that book, right, I believe so? Way is that

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Speaker 1: Anne Rand?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? So I'm assuming you're not. This is not associated

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Speaker 2: with her.

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Speaker 1: What a terrible thing. I could just like bring out

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Speaker 1: me like today's cool person is ann.

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Speaker 2: And he's going to be so positive?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, And about how she learned that she too

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Speaker 1: was using the welfare system and that that was positive.

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Speaker 1: Now there is a method that has been developed by

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Speaker 1: and four people suffering from what they would call serious

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Speaker 1: mental illnesses. I know that the language around this stuff

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Speaker 1: is very blurry, and we'll back she people feel very

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Speaker 1: strongly about it, but in different directions from each other,

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Speaker 1: you know. And there's a short summary of fountain House

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Speaker 1: that comes from Charlie Sagassi, who told The New York

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Speaker 1: Times this in the year two thousand. Fountain House is

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Speaker 1: a non residential program for people with persistent mental illnesses.

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Speaker 1: It was the original clubhouse model for psychiea treatment which

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Speaker 1: has now been copied by many other treatment centers. Everyone

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Speaker 1: who receives treatment at Fountain House is a member of

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Speaker 1: the club, and the staff work for the club members,

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Speaker 1: just like the staff at the Harvard Club work for

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Speaker 1: their members. The members are involved in every aspect of

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Speaker 1: running the house as part of their treatment. That's the

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Speaker 1: like big picture of it.

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Speaker 2: Okay, I have learned to become so skeptical of all

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Speaker 2: treatment until I learn more.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. No, It's it's funny because if you just tell

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Speaker 1: someone the like while I'm doing my research. So that

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Speaker 1: the week I talked to a lot of my friends

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Speaker 1: about it, and I was talking with my friends, I

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Speaker 1: was like, this place is amazing and my friend's like,

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Speaker 1: is it, and then we're going through each of the

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Speaker 1: things that it that could be unamazing about it.

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Speaker 2: Uh huh.

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Speaker 1: But I I think by the end of this I

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Speaker 1: will sell you on this as a cool people who

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Speaker 1: did cool stuff.

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Speaker 2: I hope so, because I have a master's in psychology

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Speaker 2: and mental health in the world of it, and a

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Speaker 2: lot of what I advocate about is how we don't

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Speaker 2: have access to enough resources, and so if there actually

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Speaker 2: is something out there that's working that is better than

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Speaker 2: the horror that is most in patient treatment, then I

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Speaker 2: am very excited to hear about it.

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Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, no, I will be very interested to hear

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Speaker 1: what your take on all of this is. I mean,

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Speaker 1: there's a reason that I picked this topic for you

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Speaker 1: is because I'm curious your take on this. Fountain House

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Speaker 1: has been around since the nineteen forties and it is

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Speaker 1: going strong and it is growing these days. I know

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Speaker 1: several people who work there, and I've been hearing about

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Speaker 1: it for coming on about fifteen years now. And so

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Speaker 1: this week I've got the usual bunch of sources like

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Speaker 1: news articles, academic papers, and studies, but I also have

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Speaker 1: as one of my sources that I can't really share

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Speaker 1: because I didn't record it is the notes that I

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Speaker 1: took during a ninety minute call I had with someone

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Speaker 1: who's been working there for a very long time, with

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Speaker 1: a social worker. But to dive into it. According to

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Speaker 1: the National Institute of Health, about twenty percent of Americans

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Speaker 1: are living with AMI or any mental illness. About six

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Speaker 1: percent or living with a serious mental illness or SMI.

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Speaker 1: This is defined as one that quote substantially interferes with

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Speaker 1: or limits one or more major life activities. And I

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Speaker 1: found this really interesting. I don't know, you probably have

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Speaker 1: a lot more understanding about the different definitions of these

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Speaker 1: sorts of things. I'm curious. The thing that was really

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Speaker 1: interesting about this definition is that this is of course

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Speaker 1: a social definition. This is a from the social model

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Speaker 1: of disability. It is an SMI is not an SMI

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Speaker 1: because you see things or hear things, or have you

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Speaker 1: know that other people don't experience, or that of mood swings.

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Speaker 1: But rather it's defined in this way by how those

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Speaker 1: experiences interfere with your ability to function in our society.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I sort of think of it as like there

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Speaker 2: are people that will I tend to use the word

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Speaker 2: like chronic mental illness. So people that will always need

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Speaker 2: either need to be in therapy or need to be

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Speaker 2: on medication their whole life and need extra support life long.

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Speaker 2: And then I think there are other people that maybe

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Speaker 2: will have flare ups where they will need that treatment,

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Speaker 2: whether it may be in and out of therapy, on

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Speaker 2: and off medication, depending how well they're doing. And so

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Speaker 2: I guess, like I sort of in my head divide

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Speaker 2: between those two. But I also think that like mental

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Speaker 2: health and mental illness is so unique to each person

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Speaker 2: and the way that it shows up that like, there

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Speaker 2: is this desire to put people in buckets, but ultimately

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Speaker 2: we all deserve and can benefit from mental health care.

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Speaker 1: I agree. And one of the things that we're going

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Speaker 1: to be talking about as this goes on is that

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Speaker 1: there's so many things that the folks who are nerd avergent,

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Speaker 1: who work with Clubhouse, there's so many things that they've

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Speaker 1: like learned that we can learn from instead of just

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Speaker 1: assuming that we have things to tell them or whatever.

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Speaker 1: You know, there's an awful lot of ways to deal

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Speaker 1: with and conceptualizer and divergence. There are people, for example,

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Speaker 1: who embrace mad pride. There are people who refuse to

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Speaker 1: be assimilationist who refuse to find their way back into

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Speaker 1: mainstream society. There are people who are anti psychiatry. There's

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Speaker 1: people who are into what is not anti psychiatry, but

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Speaker 1: as what called what is called democratic psychiatry. And there

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Speaker 1: are people who know how to spell the word psychiatry.

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Speaker 1: But I learned this week that I am not among

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Speaker 1: those people.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't.

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Speaker 1: I had to spell that word eighty times.

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Speaker 2: And I can't do psychology, which is really embarrassing.

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Speaker 1: Oh and that's your degree.

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Speaker 2: I know it's not good.

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Speaker 1: It's okay. I don't know how to spell bourgeoisie. I'm

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Speaker 1: getting closer. I can spell bougeoisie about forty percent of

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Speaker 1: the time, and that is a vast improvement.

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Speaker 2: I wouldn't even know where to start with that one,

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Speaker 2: to be honest.

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Speaker 1: It goes bo urge, and then from there I kind

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Speaker 1: of lose the plot. James, can you spell bourgeoisie or psychiatry?

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Speaker 1: They're probably spelled different where you.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the biot extraally used to order them. I can

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Speaker 3: spell bois Yeah. Okay, maybe I speak French and maybe

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Speaker 3: I have a little yeah that step up in that

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Speaker 3: regard that would do it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, I can't even spell like bureau because it

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Speaker 1: comes from a French word.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, they continue to u yeah, to attack us with

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Speaker 3: this spelling.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't even use them anyway, give backt the vowels,

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Speaker 1: not using them from each according to a bit anyway.

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Speaker 1: So the clubhouse model is one method of how to

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Speaker 1: deal with mental health. As my friend put it, and

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Speaker 1: I paraphrase that here, it's like biodiversity. There isn't a

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Speaker 1: single best tree in nature, but instead the forest is

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Speaker 1: stronger when there's a lot of types of trees. And

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Speaker 1: I like this metaphor for it because it's also true

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Speaker 1: about neurodiversity in general, right, Like there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: our people have been making that you know, in a society,

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Speaker 1: having people with neurodivergence can actually be very positive for

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Speaker 1: that society, Oh definitely. But it's also true in terms

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Speaker 1: of the field of mental health. There is no single

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Speaker 1: magic bullet. There is no single modality that is the

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Speaker 1: method by which all people, you know, should conceptualize of

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Speaker 1: their mental health and work on their mental health. But

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Speaker 1: this is one way, and it's a way that I

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Speaker 1: find really inspirational that I think that the listener might God,

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Speaker 1: I hate using the word inspirational about something like this.

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Speaker 1: It's a dangerous word. But I really exciting. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: am excited enough about this that I will dedicate two

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Speaker 1: episodes of my show in a week of my life.

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Speaker 1: The story starts in the US in the nineteen forties.

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Speaker 1: It starts in two cities, in Detroit and New York City,

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Speaker 1: and we're going to start in New York City. Technically,

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Speaker 1: we're going to start in Orangeburg, New York, which I've

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Speaker 1: never heard of, but it's near New York City, so

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Speaker 1: I'm just going to call it New York City. And

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Speaker 1: if you're an Orangeburg listener, I'm not really sorry. I

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Speaker 1: don't know what to tell you.

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Speaker 2: I'm from New York. I've never heard of that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, great, Yeah, so it doesn't even exist wherever you are,

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Speaker 1: the whole Burgh of orange I bet they're Dutch. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: almost certainly. Anyway. Yeah, at a hospital now known as

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Speaker 1: the Rockland Psychiatric Center, it was known at the time

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Speaker 1: as the Rockland State Hospital, is where we're going to start.

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Speaker 1: This place was fairly new at the time. It opened

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Speaker 1: its doors to patients in nineteen thirty one. It did

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Speaker 1: all of the bad stuff. It did all the shock

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Speaker 1: therapy in early twentieth century psychiatric impatient stuff that isn't

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Speaker 1: pleasant to think about, and it was one of the

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Speaker 1: largest psychiatric care facilities in the country. Orange Is the

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Speaker 1: New Black was filmed at the former children's wing of

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Speaker 1: the place, at least in part, so if you want

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Speaker 1: a sense of what the place looks like, the answer

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Speaker 1: is a prison and yeah for children. Yeah. In the

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Speaker 1: early nineteen forties, a bunch of patients there started a

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Speaker 1: social club. They pretty much just started this as a

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Speaker 1: way to hang out with each other, and they wound

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Speaker 1: up changing the face of mental health across the world.

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Speaker 1: But like a lot of revolutionary ideas, it started with

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Speaker 1: some people just hanging out. They met in what was

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Speaker 1: called a clubroom, and this process was facilitated by one

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Speaker 1: of the doctors. One of the things that's very hard

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Speaker 1: about any history, and listeners are probably tired of me

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Speaker 1: complaining about this, is that history gets boiled down to like,

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Speaker 1: what one guy did you know? And so I got

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Speaker 1: the one guy's names doctor, Well, there's other one guys

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Speaker 1: later in the story, but so I couldn't tell you

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Speaker 1: exactly how much this was. The patients being like, no,

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Speaker 1: we want to meet, and a doctor being like fine,

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Speaker 1: or a doctor being like, I will make you all meet.

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Speaker 2: I don't know right where the germ of the idea began.

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Speaker 1: Right, but the process was facilitated by one of the

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Speaker 1: doctors there, doctor Hiram Johnson, and one of the volunteers there,

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Speaker 1: a woman named Elizabeth Shermerhorn. You're from New York You

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Speaker 1: ever heard the name Shermerhorn, I don't think so ever.

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Speaker 1: Taking the G train, I admit that I'm from Westchester,

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Speaker 1: New York. Oh, I see, I apologize you're from Orangeburg.

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Speaker 2: It's confusing because the name of the state is also

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Speaker 2: what we call the city. But I'm from right outside

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Speaker 2: the city, and I'm terrified of public transportation.

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Speaker 1: Fair enough, Well, when I lived in New York City,

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Speaker 1: one of the subway stops that I stopped at every

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Speaker 1: day was Hoyt Shermerhorn. That's named after not Elizabeth Shermerhorn,

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Speaker 1: but she's from one of the important families. If you like,

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Speaker 1: look this stuff up, you're going to run across a

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Speaker 1: lot of websites called like American Aristocracy, things like that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and Beth. I have no idea if she went by Beth,

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Speaker 1: but I like the name Beth, so we're gonna call

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Speaker 1: her Beth was the first woman to volunteer in the

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Speaker 1: wing at Rockland, and so she's actually I mean, she's

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Speaker 1: like putting her privilege on the line in a kind

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Speaker 1: of interesting way. It's an era of like social reformers

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Speaker 1: and things like that. I think that a lot of

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Speaker 1: upperclass women were into you know, the idea behind this

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Speaker 1: clubhouse from the facilities point of view, was that, all right, look,

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Speaker 1: all of these people have lost friends and family because

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Speaker 1: of the stigma around their mental health and the fact

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Speaker 1: that we stole them away and but we put them

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Speaker 1: in a children's prison and are shocking them. But whatever,

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Speaker 1: you know, they've lost some friends. It would be good

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Speaker 1: to replace that with new ties, especially before folks are discharged.

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Speaker 1: And it was consciously modeled after that. Knew it the time.

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Speaker 1: Idea alcoholics anonymous hm oh interesting, Yeah, which is a

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Speaker 1: I got to like cover AA and NA and all

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Speaker 1: those things at some point.

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Speaker 2: But they're I have thoughts around it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's complicated, That's that's my like. I haven't done

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Speaker 1: a ton of research about it, but I have a

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Speaker 1: lot of friends who've dealt with it in positive and

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Speaker 1: negative ways. You know, the.

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Speaker 2: Success rate is shockingly low from what I've heard.

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Speaker 1: Fair enough, isn't it higher than basically everything else?

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Speaker 2: Though that I don't know, Okay, but it's yeah, I

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Speaker 2: don't know.

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Speaker 1: I do know the success rates of the clubhouse models,

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Speaker 1: and I did not do I did not side quest

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Speaker 1: into AA. After a bunch of the folks from this

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Speaker 1: social club were discharged, they indeed started a social club.

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Speaker 1: It gets called a self help group, which is true,

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Speaker 1: but as best I can tell, they more consciously started

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Speaker 1: their group as a social club, like the old English

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Speaker 1: gentlemen's clubs, not strip clubs, but like where rich assholes

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Speaker 1: get together to be rich assholes with each other. And

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Speaker 1: I think this difference matters a lot, because most of

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Speaker 1: what we're going to talk about about the organization and

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Speaker 1: the methods they started is that these are members, not patients,

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Speaker 1: and not clients. It is their club.

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Speaker 2: I'm very strict about. I never used the word patient.

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Speaker 2: I always use the word client. That makes sense because

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Speaker 2: it helps fight the une been power dynamic.

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Speaker 1: Totally And Okay, then I think you're gonna like this.

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Speaker 1: It's not going to start off strong, it's gonna start

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Speaker 1: off interesting. Eight members of the Rockland Group got together

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Speaker 1: with former patients from two other hospitals and their friend

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Speaker 1: Beth Shermerhorn, who probably didn't go by Beth. They formed

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Speaker 1: a group called We Are Not Alone or WANA. I

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Speaker 1: don't know if they said Wana, but it's Wana and

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Speaker 1: I want to call it Wana, Hey, Wana, call it

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Speaker 1: anyway whatever. They formed this in nineteen forty four while

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Speaker 1: meeting on the steps of the New York City Public Library.

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Speaker 1: They met like AA does wherever anyone would have them,

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Speaker 1: including at another kind of space that influenced them, that

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Speaker 1: is messy as hell, settlement houses. We've talked a little

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Speaker 1: bit about these. Have you heard of settlement houses either

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Speaker 1: of Yes, Okay, I feel like most people haven't, and

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Speaker 1: that's good.

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Speaker 3: That's good.

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Speaker 2: I feel like I have now now. Of course I'm

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Speaker 2: my OCD is like, did have you? Are you missing yourself?

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Speaker 1: Oh no, I'm not gonna put you on the spot

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Speaker 1: and make you defind it. I believe you. We've talked

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Speaker 1: about them a little bit on the show before. These

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Speaker 1: are like progressive era, turn of the century places where

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Speaker 1: people from more privileged classes would volunteer to help the

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Speaker 1: like less fortunate, which there's a lot to critique there,

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Speaker 1: but they also were involved in a lot of things

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Speaker 1: that did a lot of good, and so it's like complicated.

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Speaker 2: Most things are, yeah.

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Speaker 1: Especially when you do a history podcast about people you've

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Speaker 1: decided are cool. The number of times I've had to

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Speaker 1: later be like, oh, get three quarters the way through

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Speaker 1: the research and be like, never mind, these before are terrible. Wana.

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Speaker 1: They start going back to Rockland and putting up flyers

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Speaker 1: and passing around a bulletin to the patients there. They,

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Speaker 1: like everyone that I've ever covered on the show, basically

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Speaker 1: run a newspaper. That is what people did back in

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Speaker 1: the day before podcasts, and they believed that their breakdowns

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Speaker 1: could be a source of power in the bulletin they ran.

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Speaker 1: In the forties, they wrote an article called how Wana Started,

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Speaker 1: and it said quote and it was all men who

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Speaker 1: started it. So that's why it's going to be very

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Speaker 1: gendered language here. The idea which had drawn the men

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Speaker 1: together in the hospital was that the mental breakdowns were,

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Speaker 1: in some cases simply psychological crises, which, if properly understood

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Speaker 1: and successfully passed, might mark the beginning of a new

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Speaker 1: and better way of life. They came to realize that

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Speaker 1: other individuals perhaps society itself were disturbed by the same

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Speaker 1: conflicts which had led to their own breakdowns. They felt

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Speaker 1: that in their difficulties they were not alone, and that

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Speaker 1: the very crises through which they were passing might, by

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Speaker 1: deepening their understanding and broadening their sympathies, served to unite

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Speaker 1: them more closely with rather than divide them from the

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Speaker 1: rest of humanity.

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Speaker 2: I love that. One of the things I've found most

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Speaker 2: shocking in school was that group therapy is as effective

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Speaker 2: as individual therapy, which you wouldn't assume that it is,

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Speaker 2: but like you get, you get something out of group

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Speaker 2: therapy and seeing other people's experiences, learning from their experiences,

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Speaker 2: sort of modeling your behavior about around other people in

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Speaker 2: the group. There's so much that comes from community.

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Speaker 1: That makes sense to me as a I'm a very

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Speaker 1: hermit person in my daily life, but I like stubbornly

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Speaker 1: acknowledge that actually we kind of need each other, and

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Speaker 1: we kind of need like the sense of purpose and

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Speaker 1: community that we can build with each other.

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Speaker 2: You know, And now, isn't that annoying?

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Speaker 3: I know?

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Speaker 1: But you know what else is annoying? Pivoting to ads

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Speaker 1: in the middle of a podcast. It's really annoying, but.

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Speaker 2: He did it flawlessly though, Thank you.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And now you two can be annoyed or press

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Speaker 1: the pull your phone out of your pocket, find the

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Speaker 1: little forward fifteen seconds button and press it till you

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Speaker 1: hear the music again. Here's the ads, and we're back.

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Speaker 1: And about once a week I think to myself, I'm

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Speaker 1: glad that I have a job that seems to have

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Speaker 1: not gotten mad at me about the way that I

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Speaker 1: disparage our advertisers.

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Speaker 2: Yet I was gonna say, as a fellow podcaster, I

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Speaker 2: can't believe you're allowed to even acknowledge that you can

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Speaker 2: fast forward through that.

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Speaker 3: The only negative feedback I've ever gotten to is my mom,

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Speaker 3: who thinks, so the advertisers will cancel on us if

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Speaker 3: I keep being orrried about them.

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Speaker 1: No, I sort of figure that because I'm like a

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Speaker 1: radical podcast and we're like cool Zone Media is this

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Speaker 1: radical network that it's like Unfortunately, it's like it's the

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Speaker 1: sugar that helps the poison go down. Like I think

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Speaker 1: the advertisers are like canny enough to know that I Anyway,

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Speaker 1: this is my darkest worry is that I'm secretly helping

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Speaker 1: them by talking trash on them.

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Speaker 3: Ah, hopefully it wasn't like a Reagan coin again or something.

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Speaker 2: Damn what we would do branded deals on branded videos

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Speaker 2: on our YouTube channel and we were just like weak guys,

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Speaker 2: we need this money, and people were like.

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Speaker 3: Get your money, yeah, secured bag.

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Speaker 1: I think transparency is the way to do it. It's like,

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Speaker 1: because we are all going through the same thing. We're

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Speaker 1: all trying to survive in this society.

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Speaker 2: You know exactly, yeah, and also.

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Speaker 1: Trying to survive in this society. We're the people from Juana.

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Speaker 1: They needed a board of director for legal reasons. The

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Speaker 1: ins and outs of charitable organizational structure from before the

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Speaker 1: five oh one to C three thing is beyond the

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Speaker 1: scope of this podcast. I fell down that rabbit hole,

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Speaker 1: and then I was like, I don't want to fall

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Speaker 1: down this rabbit hole. It only applies to the first

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Speaker 1: like five years of their existence. Elizabeth Shermerhorn was the

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Speaker 1: first president of the Board of Directors and she helped

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Speaker 1: them find their first building on West forty seventh Street,

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Speaker 1: Hell's Kitchen, which is a cool name for a neighborhood.

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Speaker 1: It was a two floor house with a fountain on

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Speaker 1: the back patio, thus the name Fountain House and it's

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Speaker 1: across the street from the much larger Fountain House of today,

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Speaker 1: which is also on West forty seventh Street in Hell's Kitchen.

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Speaker 2: Oh wow.

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Speaker 1: At first this was basically a pool table in a

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Speaker 1: Rundown building. It was a social club and basically a

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Speaker 1: drop in center. Then they got some funding in nineteen

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Speaker 1: forty nine from the National Mental Health Act and they

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Speaker 1: started hiring professional staff. And this is one of the

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Speaker 1: keys to what makes the clubhouse model so effective at

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Speaker 1: building the agency of its members. They are the ones

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Speaker 1: who hired the staff. They're like, hey, we need some help,

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Speaker 1: come help us. And I want to say it went

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Speaker 1: really well at first. It did not go really well

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Speaker 1: at first. It went really badly at first. Fountainhouse was

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Speaker 1: then and now completely non political. At no point has

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Speaker 1: it been painted as any kind of utopian visioning of

437
00:22:44,400 --> 00:22:47,960
Speaker 1: a better society, and its advocacy work has never expanded

438
00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:50,000
Speaker 1: beyond the single issue of mental health and the rights

439
00:22:50,000 --> 00:22:55,080
Speaker 1: of people suffering from illness. But when Fountainhouse was foundering,

440
00:22:55,720 --> 00:22:58,520
Speaker 1: something happened here that I think is indicative of larger

441
00:22:58,560 --> 00:23:03,480
Speaker 1: political problems in the US today. From its start, fountain

442
00:23:03,480 --> 00:23:08,440
Speaker 1: House was in devoting It used Robert's rules of order

443
00:23:08,520 --> 00:23:13,120
Speaker 1: and all that shit, and so it started factionalizing. I'm

444
00:23:13,160 --> 00:23:15,480
Speaker 1: going to compare this later with the consensus model that

445
00:23:15,520 --> 00:23:17,879
Speaker 1: they work on today, just so you don't think, like,

446
00:23:18,160 --> 00:23:23,000
Speaker 1: what is Margaret into if she's not into voting anyway,

447
00:23:23,080 --> 00:23:26,520
Speaker 1: it started factionalizing soon enough. There's two factions and they're

448
00:23:26,560 --> 00:23:28,960
Speaker 1: fighting over really petty amounts of money because they're not

449
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:32,800
Speaker 1: like super well off right now, right, they're like fighting

450
00:23:32,840 --> 00:23:36,879
Speaker 1: over like twenty dollars thirty dollars and having endless arguments

451
00:23:36,920 --> 00:23:37,280
Speaker 1: about it.

452
00:23:37,359 --> 00:23:39,359
Speaker 2: Are they living there or this is just a place

453
00:23:39,400 --> 00:23:40,040
Speaker 2: you would go to.

454
00:23:40,359 --> 00:23:42,199
Speaker 1: No, it's a place you go to. Almost all of

455
00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:44,120
Speaker 1: them are living in boarding houses on that.

456
00:23:44,200 --> 00:23:47,040
Speaker 2: Street though, Oh okay, very local.

457
00:23:47,600 --> 00:23:50,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, then this is one of the things that interesting

458
00:23:50,400 --> 00:23:53,480
Speaker 1: about like Manhattan particular. It's like a hyper local place,

459
00:23:53,760 --> 00:23:56,040
Speaker 1: like there's a like one of the newspapers I looked

460
00:23:56,040 --> 00:24:00,000
Speaker 1: at about this was like the West forty second Street paper,

461
00:24:00,760 --> 00:24:05,200
Speaker 1: you know. But it's such a high population density that

462
00:24:05,240 --> 00:24:06,040
Speaker 1: it kind of makes sense.

463
00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:08,200
Speaker 2: I think it's probably like the same as an entire

464
00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:10,200
Speaker 2: town somewhere, right.

465
00:24:10,760 --> 00:24:12,439
Speaker 1: I think way too often. One of the things that

466
00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:15,040
Speaker 1: floats into my head fairly often is I think about

467
00:24:15,040 --> 00:24:18,480
Speaker 1: how there's the language. Finish has about five million people

468
00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:20,040
Speaker 1: who speak it, or it did like twenty years ago

469
00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:22,919
Speaker 1: when I first started thinking about this. That's half the

470
00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:25,679
Speaker 1: population of New York City, right, it's wild.

471
00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:26,879
Speaker 3: Yeah.

472
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:29,080
Speaker 2: My fact that I think about all the time because

473
00:24:29,119 --> 00:24:31,119
Speaker 2: I just learned it is that there are more people

474
00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:35,200
Speaker 2: in California than in all of Canada.

475
00:24:35,600 --> 00:24:37,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense to me, but that's still why

476
00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:38,159
Speaker 1: little wild.

477
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:40,880
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I've had to look up how many people

478
00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:43,720
Speaker 3: speak Catalan now nine point two million. It's the same

479
00:24:43,760 --> 00:24:45,600
Speaker 3: as a population of New York City.

480
00:24:45,920 --> 00:24:48,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, and twice twice the number of Fins.

481
00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:51,879
Speaker 3: Yeah, and yet they are it's still changed within Spain.

482
00:24:52,440 --> 00:24:57,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, sad. And so they're arguing over twenty and thirty

483
00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:01,760
Speaker 1: dollars soon enough. So there's the fellowship, which is basically

484
00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:04,000
Speaker 1: the members, and then there's the board, which is the

485
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:07,080
Speaker 1: people who are doing the fundraising. And you have to

486
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:09,560
Speaker 1: in order to be the equivalent of a nonprofit. Before

487
00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:12,520
Speaker 1: nonprofits existed, you have to have a board much like today.

488
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:17,200
Speaker 2: And those people wouldn't recognize that there's someone suffering from

489
00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:20,720
Speaker 2: mental illness if you're on the board or people that

490
00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:23,640
Speaker 2: the board is who identifies mentally ill on the board

491
00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:24,000
Speaker 2: as well.

492
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:27,440
Speaker 1: I don't believe there is at that point. However, these

493
00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:32,240
Speaker 1: days the members and the staff, like many of the

494
00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:35,480
Speaker 1: staff used to be members and things like that. But

495
00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:38,399
Speaker 1: at the beginning, I'm under the impression that the board

496
00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:43,000
Speaker 1: is largely like well meaning, rich people. And there's a

497
00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:45,960
Speaker 1: trove of letters from this time of various people from

498
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:48,200
Speaker 1: the Fellowship writing to the board to like complain about

499
00:25:48,320 --> 00:25:51,879
Speaker 1: one another, being like, ah, John did this, like you know,

500
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:57,120
Speaker 1: and do all their petty faction fighting right and slowly,

501
00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:01,320
Speaker 1: late nineteen forties, early nineteen fifties, the board starts quitting.

502
00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:04,840
Speaker 1: They wanted to help, but they weren't helping, and so

503
00:26:04,880 --> 00:26:07,720
Speaker 1: some of the money was drying up and fountain House

504
00:26:07,800 --> 00:26:12,680
Speaker 1: was in trouble. And how they solved this problem later

505
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:15,239
Speaker 1: the factionalization is through consensus, and we're going to talk

506
00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:17,720
Speaker 1: about that later near the end of the episode, but

507
00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:22,240
Speaker 1: we'll get to that. In the early nineteen fifties, it's

508
00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:26,439
Speaker 1: not doing so great. Enter a man with a good

509
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:30,880
Speaker 1: all American name. His name is John Beard.

510
00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:35,800
Speaker 2: Ah, yes, that's a strong name for a strong man.

511
00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:38,359
Speaker 1: I know, I know, I hope he has a beard

512
00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:39,840
Speaker 1: I did not look up photos of him.

513
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:43,080
Speaker 2: How embarrassing if he didn't, right, I.

514
00:26:43,040 --> 00:26:44,960
Speaker 1: Know what if he couldn't grow one like that would

515
00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 1: be Yeah, the rest of this family is famously here suit.

516
00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:51,520
Speaker 1: I don't have to pronounce this word. I've never said

517
00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:55,359
Speaker 1: it aloud, Harry.

518
00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:57,840
Speaker 2: I just say it must just be so annoying because

519
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 2: every single person, if he didn't have a beard, would

520
00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:02,119
Speaker 2: be like, where's your beard? John Beard?

521
00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:04,600
Speaker 1: And that would get tiring. I know, maybe I would

522
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:06,880
Speaker 1: like shave every day on purpose despite those people. If

523
00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:07,560
Speaker 1: I was John.

524
00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:10,879
Speaker 3: Beard, just have a mustache only yeah, totally.

525
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:14,119
Speaker 2: Oh that's when you're mad at your family, you have

526
00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:16,040
Speaker 2: a yeah.

527
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:19,600
Speaker 1: Or you style your chin hair into a second mustache

528
00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:22,600
Speaker 1: that also looks like a curly mustache. Oh yeah, like

529
00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:26,400
Speaker 1: a double double decka Yeah, people do that. I've never

530
00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:28,639
Speaker 1: heard of anyone doing that in my life, but I'm

531
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 1: now imagining it.

532
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:33,440
Speaker 3: And listeners tweet your double deck of mustache is to Margaret.

533
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:36,840
Speaker 1: Well, that's the nice thing about like, I mean, I

534
00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:38,879
Speaker 1: haven't had a beer in a very long time. I

535
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:40,560
Speaker 1: paid someone a fair amount of money and went through

536
00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:43,000
Speaker 1: a lot of pain about that. But you know the

537
00:27:43,080 --> 00:27:44,720
Speaker 1: nice thing about shaving is that you can do whatever

538
00:27:44,760 --> 00:27:46,159
Speaker 1: you want and while you're shaving.

539
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:49,080
Speaker 3: I love it. Yeah, No, it's great. Yeah, sometimes you

540
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 3: can do it like if you've got nothing really, you know,

541
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:53,159
Speaker 3: no video calls for a day, you can just do

542
00:27:53,280 --> 00:27:55,359
Speaker 3: like I like to do the stars. You know, you

543
00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:58,120
Speaker 3: got the side them becomes a star. Do that once

544
00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:01,400
Speaker 3: a month? Ell yeah, starburns.

545
00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:06,880
Speaker 1: Yeah. Later, there's a woman with an even more all

546
00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:09,119
Speaker 1: American name who's going to help out. Her name is

547
00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:09,840
Speaker 1: Mary Smith.

548
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:15,159
Speaker 2: I don't know, this sounds suspicious. I'm getting suspicious over here.

549
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:19,080
Speaker 1: The fact that it's the nineteen forties and fifties, Like, yeah,

550
00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:20,400
Speaker 1: just think about it in that context.

551
00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 2: But yeah, there were only five names, yes.

552
00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:25,280
Speaker 3: Like Queen of Fortune. You spin it and you get

553
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:26,200
Speaker 3: a generic name.

554
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:32,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I've named Margaret, and approximately everyone from

555
00:28:32,080 --> 00:28:36,639
Speaker 1: before about nineteen sixty is named Margaret. So we're going

556
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:38,760
Speaker 1: to hop over to Detroit, where I'm sure there's people

557
00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:43,840
Speaker 1: named Margaret and Mary and John. The largest psychiatric institution

558
00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:46,160
Speaker 1: in the country was in Detroit at that time. It

559
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:49,520
Speaker 1: was called the Eloise Asylum. It is mostly known today

560
00:28:49,800 --> 00:28:54,120
Speaker 1: as a haunted house tracks at its peak. Yeah, we'll

561
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the deinstitutionalization and all that

562
00:28:56,480 --> 00:28:58,800
Speaker 1: a little bit later about how all of these things

563
00:28:58,840 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 1: have shut down, And I suspect your know way more

564
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 1: about that than me, So I'm probably gonnag you in during.

565
00:29:02,440 --> 00:29:04,760
Speaker 2: That, but I don't know that much. I just though

566
00:29:04,800 --> 00:29:05,840
Speaker 2: we didn't handle it great.

567
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:11,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, that seems to be like good idea poorly executed,

568
00:29:11,360 --> 00:29:12,680
Speaker 1: was my quick takeaway.

569
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:15,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, or just yeah, or like but then what.

570
00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:19,840
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, which the clubhouse model is one of the

571
00:29:19,840 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 1: things that is a then what Yeah. At its peak,

572
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:27,960
Speaker 1: this asylum, Elouise Asylum, was fucking gigantic. It had its

573
00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 1: own zip code, It had ten thousand patients, it had

574
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:32,800
Speaker 1: two thousand staff, and it was on nine hundred and

575
00:29:32,800 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 1: two acres.

576
00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:35,960
Speaker 2: And oh my god. Yeah.

577
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:36,400
Speaker 3: Yeah.

578
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:41,080
Speaker 1: The conditions there were like, uh, not great. They were bad.

579
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:44,480
Speaker 1: There was lobotomies, an electro shock and just all the stuff.

580
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 1: Whenever you imagine a bad asylum, this is one of them.

581
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 1: And some of the employees there were like conditions here,

582
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:56,120
Speaker 1: They're like, not great, this seems like a bad thing.

583
00:29:56,160 --> 00:29:59,280
Speaker 1: We're all doing right, And so they decided to do

584
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:02,400
Speaker 1: something about it. And instead of doing it in like

585
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:04,880
Speaker 1: proper cool people who did cool stuff for him. They

586
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 1: did it in like scientist form, which is related but

587
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:11,960
Speaker 1: a little different because their test subjects are people. A

588
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:16,160
Speaker 1: psychiatrist there named doctor Arthur J. Pierce and a social

589
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:20,760
Speaker 1: work graduate named John Beard. We're like, all right, let's

590
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:23,280
Speaker 1: figure out how to make this better. And most of

591
00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:25,840
Speaker 1: the stories I've seen mostly trace John Beard's perspective on

592
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:30,920
Speaker 1: this rather than ajp on it. But he worked with

593
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:35,880
Speaker 1: about two hundred schizophrenic patients, and he thought the thought

594
00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 1: that one hundred percent should not have been half as

595
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 1: revolutionary as it was, which was, what if I treat

596
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:43,520
Speaker 1: my patients like their people?

597
00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:49,440
Speaker 2: Ooh intriguing? Huhreaking? I know time it was.

598
00:30:50,520 --> 00:30:52,840
Speaker 3: It's just like in the nineteen fifties, right.

599
00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:56,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, nineteen. We're in the nineteen forties and early

600
00:30:56,560 --> 00:30:57,320
Speaker 1: fifties at this point.

601
00:30:57,400 --> 00:30:58,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, cool.

602
00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 1: They they're not victims, They're not just test subjects, although

603
00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 1: he is running tests on them, but the test he's

604
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:05,600
Speaker 1: running on them seem to be like what happens if

605
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:07,160
Speaker 1: I put a piece of candy under their pillow in

606
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:09,600
Speaker 1: the morning, How does it affect their day? And like

607
00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:11,720
Speaker 1: what happens if I take them to really nice restaurants

608
00:31:11,840 --> 00:31:16,400
Speaker 1: things like that, but they are also people with agency,

609
00:31:16,440 --> 00:31:19,280
Speaker 1: and they're people who could help. One of the core

610
00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 1: ideas of the modern clubhouse model is that we have

611
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 1: a human need to be needed. Yes, so mister Beard

612
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 1: who's not a doctor but a social worker, which make

613
00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:29,880
Speaker 1: it is great because I think being mister Beard is

614
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:32,720
Speaker 1: even better than being doctor Beard. Although it's a toss up.

615
00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's close.

616
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:38,000
Speaker 1: Yeah. One day he was like, as the origin story goes,

617
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 1: you know, all these things kind of become apocryphal over time.

618
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:44,000
Speaker 1: But the way it's told is he asked the patient, Hey,

619
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:46,080
Speaker 1: do you know how to get to the library, And

620
00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:48,720
Speaker 1: so we followed the patient to the library, and he

621
00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:51,360
Speaker 1: got the patient's help finding some math books and then

622
00:31:51,400 --> 00:31:55,720
Speaker 1: got the patient's help with some algebra problems. Because John

623
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:59,040
Speaker 1: and Arthur and lots of other people, including presumably the patients,

624
00:31:59,160 --> 00:32:02,560
Speaker 1: were well aware that madness wasn't the only part of

625
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:06,680
Speaker 1: these people's personalities, and a lot of like clubhouse model

626
00:32:06,720 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 1: stuff is around, like find the strength or find the

627
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:13,840
Speaker 1: healthy part, and like focus on that. So they developed

628
00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:19,760
Speaker 1: what became known as activity group therapy or AGT. They

629
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:23,560
Speaker 1: would organize picnics, they would solve math problems together they

630
00:32:23,560 --> 00:32:27,680
Speaker 1: started like painting and woodworking and play acting. They would

631
00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:32,320
Speaker 1: do normal shit together, staff and patience. And this is

632
00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:35,480
Speaker 1: interesting to me because in my head, I don't know

633
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:37,400
Speaker 1: a ton about I mean, I read about it, and

634
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 1: I read a whole bunch about it for this, but

635
00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:40,640
Speaker 1: I don't know like a ton. I don't know everything

636
00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:43,880
Speaker 1: in and out about asylums or psychiatric institutions. I want

637
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:45,560
Speaker 1: to call them asylums because even though I struggle to

638
00:32:45,560 --> 00:32:48,080
Speaker 1: spell asylum, not I don't struggle nearly as hard as

639
00:32:48,080 --> 00:32:52,080
Speaker 1: I struggle to spell psychiatric. But it's hard because why

640
00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:54,560
Speaker 1: am I telling anyone this? Because you don't see my script.

641
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:57,480
Speaker 1: None of you do. Well, James can see it. I

642
00:32:57,480 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 1: could see, but yeah I did.

643
00:32:59,360 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 3: Do spellcha I see an asylum here?

644
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:04,280
Speaker 1: Yeah?

645
00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:07,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, anyway, just put that out to the listeners.

646
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:11,160
Speaker 1: When I think of like movies and stuff around psychiatric institutions,

647
00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:16,320
Speaker 1: there's like two versions and it's really polar. Right, there's

648
00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:21,720
Speaker 1: the hell house prison and then there's the like people

649
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 1: painting in the garden. Right, it seems like this is

650
00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:32,600
Speaker 1: the difference, is a GT like, oh, I don't know

651
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:34,880
Speaker 1: enough of this is not what I specifically focused on,

652
00:33:35,360 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 1: but there is a night and day difference about how

653
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:41,560
Speaker 1: people's experiences in these places can be, and that night

654
00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:43,400
Speaker 1: and day difference is real, and it was based on

655
00:33:43,520 --> 00:33:44,600
Speaker 1: work that people have done.

656
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:48,600
Speaker 2: And also if you're there willingly or not totally makes

657
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:49,720
Speaker 2: a big difference, I think.

658
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:54,480
Speaker 1: Yeah. In the early nineteen fifties, John Beard went to

659
00:33:54,520 --> 00:33:56,160
Speaker 1: New York to present some of his work on the

660
00:33:56,160 --> 00:34:00,680
Speaker 1: eloise asylium as as James's pointing out that I have

661
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:05,880
Speaker 1: it spelled here. And while he was there, Elizabeth Shermerhorn

662
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:08,520
Speaker 1: and a bunch of other women from Fountainhouse came and

663
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:10,960
Speaker 1: gave him a tour. And I'm pointing out, there are

664
00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:12,480
Speaker 1: all women, because like my friend who I talked to

665
00:34:12,600 --> 00:34:13,920
Speaker 1: was like, Hey, you know who's left out of this

666
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:15,960
Speaker 1: story the women who did all the work.

667
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:19,520
Speaker 2: And so anyway, well that was bound to happen at

668
00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:20,520
Speaker 2: some point in a story.

669
00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, But Elizabeth and Mary deserve as much credit

670
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:29,759
Speaker 1: as John, and actually just John. While he was there,

671
00:34:30,360 --> 00:34:32,799
Speaker 1: he got a tour, and then after he left, the

672
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:35,640
Speaker 1: women were like, we really need this guy to come back.

673
00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:37,680
Speaker 1: He like, this is the guy who's gonna who knows

674
00:34:37,719 --> 00:34:41,520
Speaker 1: this stuff. We want this guy involved, but he didn't

675
00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:43,560
Speaker 1: want to leave his work at Eloise, and he was

676
00:34:43,560 --> 00:34:46,279
Speaker 1: a very like Detroit guy. His whole family's Michigan, you know.

677
00:34:47,520 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 1: But he was thinking it would be nice to do

678
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:52,160
Speaker 1: the work I'm doing, but outside of the hospital setting,

679
00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:55,239
Speaker 1: because you have the well captive audience that makes a

680
00:34:55,239 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: lot of things very hard. So Elizabeth and the other

681
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:04,279
Speaker 1: women a Fountainhouse started calling him every Sunday and they

682
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:07,279
Speaker 1: would call him to give him like status reports, but

683
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:09,279
Speaker 1: really it was just to try and sway him to

684
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:13,880
Speaker 1: come to be director at Fountainhouse. And so nineteen fifty

685
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:17,920
Speaker 1: five he agreed. He moved to New York and he

686
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:19,879
Speaker 1: became the director of Fountainhouse and he had a little

687
00:35:19,880 --> 00:35:23,920
Speaker 1: apartment on Times Square, and he spent a while studying

688
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:27,040
Speaker 1: the place, figuring out what wasn't working about it, and

689
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:30,920
Speaker 1: he provided about half of the solution. He said, basically,

690
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:33,400
Speaker 1: I think the dysfunction here is because of the system

691
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:37,239
Speaker 1: you've created. The building was falling apart, the people were

692
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:40,120
Speaker 1: burned out, there was no money, and so he presents

693
00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:43,839
Speaker 1: a radically new version of Fountainhouse. It's sort of a

694
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:47,080
Speaker 1: coup to be honest by the board, right, because what

695
00:35:47,120 --> 00:35:49,920
Speaker 1: he does is he shows up and he changes the

696
00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:56,840
Speaker 1: locks on the building and he makes everyone reapply for membership.

697
00:35:56,880 --> 00:36:00,520
Speaker 1: Everyone is invited to reapply, but he's like, we are

698
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:04,680
Speaker 1: starting fresh, and a few people wrote the board and

699
00:36:04,719 --> 00:36:07,200
Speaker 1: we have their letters being like, I'm not gonna do that.

700
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:10,000
Speaker 1: I've been a member since before anyone heard of this guy, Like,

701
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 1: you know.

702
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:13,480
Speaker 2: How big is a membership at this point? Are we

703
00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:17,160
Speaker 2: finite like ranging dozens? Like five people?

704
00:36:18,200 --> 00:36:21,440
Speaker 1: I am not certain, I would offer. My inference is

705
00:36:21,440 --> 00:36:25,920
Speaker 1: that we're talking like ten to forty people max and ite,

706
00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:28,640
Speaker 1: and I think that there's probably like a very fluid

707
00:36:28,680 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 1: I think there's like a little tight core. And then

708
00:36:31,160 --> 00:36:32,880
Speaker 1: some people who like kind of sometimes use it.

709
00:36:33,440 --> 00:36:34,960
Speaker 2: Do you have to pay to be a part of it?

710
00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:39,480
Speaker 1: No, you certainly don't now, and I don't believe he did.

711
00:36:39,520 --> 00:36:43,239
Speaker 1: Then he wanted the place to be open during the

712
00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:46,240
Speaker 1: day and not at night because he wanted a certain

713
00:36:46,320 --> 00:36:49,200
Speaker 1: type of normalcy. And we'll talk about a little bit

714
00:36:49,200 --> 00:36:51,640
Speaker 1: about why that isn't a minute. And so all this

715
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:54,280
Speaker 1: is sort of some progress. Things get a little better.

716
00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:57,040
Speaker 1: They start raising money the board, like they're just better

717
00:36:57,040 --> 00:36:58,840
Speaker 1: at getting the board to raise money and stuff, and

718
00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:02,080
Speaker 1: there's new energy, and they're hiring contractors to come and

719
00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:05,200
Speaker 1: fix up the place a little bit. Attendance starts picking up,

720
00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:11,439
Speaker 1: but it wasn't quite working. It still wasn't the kind

721
00:37:11,440 --> 00:37:15,279
Speaker 1: of amazing thing that I think it is now. He

722
00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:17,800
Speaker 1: was trying to do all the old things from AGT

723
00:37:18,120 --> 00:37:20,759
Speaker 1: that he had done at the hospital. He's introducing activities.

724
00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:23,160
Speaker 1: It's not work, it's activities. People would come in there

725
00:37:23,200 --> 00:37:25,040
Speaker 1: because there's nowhere else to go, and then he'd be like,

726
00:37:25,080 --> 00:37:27,480
Speaker 1: oh you can. I'm making this up, but like paint

727
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:32,160
Speaker 1: and do algebra problems. I don't know. But then so

728
00:37:32,239 --> 00:37:36,479
Speaker 1: women saved it. His administrative assistant was also a mental

729
00:37:36,520 --> 00:37:40,759
Speaker 1: health professional, and her name was Mary Smith, and she

730
00:37:40,960 --> 00:37:42,759
Speaker 1: was much better with the members. A lot of the

731
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:45,520
Speaker 1: reasons people were coming in was like to hang out

732
00:37:45,520 --> 00:37:50,319
Speaker 1: with Mary. As the story goes, John Beard is at

733
00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:52,719
Speaker 1: his desk in his office one day and he can't

734
00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:55,359
Speaker 1: get any work done. People are laughing and being loud

735
00:37:55,400 --> 00:37:58,279
Speaker 1: as hell in the halls outside because they're listening to

736
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:02,319
Speaker 1: our amazing podcast at sorry, I realized this time for

737
00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:14,279
Speaker 1: an ad break, and here's your interruption, and we're back.

738
00:38:15,719 --> 00:38:18,440
Speaker 1: So you can't get any work done because people are

739
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:20,400
Speaker 1: laughing and being loud as hell in the halls outside.

740
00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:24,600
Speaker 1: The implication is he's like grouchy, right, which I sympathize with.

741
00:38:24,680 --> 00:38:25,319
Speaker 1: Not because it's a.

742
00:38:25,239 --> 00:38:27,480
Speaker 2: Good thing to be person, a person that loves people,

743
00:38:27,560 --> 00:38:29,759
Speaker 2: but not necessarily interacting with them.

744
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:32,040
Speaker 1: That's my inference and why I sort of like him

745
00:38:32,040 --> 00:38:34,439
Speaker 1: in this context, even though he's like the wrong guy.

746
00:38:34,600 --> 00:38:34,839
Speaker 2: Right.

747
00:38:36,040 --> 00:38:38,440
Speaker 1: He comes down the stairs and he sees Mary surrounded

748
00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:41,360
Speaker 1: by members and they're all making lunch together and talking

749
00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:46,200
Speaker 1: and laughing, and he notices two things immediately. One there

750
00:38:46,280 --> 00:38:49,040
Speaker 1: is no easy way to tell whose staff and whose member.

751
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:53,400
Speaker 1: And two, as John describes it, he'd heard the members

752
00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:57,200
Speaker 1: like laugh before, but maniacally laugh. This was the first

753
00:38:57,239 --> 00:39:02,680
Speaker 1: time he heard laughter, genuine social laughter in Fountainhouse. Mary

754
00:39:02,719 --> 00:39:04,080
Speaker 1: sees them and it's like, come on down and have

755
00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:06,640
Speaker 1: lunch with us. And during lunch they talk about all

756
00:39:06,680 --> 00:39:08,279
Speaker 1: the filing and stuff that they have to get done.

757
00:39:08,360 --> 00:39:11,560
Speaker 1: After lunch. It's very mundane and like work focused conversation.

758
00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:16,120
Speaker 1: Mary and a few other women had cracked the case

759
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:19,279
Speaker 1: most of the members were poor as fuck, that they're

760
00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:21,960
Speaker 1: living in boarding houses on forty seventh Street. This is

761
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:26,080
Speaker 1: before SSI. They don't have money for lunch. So staff

762
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:28,759
Speaker 1: was going and getting like pre made food nearby and

763
00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:31,600
Speaker 1: then coming back and eating alone. And then Mary was like,

764
00:39:32,239 --> 00:39:35,120
Speaker 1: we should pull our money, all of us and make

765
00:39:35,239 --> 00:39:37,520
Speaker 1: lunch together. And so the members had like a little

766
00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:39,160
Speaker 1: bit of money. They just didn't have like they had

767
00:39:39,200 --> 00:39:40,920
Speaker 1: like pay for their slice of bread money, but they

768
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:42,640
Speaker 1: didn't have like pay for their slice of pizza money.

769
00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:46,640
Speaker 1: It's an Italian neighborhood. So they pulled their collective money

770
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 1: and they went and bought bread, and they made sandwiches

771
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:53,279
Speaker 1: all together, and they all together had a problem, and

772
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:55,880
Speaker 1: they went out and solved that problem collectively, staff and

773
00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:59,200
Speaker 1: members together. And they'd been doing it for weeks before

774
00:39:59,280 --> 00:40:04,080
Speaker 1: John like noticed and John is like smart as fucking

775
00:40:04,120 --> 00:40:06,040
Speaker 1: accomplished a lot, but he gets all the credit in

776
00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:08,360
Speaker 1: most accounts. Literally, this is how much people want to

777
00:40:08,360 --> 00:40:12,080
Speaker 1: write women out of stories. They're like, and this genius

778
00:40:12,120 --> 00:40:14,840
Speaker 1: realized what was happening and that it was game changing,

779
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:15,480
Speaker 1: and you're like.

780
00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 2: This thing yet absolutely nothing to do with Yeah.

781
00:40:19,360 --> 00:40:21,560
Speaker 1: He literally what he did is he didn't stop it.

782
00:40:22,680 --> 00:40:25,319
Speaker 1: You know, Well, like, good on him, I'm glad he

783
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:26,120
Speaker 1: didn't stop it.

784
00:40:26,680 --> 00:40:28,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, plenty of men of that era.

785
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:31,960
Speaker 1: Would absolutely, especially ones who are like in this position

786
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:36,160
Speaker 1: of power, right, And so Mary Smith and the members

787
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:39,160
Speaker 1: did something game changing, but he didn't stop it. And

788
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:42,160
Speaker 1: so that day contractors came in to fix the plaster

789
00:40:42,280 --> 00:40:46,120
Speaker 1: on the walls and John Beard was like, no, we

790
00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:48,600
Speaker 1: don't need you, and the contractors are like, well, you

791
00:40:48,640 --> 00:40:51,479
Speaker 1: owe us fifty percent as a cancelation fee, and John

792
00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:54,040
Speaker 1: Beard is like, fine, that's money well spent and gives

793
00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:56,600
Speaker 1: them their fifty percent. They go on their way, and

794
00:40:56,640 --> 00:40:58,640
Speaker 1: then with all the staff and members together, he's like

795
00:40:58,680 --> 00:41:00,960
Speaker 1: pointing at the walls that need new plaster, and he's like,

796
00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:03,400
Speaker 1: y'all want to live like this and they're like no,

797
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:07,920
Speaker 1: They're like all right, well let's fix the walls. And

798
00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:13,080
Speaker 1: so fountain House became focused not around activities, but around

799
00:41:13,160 --> 00:41:16,279
Speaker 1: the work day. Activities were working for him with this

800
00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:20,920
Speaker 1: like captive audience, right, who had no ability to have agency.

801
00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:27,440
Speaker 1: And here comes a tangent. My dog's name is Rintraw.

802
00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:30,880
Speaker 1: Nstraw is a character from in the first word of

803
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:32,920
Speaker 1: a book called The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by

804
00:41:32,920 --> 00:41:35,719
Speaker 1: William Blake. I just need to work this into every

805
00:41:35,760 --> 00:41:37,440
Speaker 1: script somehow if I can. It's like I didn't do

806
00:41:37,520 --> 00:41:38,880
Speaker 1: Tolkien in the script, so I have to work in

807
00:41:38,920 --> 00:41:41,759
Speaker 1: the Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Got Yeah. It was

808
00:41:41,760 --> 00:41:44,040
Speaker 1: published in seventeen ninety. In this book, there's a section

809
00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:46,600
Speaker 1: called the Parables of Hell. And one day I'll do

810
00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:49,439
Speaker 1: a whole William Blake episode and probably have some poor

811
00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:52,040
Speaker 1: guests listen to me read every single one of these parables.

812
00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 1: Some of them have carried on throughout the years. The

813
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:57,360
Speaker 1: Road of access leads to the Palace of Wisdom. I

814
00:41:57,400 --> 00:42:00,560
Speaker 1: think I've heard somewhere before. I don't know, but there's

815
00:42:00,600 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 1: one that has become so cliche, that has become kind

816
00:42:03,680 --> 00:42:06,600
Speaker 1: of anodyne. It's sort of cheesy. It's not the kind

817
00:42:06,600 --> 00:42:09,239
Speaker 1: of phrase that comes from from something you'd expect to

818
00:42:09,280 --> 00:42:12,640
Speaker 1: be called the Parables of Hell, and that is the

819
00:42:12,680 --> 00:42:18,920
Speaker 1: busy bee has no time for sorrow. This is I

820
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:20,600
Speaker 1: don't think any of them are talking about William Blake

821
00:42:20,600 --> 00:42:23,080
Speaker 1: while they're describing it, but I am. This seems to

822
00:42:23,080 --> 00:42:26,720
Speaker 1: be like the basic idea. It's not, oh, keep busy

823
00:42:26,760 --> 00:42:29,160
Speaker 1: so you don't have time to consider how bad everything is.

824
00:42:29,760 --> 00:42:31,880
Speaker 1: It's not just a way of sticking your head in

825
00:42:31,920 --> 00:42:35,399
Speaker 1: the sand. Instead, it's a way of building agency into

826
00:42:35,440 --> 00:42:40,360
Speaker 1: your life, doing things, accomplishing things, having tangible goals that

827
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:45,480
Speaker 1: you reach. And I would argue the joy of accomplishing

828
00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:47,600
Speaker 1: things has been stripped away from us by the modern

829
00:42:47,600 --> 00:42:51,480
Speaker 1: workforce because in most jobs we act without agency. We'll

830
00:42:51,600 --> 00:42:53,480
Speaker 1: just do what we're told and then we do it.

831
00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:57,600
Speaker 1: I feel very blessed that even though this would have

832
00:42:57,600 --> 00:42:59,279
Speaker 1: been a great place for an ad transition, what was

833
00:42:59,280 --> 00:43:02,560
Speaker 1: I doing? But we're done. We don't need any more

834
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:05,000
Speaker 1: AD transition, So anyway, I feel very blessed.

835
00:43:05,160 --> 00:43:10,760
Speaker 3: You can't do a mocks transition here, you're but please don't.

836
00:43:12,880 --> 00:43:15,760
Speaker 2: I'm a big proponent of purpose, and I think people

837
00:43:15,920 --> 00:43:19,799
Speaker 2: get like the defensive around a little bit because of

838
00:43:20,239 --> 00:43:23,719
Speaker 2: you know, capitalism. But it's like a reimagining of what

839
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:26,239
Speaker 2: purpose can be. I mean, purpose can be that I'm

840
00:43:26,280 --> 00:43:30,840
Speaker 2: a great grandmother, yeah, or that I my purpose is

841
00:43:30,880 --> 00:43:35,200
Speaker 2: my rescue dogs. But just having something to tie you

842
00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:37,240
Speaker 2: to this life is very helpful.

843
00:43:37,719 --> 00:43:40,440
Speaker 1: No, I agree, and purpose is one of the I

844
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 1: think there's like a people place and purpose are the

845
00:43:43,719 --> 00:43:47,279
Speaker 1: three things that the clubhouse model argues that people need

846
00:43:47,320 --> 00:43:49,560
Speaker 1: when they leave the when they leave like in patient

847
00:43:49,600 --> 00:43:55,359
Speaker 1: psychiatric care, yeah, and when the members of fountain House

848
00:43:55,440 --> 00:43:57,920
Speaker 1: hired John Beard to help them out. He organized it

849
00:43:57,960 --> 00:44:01,879
Speaker 1: around the work day. Can come in anytime they want,

850
00:44:01,920 --> 00:44:04,600
Speaker 1: from nine to five. They don't have to come in,

851
00:44:04,960 --> 00:44:07,120
Speaker 1: but they can come in if they want to. While

852
00:44:07,120 --> 00:44:09,640
Speaker 1: they're there, they don't have to work on the place,

853
00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:12,560
Speaker 1: but they can if they want to. They also don't

854
00:44:12,560 --> 00:44:14,439
Speaker 1: get paid for it. We'll talk about how they work

855
00:44:14,480 --> 00:44:17,680
Speaker 1: to get people paid later, but they're doing real work,

856
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:20,319
Speaker 1: not simulated work, in the maintenance and running of the

857
00:44:20,320 --> 00:44:22,759
Speaker 1: clubhouse itself. Like they don't get paid for it, the

858
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:24,279
Speaker 1: same way that like I don't get paid to do

859
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:29,440
Speaker 1: my own dishes, you know. And there's a reason to

860
00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:32,080
Speaker 1: this day that articles about Fountain House describe it as

861
00:44:32,120 --> 00:44:34,920
Speaker 1: looking more like a fancy country club than a medical space,

862
00:44:35,680 --> 00:44:38,719
Speaker 1: because people take pride in maintaining the space and beautifying it.

863
00:44:39,920 --> 00:44:43,280
Speaker 1: The Clubhouse moved from a socializing model to a working

864
00:44:43,320 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 1: model in part because it was an easier way. This

865
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:47,560
Speaker 1: is kind of way you're gonna get at about like

866
00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:50,319
Speaker 1: how purpose has been like taken away from us by

867
00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:54,000
Speaker 1: like capitalism, right, you know, because under capitalism you think, well,

868
00:44:54,040 --> 00:44:56,120
Speaker 1: I just want to not work, right, But that's not

869
00:44:56,800 --> 00:44:59,319
Speaker 1: for most people. That's not really true. At the end

870
00:44:59,360 --> 00:45:02,440
Speaker 1: of it, you know, no, So it moved from a

871
00:45:02,440 --> 00:45:04,799
Speaker 1: socializing model to a working model because it was an

872
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:07,279
Speaker 1: easier way to get people involved and make friends with

873
00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:10,239
Speaker 1: each other. Paradoxically, you think socializing is the better way

874
00:45:10,239 --> 00:45:14,279
Speaker 1: to socialize, but it's not necessarily. When the clubhouse was

875
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:16,600
Speaker 1: open at night, it had a bit of a party vibe.

876
00:45:17,400 --> 00:45:19,279
Speaker 1: Go to a party that you don't know anyone at,

877
00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:22,959
Speaker 1: especially if you're suffering from serious mental illness already, that's

878
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:24,960
Speaker 1: hard as fuck for a lot of people.

879
00:45:25,600 --> 00:45:28,000
Speaker 2: Right, What are we talking about? What is there to say?

880
00:45:28,200 --> 00:45:32,080
Speaker 2: When you're working with someone, it's inherently there's something you're

881
00:45:32,480 --> 00:45:34,080
Speaker 2: having a shared experience.

882
00:45:34,280 --> 00:45:34,600
Speaker 3: Yeah.

883
00:45:34,680 --> 00:45:37,520
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And most members of the Fountain House have been

884
00:45:37,600 --> 00:45:39,719
Speaker 1: kicked out in more communities than the average person has

885
00:45:39,719 --> 00:45:43,280
Speaker 1: ever been part of. And a friend of mine describes

886
00:45:43,320 --> 00:45:44,960
Speaker 1: a friend of mine who works there describes how he

887
00:45:45,040 --> 00:45:48,960
Speaker 1: brings in new people. There's more than two two hundred

888
00:45:49,040 --> 00:45:51,480
Speaker 1: light bulbs in Fountainhouse. This is not a light bulb joke.

889
00:45:51,520 --> 00:45:54,839
Speaker 1: It's a weird it's a lighthouse parable instead, but it's

890
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:58,360
Speaker 1: literal and true. There's more than two two hundred light

891
00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:01,000
Speaker 1: bulbs there. And because the place is and renovated dozens

892
00:46:01,040 --> 00:46:03,520
Speaker 1: of times. All of them are like different kinds of

893
00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:06,719
Speaker 1: light bulbs, right, there's always a bunch that have been

894
00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:09,240
Speaker 1: burned out. So he sees a new person who doesn't

895
00:46:09,280 --> 00:46:11,719
Speaker 1: know anyone, who's in their own head because of symptoms

896
00:46:11,800 --> 00:46:15,719
Speaker 1: or depression or newness, and he's like, hey, I'm going

897
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:18,480
Speaker 1: to go change the lightbulbs around here. I don't need

898
00:46:18,520 --> 00:46:20,680
Speaker 1: you to do much, but if you could hold the

899
00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:24,080
Speaker 1: ladder for me. And he's done this hundreds of times

900
00:46:24,120 --> 00:46:27,160
Speaker 1: with people with very severe mental illnesses, but even folks

901
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:31,000
Speaker 1: who don't care whether or not they themselves live or die.

902
00:46:31,080 --> 00:46:33,239
Speaker 1: Every single time, they can be counted on to make

903
00:46:33,239 --> 00:46:36,120
Speaker 1: sure that another person who is climbing up a ladder

904
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:40,240
Speaker 1: is safe while they do it. And he goes around

905
00:46:40,239 --> 00:46:42,520
Speaker 1: and he changes light bulbs. He's not even like, oh,

906
00:46:42,600 --> 00:46:45,359
Speaker 1: I got a job for you, go change the light bulbs, right,

907
00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:48,400
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm doing this work. You want to come

908
00:46:48,400 --> 00:46:52,560
Speaker 1: help me? After two or three lightbulbs, they're friends and

909
00:46:52,600 --> 00:46:56,200
Speaker 1: my friend could introduce them to new people. With work.

910
00:46:56,320 --> 00:46:57,920
Speaker 1: You can talk about work and you don't have to

911
00:46:57,920 --> 00:47:00,239
Speaker 1: talk about yourself, and you can also connect with that

912
00:47:00,320 --> 00:47:03,800
Speaker 1: healthy part of you instead of only connecting about your illness,

913
00:47:05,160 --> 00:47:07,879
Speaker 1: and the work is purposeful. It matters that someone has

914
00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:10,440
Speaker 1: made lunch. It matters that someone has held the ladder

915
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:12,880
Speaker 1: to make sure that someone didn't fall. It matters that

916
00:47:12,920 --> 00:47:16,000
Speaker 1: someone answers the phone and files the paperwork and cleans

917
00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:19,000
Speaker 1: the vomit and like the like real unglamorous tasks of

918
00:47:19,080 --> 00:47:22,520
Speaker 1: daily life. You know, and you are not required to

919
00:47:22,520 --> 00:47:25,400
Speaker 1: do anything. You can come in and eat lunch and

920
00:47:25,480 --> 00:47:28,560
Speaker 1: smoke cigarettes and leave. That's the way my friend phrased it.

921
00:47:28,600 --> 00:47:29,719
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're allowed to smoke in the

922
00:47:29,719 --> 00:47:33,200
Speaker 1: building or not asserted subpoint, at least you were able to.

923
00:47:33,280 --> 00:47:38,000
Speaker 1: And there is no external benefit either. It's not like

924
00:47:38,360 --> 00:47:41,000
Speaker 1: whoever puts in the most work is more likely to

925
00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:45,360
Speaker 1: get hired on as staff or it gets promoted to

926
00:47:45,480 --> 00:47:50,239
Speaker 1: being like employee, volunteer of the month or like any

927
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:54,239
Speaker 1: of that. You can't fail at Fountain House. You can

928
00:47:54,320 --> 00:47:57,640
Speaker 1: get paused, your membership can be paused if you assault

929
00:47:57,680 --> 00:48:00,600
Speaker 1: someone or you steal stuff or something like that. But

930
00:48:00,640 --> 00:48:03,759
Speaker 1: there's no mandated work. All you've got to do is

931
00:48:03,800 --> 00:48:06,879
Speaker 1: come through the green doors. And of the there's thirty

932
00:48:06,920 --> 00:48:08,320
Speaker 1: seven principles we'll get to it later. I know it

933
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:12,319
Speaker 1: sounds kind of culty, but whatever. There's the first two principles.

934
00:48:12,560 --> 00:48:15,280
Speaker 1: One is, once a member, you're a member for life.

935
00:48:15,360 --> 00:48:18,680
Speaker 1: So if you get in, you can leave for fifty

936
00:48:18,760 --> 00:48:21,239
Speaker 1: seven years and come back and you can come right

937
00:48:21,280 --> 00:48:22,240
Speaker 1: back in. Right.

938
00:48:22,440 --> 00:48:23,960
Speaker 2: What is the admissions process?

939
00:48:24,640 --> 00:48:26,080
Speaker 1: I don't know as much about that.

940
00:48:27,520 --> 00:48:30,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, maybe it's like an old English club, you know,

941
00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:33,279
Speaker 3: like they go around with the billiard balls and then

942
00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:35,480
Speaker 3: if someone puts, are you familiar with this process?

943
00:48:35,520 --> 00:48:36,759
Speaker 1: So right, well, but tell me about it?

944
00:48:36,800 --> 00:48:39,000
Speaker 3: All right, Okay, this is the thing I learned about

945
00:48:39,040 --> 00:48:40,719
Speaker 3: history class. To be clear, those you who have not

946
00:48:40,760 --> 00:48:42,680
Speaker 3: been to the United Kingdom and it's not still the

947
00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:45,719
Speaker 3: nineteenth century there. But one of the things that they

948
00:48:45,800 --> 00:48:48,120
Speaker 3: used to do in these clubs was they would if

949
00:48:48,120 --> 00:48:49,960
Speaker 3: a new member is being admitted, right, they'd get all

950
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:53,040
Speaker 3: the other members together. I'd be like, Margaret would like

951
00:48:53,080 --> 00:48:55,600
Speaker 3: to join the club? Are okay with Margaret joining the club?

952
00:48:55,960 --> 00:48:57,480
Speaker 3: And then what they would do is pass around a

953
00:48:57,520 --> 00:49:02,600
Speaker 3: sack and everyone has balls billiard balls, right, like snooker

954
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:09,279
Speaker 3: pool whatever. Don't play snooker in America, but the balls, right, yeah.

955
00:49:08,600 --> 00:49:10,960
Speaker 2: You just keep you keep referencing things that are more

956
00:49:10,960 --> 00:49:13,040
Speaker 2: and more confusing to us.

957
00:49:13,080 --> 00:49:17,640
Speaker 1: Word yeah, the fancy word for pool.

958
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:21,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, that to become the Britain Explained podcast. Yeah, so

959
00:49:21,600 --> 00:49:24,480
Speaker 3: I basical you're right right, they've got billiard balls. Anyone

960
00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:26,640
Speaker 3: could put in a black board if they want to.

961
00:49:27,239 --> 00:49:28,879
Speaker 3: But you don't know, right, everyone's just putting their ball

962
00:49:28,960 --> 00:49:31,000
Speaker 3: in the back, but you don't know. Then they get

963
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:33,239
Speaker 3: to any dump them out. There's a black ball. If

964
00:49:33,320 --> 00:49:34,800
Speaker 3: Margaret can't be admitted.

965
00:49:34,760 --> 00:49:36,960
Speaker 1: Oh no, but I really wanted to be part of

966
00:49:37,360 --> 00:49:38,800
Speaker 1: the Gentleman's Club of English.

967
00:49:38,840 --> 00:49:41,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's a shame. I know you've got black board.

968
00:49:41,840 --> 00:49:43,520
Speaker 3: That's where the verb comes from.

969
00:49:43,760 --> 00:49:45,799
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's where black bulb comes from.

970
00:49:46,360 --> 00:49:50,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, WHOA Why know black listed more than I know

971
00:49:50,200 --> 00:49:50,800
Speaker 2: black balls.

972
00:49:51,040 --> 00:49:53,879
Speaker 1: I didn't think Americans used black bold, but I first

973
00:49:53,880 --> 00:49:55,680
Speaker 1: heard it in a Dead Press song and I think

974
00:49:55,760 --> 00:49:57,760
Speaker 1: they were making a play on words.

975
00:50:00,320 --> 00:50:01,880
Speaker 3: They full circle.

976
00:50:03,680 --> 00:50:07,359
Speaker 1: Well for superrinciples, once you remember your member for life,

977
00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:10,400
Speaker 1: and then everything at the clubhouse is voluntary for two principles.

978
00:50:11,760 --> 00:50:14,160
Speaker 1: While I am talking about all of John Beard's other

979
00:50:14,360 --> 00:50:18,480
Speaker 1: great accomplishments, I can't help but point out two other

980
00:50:18,520 --> 00:50:22,960
Speaker 1: accomplishments of his He married to Margaret and had a

981
00:50:23,000 --> 00:50:27,319
Speaker 1: daughter named Margaret. How lovely I know, I know.

982
00:50:27,640 --> 00:50:28,800
Speaker 2: A man of good taste.

983
00:50:29,320 --> 00:50:31,440
Speaker 1: And also he named his son John. Basically they're like

984
00:50:31,480 --> 00:50:33,120
Speaker 1: John and Margaret are like, we got the best names.

985
00:50:33,160 --> 00:50:38,719
Speaker 1: Why don't we just just keep on going? So was

986
00:50:38,760 --> 00:50:43,080
Speaker 1: born the clubhouse model. In the book fountain House by

987
00:50:43,160 --> 00:50:47,480
Speaker 1: Alan Doyle, Julius Lenol and Kenneth J. Dudick, the authors

988
00:50:47,480 --> 00:50:50,840
Speaker 1: put it like this stripped of a medical surrounding and

989
00:50:50,880 --> 00:50:54,319
Speaker 1: a preoccupation with illness, the work day at fountain House

990
00:50:54,360 --> 00:50:58,520
Speaker 1: provides an ordinary setting for social interaction and personal contributions,

991
00:50:58,560 --> 00:51:01,160
Speaker 1: in which the collaboration of staff and members and everyday

992
00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:04,880
Speaker 1: activities becomes a transformative event that aids in the process

993
00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:09,440
Speaker 1: of mental health recovering. And Uh, when we come back,

994
00:51:10,040 --> 00:51:13,239
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the worker cooperatives that they

995
00:51:13,320 --> 00:51:16,080
Speaker 1: set up, and we're going to talk about the way

996
00:51:16,120 --> 00:51:19,040
Speaker 1: that it has spread to thirty three countries, and we're

997
00:51:19,040 --> 00:51:21,840
Speaker 1: going to talk about the farm that they have that

998
00:51:22,160 --> 00:51:24,480
Speaker 1: it totally makes it sound really culty whenever they're like, oh,

999
00:51:24,520 --> 00:51:25,840
Speaker 1: you're going to go to the farm, and it just

1000
00:51:26,000 --> 00:51:29,680
Speaker 1: the farm and then farm is capitalized, which I understand

1001
00:51:29,760 --> 00:51:32,279
Speaker 1: why you do it, but the optics on it sounds

1002
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:33,160
Speaker 1: crapyway or whatever.

1003
00:51:33,360 --> 00:51:36,840
Speaker 2: All of this stuff. You're like, where's the line?

1004
00:51:37,400 --> 00:51:40,200
Speaker 1: And that's what's so fascinating to me about this is

1005
00:51:40,239 --> 00:51:42,960
Speaker 1: if there is like there's critiques that can and have

1006
00:51:43,000 --> 00:51:45,600
Speaker 1: been levied egg about this, and I have like talked

1007
00:51:45,600 --> 00:51:49,400
Speaker 1: with people about them, right, but there's not there's not

1008
00:51:49,480 --> 00:51:51,799
Speaker 1: like a hidden bad, you know.

1009
00:51:51,920 --> 00:51:55,160
Speaker 2: Right, there's no big bad that's like, yeah, like pulling

1010
00:51:55,200 --> 00:51:59,880
Speaker 2: the strings with some bad agenda or power grab, right.

1011
00:52:00,480 --> 00:52:03,239
Speaker 1: And I think the big difference is that instead of

1012
00:52:03,280 --> 00:52:06,120
Speaker 1: existing like a cult exists to strip members of agency,

1013
00:52:06,880 --> 00:52:11,320
Speaker 1: and this exists to provide not just purpose but agency

1014
00:52:11,640 --> 00:52:15,520
Speaker 1: to its members. And we'll talk I'll quote a bunch

1015
00:52:15,560 --> 00:52:18,279
Speaker 1: of studies about how effective that is in part two.

1016
00:52:18,760 --> 00:52:20,200
Speaker 1: But first, at the end of part one, how are

1017
00:52:20,200 --> 00:52:21,799
Speaker 1: you feeling? You came in skeptical, and it's okay if

1018
00:52:21,800 --> 00:52:24,359
Speaker 1: you're still skeptical, but I'm curious how you're feeling about it.

1019
00:52:25,440 --> 00:52:29,480
Speaker 2: I'm feeling optimistic. I would say, I'd say that I

1020
00:52:29,840 --> 00:52:33,759
Speaker 2: agree with these principles that they seem to be based on.

1021
00:52:34,320 --> 00:52:37,960
Speaker 2: It makes sense to me. I'm a huge proponent of

1022
00:52:38,560 --> 00:52:42,960
Speaker 2: social support and community building and relationships and living in relationships.

1023
00:52:43,040 --> 00:52:45,880
Speaker 2: So you know, I'm intrigued.

1024
00:52:46,840 --> 00:52:49,359
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, James, what do you got?

1025
00:52:50,480 --> 00:52:50,680
Speaker 2: Yeah?

1026
00:52:50,719 --> 00:52:52,640
Speaker 3: I'm loving it. I really like this idea of like

1027
00:52:53,200 --> 00:52:57,120
Speaker 3: participation being empowering. And when you spoke about your friend

1028
00:52:57,120 --> 00:53:00,160
Speaker 3: who likes to help people, like to have people help

1029
00:53:00,239 --> 00:53:03,200
Speaker 3: them with ladders and like bulbs, it reminded me like

1030
00:53:03,200 --> 00:53:06,520
Speaker 3: I've done a lot of helping out in refugee camps,

1031
00:53:06,719 --> 00:53:09,360
Speaker 3: and one of the things you'll sometimes see is like

1032
00:53:10,160 --> 00:53:12,960
Speaker 3: most people over there with their families and their communities,

1033
00:53:13,000 --> 00:53:14,640
Speaker 3: and you can see their kind of forming their own

1034
00:53:14,640 --> 00:53:16,600
Speaker 3: little communities in the camp. And sometimes you'll see someone

1035
00:53:16,640 --> 00:53:19,080
Speaker 3: who's not. And the thing that we've always done is

1036
00:53:19,120 --> 00:53:23,359
Speaker 3: been like, Hey, I have a giant vat of lentils here,

1037
00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:25,520
Speaker 3: and I need somebody to help me spoon the lentils.

1038
00:53:25,719 --> 00:53:29,080
Speaker 3: And it's always really empowering for that person to be

1039
00:53:29,360 --> 00:53:31,479
Speaker 3: to help you with the lentils. And then often you'll

1040
00:53:31,480 --> 00:53:34,359
Speaker 3: do that. You arrive the next day and they'll be like, hey,

1041
00:53:34,400 --> 00:53:38,640
Speaker 3: we're doing the lentils again, like the be the hot

1042
00:53:38,640 --> 00:53:40,840
Speaker 3: sauce person. You know, there are lots of jobs that

1043
00:53:40,800 --> 00:53:44,960
Speaker 3: are required in lental distribution yeah, so I can associate

1044
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:45,279
Speaker 3: with that.

1045
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:47,919
Speaker 2: It's important to feel like you have a role.

1046
00:53:48,600 --> 00:53:53,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, well yeah, nope, I was trying to do it.

1047
00:53:53,800 --> 00:53:59,640
Speaker 1: Add well, what is your role, Allison in terms of plugging?

1048
00:53:59,800 --> 00:54:01,440
Speaker 1: What you want to plug? Here at the end of

1049
00:54:01,440 --> 00:54:02,960
Speaker 1: the first episode.

1050
00:54:03,560 --> 00:54:05,839
Speaker 2: So, I just had a new book come out in

1051
00:54:05,880 --> 00:54:10,680
Speaker 2: October called I Do I Think Conversations about Modern Marriage

1052
00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:13,719
Speaker 2: that sort of examines what marriage used to be and

1053
00:54:13,760 --> 00:54:16,800
Speaker 2: the possibilities of what marriage can be as we tailor

1054
00:54:16,840 --> 00:54:20,040
Speaker 2: it more towards our individual needs or if you even

1055
00:54:20,080 --> 00:54:22,080
Speaker 2: want to get married at all, which is great about

1056
00:54:22,120 --> 00:54:24,840
Speaker 2: modern society because you don't have to. And then you

1057
00:54:24,880 --> 00:54:28,040
Speaker 2: can listen to my podcast just between us every week.

1058
00:54:28,160 --> 00:54:31,799
Speaker 2: I also have a substack called Emotional Support Lady that

1059
00:54:31,920 --> 00:54:35,319
Speaker 2: is all mental health based and I'm also a relationship

1060
00:54:35,360 --> 00:54:37,799
Speaker 2: coach that is taking clients. So you can find out

1061
00:54:37,800 --> 00:54:41,400
Speaker 2: more information about that on Alisonraaskin dot com.

1062
00:54:41,440 --> 00:54:45,120
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, I'm excited about all this, James, you guys

1063
00:54:45,160 --> 00:54:45,800
Speaker 1: that you want to plug.

1064
00:54:46,560 --> 00:54:50,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, there is a humanitarian disaster in North and East

1065
00:54:50,280 --> 00:54:53,040
Speaker 3: Syria and I would love for you to give some

1066
00:54:53,160 --> 00:54:55,160
Speaker 3: of your heart earned money. I know everyone's support it

1067
00:54:55,200 --> 00:54:57,600
Speaker 3: to tell me to have you saw the Kurdish red

1068
00:54:57,600 --> 00:55:04,359
Speaker 3: crescent hgvayas Ah.

1069
00:55:02,280 --> 00:55:05,760
Speaker 1: Well, now I feel selfish that my plug is about me. Immediately,

1070
00:55:05,840 --> 00:55:08,480
Speaker 1: I know, I felt terrible. I was like, oh no, no, no, no,

1071
00:55:08,560 --> 00:55:10,600
Speaker 1: that is actually just that's just what happens with cool

1072
00:55:10,640 --> 00:55:14,399
Speaker 1: Zone Media is we do both. It's completely fine. Yeah,

1073
00:55:15,200 --> 00:55:17,680
Speaker 1: you can follow me on substack at margat kilroid do

1074
00:55:17,680 --> 00:55:20,280
Speaker 1: at substack dot com. I post a lot of stuff.

1075
00:55:20,280 --> 00:55:22,080
Speaker 1: Half of it's free and half of it is like

1076
00:55:22,120 --> 00:55:24,879
Speaker 1: the more personal stuff is for people who support me there.

1077
00:55:25,360 --> 00:55:28,399
Speaker 1: And also I want to shout out that I work

1078
00:55:28,440 --> 00:55:31,480
Speaker 1: with a collectively run publisher called Strangers in the Tangle Wilderness.

1079
00:55:31,760 --> 00:55:34,200
Speaker 1: Every month we mail out a zine to backers anywhere

1080
00:55:34,200 --> 00:55:36,080
Speaker 1: in the world, to anyone who supports us on Patreon

1081
00:55:36,120 --> 00:55:38,120
Speaker 1: at ten dollars a month or more. And you can

1082
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Speaker 1: also just read all of those for free on our

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Speaker 1: website tangle wilderness dot org. We do a lot of

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Speaker 1: like fiction and poetry and essays and stuff. I don't know,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff. We even have a separate

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Speaker 1: podcast network that I have a podcast on that James

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Speaker 1: is now sometimes a co host of called Live Like

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Speaker 1: the World Is Dying. About individual and community preparedness.

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Speaker 3: That's right.

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Speaker 1: So there's lots of other stuff. If you're like, wow,

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Speaker 1: I don't want to wait till Wednesday to hear more

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Speaker 1: of Margaret talking, no one actually thinks that. But if

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Speaker 1: you do think that you have many options, I'm.

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Speaker 2: Sure there are many people that think.

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Speaker 1: That that's potentially true. But all of you can hear me,

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Speaker 1: all of all three of us again on Wednesday, and

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Speaker 1: we're just gonna wait till all of us are waiting

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Speaker 1: till Wednesday, and every podcast is live.

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Speaker 3: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of

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Speaker 3: cool Zone Media.

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00:56:34,040 --> 00:56:37,560
Speaker 2: More podcasts on cool Zone Media, visit our website Foolzonemedia

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Speaker 2: dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

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00:56:40,560 --> 00:56:43,800
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.