Speaker 1: Hi everyone. One of the things that I know many
Speaker 1: of you struggle with is anxiety, and very recently I
Speaker 1: shared some tips on managing anxiety in our newsletter. Specifically,
Speaker 1: I shared a practice on clarifying your values. In the practice,
Speaker 1: you write down one or two of your core values
Speaker 1: and then identify one action step that aligns with them.
Speaker 1: I find that taking one positive action towards things that
Speaker 1: matter to me really helps reduce anxiety. Also, I have
Speaker 1: a reflection question, what positive experiences have you had today
Speaker 1: that you could focus on instead of your anxiety. Every Wednesday,
Speaker 1: I send out a newsletter called a Weekly by to
Speaker 1: Wisdom for a wiser, happier You, And in it I
Speaker 1: give tips and reflections like you just got And it's
Speaker 1: an opportunity for you to pause, reflect, and practice. It's
Speaker 1: a way to stay focused on what's important and meaningful
Speaker 1: to you. Each month we focus on a theme. This
Speaker 1: month's theme is anxiety, and next month we'll be focusing
Speaker 1: on acceptance. To say sign up for these bits of
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Speaker 2: Human beings will connect. If this genuine expressed empathy, which
Speaker 2: is anchored in deep storytelling.
Speaker 3: Wow, welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great
Speaker 3: thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
Speaker 3: Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 3: you think, ring true. And yet for many of us,
Speaker 3: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 3: self pity, jealousy or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 3: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 3: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 3: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent
Speaker 3: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 3: podcast is about how other keep themselves moving in the
Speaker 3: right direction, how they feed their good wolf.
Speaker 1: It's a heartbreaking truth. Someone can know they need help,
Speaker 1: even want help, and still not get it simply because
Speaker 1: they can't afford the bus fare. Today's guest, doctor Dixon Chabanda,
Speaker 1: lost a patient to suicide for that very reason, a
Speaker 1: loss that changed the course of his life. Out of
Speaker 1: that heartbreak, he started something quietly radical, the friendship Bench. Now,
Speaker 1: grandmothers trained in basic therapy offer life changing care from
Speaker 1: wooden benches across Zimbabwe and increasingly the world. In this conversation.
Speaker 1: We explore how Dixon weave's clinical science with ancestral wisdom
Speaker 1: and how human connection, not just diagnosis, can unlock healing.
Speaker 1: We talk about the power of storytelling, the danger of labels,
Speaker 1: and how even Dixon himself was transformed by the very
Speaker 1: grandmothers he trained. I'm Eric Zimmer and this is the
Speaker 1: one you feed Hi Dixon, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Eric, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to have you on. We're going to talk
Speaker 1: about your book called The Friendship Bench, how fourteen grandmothers
Speaker 1: inspired a mental health revolution, and talk about this movement
Speaker 1: in general, which I think is one of the more
Speaker 1: beautiful things I've read in a long time. But before
Speaker 1: we get into that, we'll start, like we always do,
Speaker 1: with the parable. And in the Parable, there's a grandparent
Speaker 1: who's talking with their grandchild. They say, in life, there
Speaker 1: are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.
Speaker 1: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 1: and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the grandchild stops. They think about it for a second.
Speaker 1: They look up at their grandparent and they say, well,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do.
Speaker 2: Thanks Eric for me. It means being constantly immersed in
Speaker 2: the stories the lives of the people who have shaped
Speaker 2: my journey, not only around the work that I do
Speaker 2: at Friendship Bench, but in my career as well. So
Speaker 2: in this particular instance, that would be I guess the
Speaker 2: fourteen grandmothers that I started this project with, they have
Speaker 2: profoundly influenced the course of my life and career.
Speaker 1: Beautiful, why don't we start with you telling us about
Speaker 1: the Friendship Bench for people who aren't familiar with it.
Speaker 2: Great, So, the Friendship Bench in essence is really a
Speaker 2: brief psychological therapy or talk therapy that is evidence based
Speaker 2: but is delivered by trained community grandmothers. Starter off in Zimbabwe,
Speaker 2: the trained community grandmothers, who are trained in the basics
Speaker 2: of what we call cognitive behavioral therapy, are located a
Speaker 2: wooden park bench in their community. We facilitate referrals to
Speaker 2: the bench of people who are lonely, people who are
Speaker 2: depressed and those referrals can come through social media, through schools,
Speaker 2: through the police station, you know, in cases of for instance,
Speaker 2: intimate partner violence. And the grandmas on the bench provide
Speaker 2: this structured therapy usually for the six sessions, and after
Speaker 2: those sessions on the bench, people are then encouraged to
Speaker 2: join a support group in their community. So that, in essence,
Speaker 2: is what the friendship bench is in a nutshell.
Speaker 1: Let me set the table a little bit for listeners here.
Speaker 1: You were a psychiatrist in Zimbabwe and I think you
Speaker 1: at one point quoted a statistic like it was something
Speaker 1: like one psychiatrist for every several million people, yeah, in
Speaker 1: the world, right, and that obviously is problematic. And as
Speaker 1: an attempt to try and solve this problem a little bit,
Speaker 1: to try and say how can we actually provide more
Speaker 1: care to more people, you, through working with different people,
Speaker 1: came up with this idea that these grandmothers who are
Speaker 1: not trained psychiatrists, trained psychologists in the academic sense that
Speaker 1: we normally would think of them, but they were trusted
Speaker 1: members of the community that they could, with a little
Speaker 1: bit of training, provide really good support to the members
Speaker 1: of the community.
Speaker 2: Yes, so you know, during my formative years of you know,
Speaker 2: working in a large hospital as a psychiatrist. I lost
Speaker 2: a patient of mine to suicide. Eric was her name,
Speaker 2: you know, I write about in my book. Erica had
Speaker 2: been under my care for just over two years when
Speaker 2: she took her own life. And I distinctly remember the
Speaker 2: day that Erica's mother called me to tell me that
Speaker 2: Erica had taken her own life. Erica had hanged herself
Speaker 2: from a mango tree in the family garden. I was
Speaker 2: devastated Eric, But I think what really hit me hard
Speaker 2: about Erica's death was the fact that both Erica's parents
Speaker 2: knew that Erica needed help, and Erica herself knew that
Speaker 2: she needed help, but they didn't have, you know, the
Speaker 2: equivalent of ten US dollars to get onto a bus
Speaker 2: to bring Erica to the hospital where I worked. Erica's
Speaker 2: parents were literally trying to save up for bus fear
Speaker 2: to bring Erica, who was severely depressed she'd had a
Speaker 2: relapse to the hospital. And it was during that process
Speaker 2: of trying to save up the equivalent of ten US
Speaker 2: dollars that she actually took her own life. And so
Speaker 2: that story hit me so hard, and at the same
Speaker 2: time you know, I kind of got into this soul
Speaker 2: searching journey, and I realized then that I needed to
Speaker 2: find a way of making it possible for people to
Speaker 2: get evidence based care or talk therapy from the community
Speaker 2: where they lived, as opposed to come into the hospital.
Speaker 2: And so that was really the beginning of the idea
Speaker 2: of Friendship Bedge. So, you know, Friendship Bench was born
Speaker 2: out of a tragic event.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about the origins. How did you arrive
Speaker 1: at this idea?
Speaker 2: Well, after the loss of Erica and getting into I
Speaker 2: think I actually got into a depression myself, you know,
Speaker 2: in this soul searching journey, trying to figure out what
Speaker 2: to do with my life with my career as a psychiatrist,
Speaker 2: you know, and talking to a lot of people. I
Speaker 2: then realized that actually one of the most reliable resource
Speaker 2: that we have in communities across the world are grandmothers,
Speaker 2: you know. And I realized from talking to people that,
Speaker 2: you know, grandmothers are like the custodians of our local
Speaker 2: culture and wisdom and knowledge. And I thought, how about
Speaker 2: if we could train grandmas in the basics of cognitive
Speaker 2: behavior therapy and provide them with the skills to reach
Speaker 2: out to those in their communities who need therapy. And
Speaker 2: so that's really how it started. And in my book,
Speaker 2: I talk about the first fourteen grandmothers because when I
Speaker 2: started this project, it was just the fourteen grandmothers that
Speaker 2: I had. Of course, now we have in Zimbabwe alone,
Speaker 2: we have over three thousand grandmas, and we have a
Speaker 2: presence in in many different parts of the world. But
Speaker 2: you know, I'm just kind of zeroing in on the
Speaker 2: first fourteen and it was those first fourteen grandmas that
Speaker 2: really helped me to understand the power of human connection
Speaker 2: and the power of embedding healing in stories, you know.
Speaker 2: And so this is how Friendship Bench really started, and
Speaker 2: it's been shaped by those fourteen grandmas. At the moment,
Speaker 2: there are only six of them left. But it's just
Speaker 2: really been a tremendous learning opportunity for me, both as
Speaker 2: a psychiatrist then as a human being.
Speaker 1: I think that's the beautiful thing. Well, there's many beautiful
Speaker 1: things about this, but one of them is that you
Speaker 1: brought Okay, I've got a psychiatrist, Western trained view of
Speaker 1: mental health, and so I'm bringing that to the table.
Speaker 1: The cognitive behavioral therapy part that you're talking about but
Speaker 1: they met you with lots and lots of their own
Speaker 1: ideas as an own wisdom that emerge out of the
Speaker 1: actual culture. And I think it's the combination of those
Speaker 1: two things coming together is part of I think probably
Speaker 1: what makes it so successful. If you had just said
Speaker 1: everybody do CBT, that may not have been really nearly
Speaker 1: as effective. Or on the other hand, if it had
Speaker 1: only been you know, the contributions of individual grandmothers without
Speaker 1: a little bit of you know, guidance in mental health practices.
Speaker 1: But when they both came together, you created this thing
Speaker 1: that seems really special.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that is so right, Eric. I often refer
Speaker 2: to the journey of the Friendship Bench as striking a balance,
Speaker 2: you know, equipoise between you know, Western models of care
Speaker 2: and African cultural heritage and bringing all of that together
Speaker 2: in a way that produces the results that are acceptable
Speaker 2: not only within an African context, but in a Northern
Speaker 2: Hemisphere context as well. I'll give you an example. You know,
Speaker 2: when I first started Friendship Bench with the first fourteen grandmothers, naturally,
Speaker 2: being a psychiatrist, I thought this whole model would be
Speaker 2: based on, you know, the principles of DSM five. You know,
Speaker 2: where you focus on a diagnosis, you know, you focus
Speaker 2: on the symptoms, you come up with a diagnosis, and
Speaker 2: then you establish a treatment plan, you know. And the
Speaker 2: grandmas were like, no, you need to focus on the story,
Speaker 2: because human beings connect through stories, and through those human connections,
Speaker 2: that's when healing begins to emerge. And so with time,
Speaker 2: I realized that we had to find a way of
Speaker 2: connecting stories and DSM five and really creating a sort
Speaker 2: of way of harmony between the two, if you like,
Speaker 2: and that my journey has consistantly been about that. And
Speaker 2: I'll just share one more example about this, this sort
Speaker 2: of equid poison. You know, when I started Friendship Bench,
Speaker 2: I being a psychiatrist, I wanted to call the initiative
Speaker 2: the mental health bench, you know, I was, I was
Speaker 2: thinking as a psychiatrist, and the grandma's you know where, like,
Speaker 2: you know, that's not really going to work in this community,
Speaker 2: and I resisted. And interestingly, Eric, when we started with
Speaker 2: the mental health bench, nobody actually wanted to come and
Speaker 2: sit on a mental health bench until we changed the
Speaker 2: name to friendship Bench, and all of a sudden, everybody
Speaker 2: wanted to sit on a friendship bench. And I learned
Speaker 2: my first big lesson. You know, the names that we
Speaker 2: ascribed to things can make or break those things, you know,
Speaker 2: So I really became sensitive to the language that we
Speaker 2: use around mental health. And I also realized that a
Speaker 2: lot of what we use as profits can fuel stigma
Speaker 2: in mental health. So we really have to be careful
Speaker 2: with labeling people. This room for that. But oftentimes what
Speaker 2: is more important is the story that people bring, you know,
Speaker 2: to the bench, not the diagnosis.
Speaker 1: So a big part of what made this work in
Speaker 1: Zimbabwe was that these grandmothers were steeped in a culture
Speaker 1: that they could bring to the table. And I'm curious
Speaker 1: about what do you see in more westernized places where
Speaker 1: the culture has devolved in their lifetime. A lot it's
Speaker 1: very different, or there isn't the same cultural reference point,
Speaker 1: and there isn't necessarily the same respect for the elderly
Speaker 1: that there might be in places that are a little
Speaker 1: bit more traditional. What do you see as you try
Speaker 1: and take this different places?
Speaker 2: Eric, You know, when we first started taking Friendship Bench
Speaker 2: through different parts of the world, our hypothesis was the
Speaker 2: northern hemisphere, particularly the div developed countries, would be very different.
Speaker 2: And I am increasingly surprised at how similar communities are
Speaker 2: across the world and how people even in Washington, DC,
Speaker 2: or in New Orleans, or in London, in Germany, these
Speaker 2: are places where we're introducing friendship bench. You find that
Speaker 2: intergenerational connectedness, when given the right space, is extremely powerful
Speaker 2: because the elderly or the grandmas are addressing loneliness. Through
Speaker 2: this work, young people by engaging and interacting with the grandmas,
Speaker 2: are addressing this sense of belonging which a lot of
Speaker 2: our young people have lost because you know, our world
Speaker 2: has become so disconnected. We're always in front of our devices.
Speaker 2: But when you bring the two together, you have this
Speaker 2: amazing intergenerational connectedness which is so powerful. So actually, you know,
Speaker 2: there's a lot more that connects us as human beings
Speaker 2: across the globe that separates us or divides us. Last
Speaker 2: year in October, we were in El Salvador and we
Speaker 2: were pleasantly surprised to see that the way people relates
Speaker 2: to the elderly, the way people connect with their grandmas,
Speaker 2: is more different than in Zimbabwe, or in Tanzania, or
Speaker 2: in Liberia and all these other places where we're doing
Speaker 2: this model. So I really think at the very core
Speaker 2: of what we do. The most fundamental human connection that
Speaker 2: we see is stories. Yeah, all human beings across the
Speaker 2: globe connect through stories. It doesn't matter which culture you're
Speaker 2: coming from, and that's fundamentally what friendship bench brings. You know,
Speaker 2: that connecting human beings through stories.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that your hypothesis and mind were similar about
Speaker 1: how this would work in the Western world, and everything
Speaker 1: you're saying makes sense, right. I think we do know
Speaker 1: uni versally that one of the most healing things that
Speaker 1: can happen is simply one person really listening to another.
Speaker 1: A lot of modern studies, you know, trying to figure
Speaker 1: out like what therapy is most effective, and it seems
Speaker 1: like the answer often is the one which the person
Speaker 1: has the best rapport with a therapist leads to the
Speaker 1: best outcome. Like that's the single most important thing. I
Speaker 1: want to ask a question about stories. So when you
Speaker 1: say stories, there's obviously the stories that the client comes with.
Speaker 1: I don't know what what do you call people who
Speaker 1: come to the friendship bench for her.
Speaker 2: Well, it's you know, it depends where you are. In Zimbabwe,
Speaker 2: they are called grandchildren because you know, it's just an
Speaker 2: affectionate way of referring to them. But in New York City,
Speaker 2: for instance, people who came to the bench were called
Speaker 2: clients or benchers. You know, it varies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like grandchild. So the grandchildren come, and there's
Speaker 1: obviously the story that they bring, but there's the stories
Speaker 1: that the grandmothers bring. And I'm curious, does that emerge
Speaker 1: completely organically out of each grandmother's experience or are there
Speaker 1: connective healing stories that are taught to grandmothers that are
Speaker 1: part of what they use.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. So when we train the grandmas,
Speaker 2: we leaning to their stories.
Speaker 4: You know, as you may imagine, someone who has lived
Speaker 4: for several decades has a rich history, has a rich
Speaker 4: lived experience.
Speaker 2: You know, these grandmas, I like to say that, you know,
Speaker 2: they carry the battle scars of life with grace and dignity,
Speaker 2: and they bring those battle scars to the bench. And
Speaker 2: one of the things that I learned as a psychiatrist
Speaker 2: is the importance of sharing your own story as a
Speaker 2: way of connecting with clients. Naturally, you have to respect
Speaker 2: certain boundaries as you do so, you know, but the
Speaker 2: grandmas bring their own stories, but what we emphasize is
Speaker 2: the use of empathy or expressed empathy, which is their
Speaker 2: ability to make people feel respected and understood when they
Speaker 2: open up to share their stories. We emphasize you know,
Speaker 2: nonverbal communication, the use of eye contact, the use of
Speaker 2: silence as a tool. You know, most human beings feel
Speaker 2: extremely uncomfortable when there's silence, you know. In fact, you know,
Speaker 2: for a lot of people's silence makes them feel kind
Speaker 2: of awkward. But with the Friendship Bench, the first level
Speaker 2: training is really all about using all of those sort
Speaker 2: of intuitive non verbal strategies that you can use to
Speaker 2: engage with another human beings. It's really, as you say, Eric,
Speaker 2: it's about building that rapport we call that therapeutic alliance.
Speaker 2: That is the most important part of the work that
Speaker 2: we do at Friendship Bench, and that's what we really
Speaker 2: emphasize in the first level training. You know, our training
Speaker 2: as three levels level one, two and three.
Speaker 1: Yeah. How much training does a grandmother go through before
Speaker 1: she's sort of put on a bench.
Speaker 2: That usually varies depending on the level of education or
Speaker 2: the grandma. The more educated, the less time they may need. Okay,
Speaker 2: so we work with grandmas who have minimal education. In Zimbabwe,
Speaker 2: most of them have you know, the equivalent of junior
Speaker 2: school education, and it takes a month for them to
Speaker 2: be able to understand the basic components of the therapy,
Speaker 2: which is, you know, problem solving, behavior activation, activity, scheduling,
Speaker 2: and psycho education. You know, those are sort of the
Speaker 2: active ingredients of Friendship Bench. And anchored in all of
Speaker 2: that is that the rich storytelling component, their ability to
Speaker 2: get people to feel comfortable with feeling vulnerable. You know. Again,
Speaker 2: that was one of the big lessons I learned from
Speaker 2: the Grandma's You know, if there's one thing we do
Speaker 2: at the Friendship Bench is make people feel comfortable to
Speaker 2: feel vulnerable because it's through that vulnerability that they share
Speaker 2: their stories and it's through that sharing of story that
Speaker 2: connect and the healing process begins. Yeah, so we trained
Speaker 2: for a month, but after the month of training, they
Speaker 2: are then encouraged to have practical exercises under supervision, and
Speaker 2: that supervision can be under a clinical psychologist or a
Speaker 2: mental health nurse. And then once they go through that
Speaker 2: supervision and they pass that supervision, they are then allowed
Speaker 2: to see clients on their own. But again it varies
Speaker 2: depending on where we're training. I mean, we recently trained
Speaker 2: folks in London, and that training only took seven days
Speaker 2: because the people we were training already had some experience
Speaker 2: of counseling.
Speaker 1: This, in my mind, is similar to an emergence we're
Speaker 1: seeing in the West, at least a little bit more
Speaker 1: of which is peer support. The purest model of it
Speaker 1: is the one that I sort of came of age in,
Speaker 1: which was twelve step programs. I'm a recovering heroin addict,
Speaker 1: and so you know, that's obviously all peer support. There's
Speaker 1: no training, No, there's just nothing. It's just you just
Speaker 1: all end up in a room and there's a few
Speaker 1: guidelines and hopefully it all goes well. I also think though,
Speaker 1: that there's a more of a peer support movement emerging
Speaker 1: where people are trained a little bit to provide a
Speaker 1: little bit more support than they might know how to
Speaker 1: do natively. Yeah, Now, in a lot of those what
Speaker 1: ends up being part of the binding connection is that
Speaker 1: for me, if I'm going to a twelve step meeting
Speaker 1: and I'm talking about addiction, I'm talking about addiction with
Speaker 1: other addicts. If somebody is giving peer support for bipolar
Speaker 1: as an example, they share that in common. Is there
Speaker 1: any attempt to put certain people with certain grandmothers based
Speaker 1: on life experience.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we have that. You know. Over time, what
Speaker 2: we've done is the grandmas, amongst themselves, have become experts
Speaker 2: of very specific issues. You will have grandmas who just
Speaker 2: focus on clients who come to the bench with intimate
Speaker 2: partner violence issues. You have grandmas who focus on people
Speaker 2: who are living with HIV because the grandma herself is
Speaker 2: living with HIV. So yes, we do that exactly, you know.
Speaker 2: But ultimately, regardless of that peer to peer component, human
Speaker 2: beings will connect if there's genuine express empathy, which is
Speaker 2: anchored in deep storytelling.
Speaker 1: I think that when you match people in shared experience,
Speaker 1: that's like a potential extra But to your point, I mean,
Speaker 1: we've seen this in our programs we do. Connection around
Speaker 1: certain values, are wanting to improve or be different can
Speaker 1: happen amongst very disparate people given the right environment. One
Speaker 1: of the things I thought was very interesting was you
Speaker 1: say in the book that most people coming to the
Speaker 1: bench don't want treatment for depression. They want treatment for
Speaker 1: their problems with money and people. I think in the
Speaker 1: Western world we tend to suddenly go, oh, you're feeling
Speaker 1: that way, you have depression, So we're going to treat
Speaker 1: the depression. And it seems like there was a very
Speaker 1: clear orientation from the beginning that very often the reason
Speaker 1: they feel lousy is they have legitimate life problems, and
Speaker 1: any attempt to help them needs to be rooted in
Speaker 1: helping them address the actual problems.
Speaker 2: That is so true, you know. And interestingly, when I
Speaker 2: first started Friendship Bench, and I write about this in
Speaker 2: the book, you know, I wanted to focus on the symptoms,
Speaker 2: you know, like hey, because the grandmas were taught how
Speaker 2: to use screening tools, you know, like the PHQ nine,
Speaker 2: which is used globally, and I was emphasizing focusing on
Speaker 2: those symptoms, and it was the grandma who were like,
Speaker 2: you know, those symptoms actually happen as a result of
Speaker 2: these social determinants of health, like you know, intimate partner violence, poverty,
Speaker 2: you know, living with HIV, And so that becomes the focus.
Speaker 2: And when you address the problem, as you rightly say,
Speaker 2: the symptoms get better, so you don't have to worry
Speaker 2: about the symptoms. Focus on the issues that people bring
Speaker 2: to the bench, you know, And that is what we
Speaker 2: really focus on. Although you know, we can, for instance,
Speaker 2: establish that a person might be going through a social
Speaker 2: issue and as a result of that they have major depression.
Speaker 2: According to DSM five, we certainly do that, but we
Speaker 2: also understand that that depression is largely fueled by those
Speaker 2: social circumstances that need to be addressed.
Speaker 1: Right because you have a process in which a grandma,
Speaker 1: they're very early in the process, can say, hey, this
Speaker 1: person needs more care, then we're going to be able
Speaker 1: to provide here, or we need to refer them on
Speaker 1: if there's more serious psychiatric disorder. And I think you're
Speaker 1: not saying that there's not a place for westernized approaches
Speaker 1: to medicine where we use certain medicines, you know, antidepressants
Speaker 1: or other things to treat people. It's just that I
Speaker 1: think we've gotten things in a lot of cases backwards
Speaker 1: here in that I think the way most people are
Speaker 1: treated for depression or anxiety today is they go to
Speaker 1: their primary care doctor usually and say oh, I'm depressed,
Speaker 1: and they get an antidepressant or a lot of primary
Speaker 1: care doctors these days hand you some version of that
Speaker 1: screen question you're talking about, You fill it out and
Speaker 1: you may leave with a prescription. And there are some
Speaker 1: ways in which I think that this filtering down to
Speaker 1: primary care physicians has been a value for our society.
Speaker 1: But there are plenty of ways in which I think
Speaker 1: it is problematic, And I think the problematic thing is,
Speaker 1: to your point, it's worth trying to address the global
Speaker 1: situation first. Like in someone's life. It's the same sort
Speaker 1: of thing, like trying to ferret out whether what somebody
Speaker 1: is dealing with is natural grief over something and when
Speaker 1: does it turn into depression? And you know, tweezing these
Speaker 1: things apart is not simple.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it definitely is not simple. And this is why
Speaker 2: at friendship banks we use algorithms. We use these screening tools.
Speaker 2: For instance, a common phrase that we use is red
Speaker 2: flag to identify clients who might be severely depressed or suicidal.
Speaker 2: You know, when clients present with such severe symptoms, they
Speaker 2: are stepped up, you know, to see a grandma who
Speaker 2: is more experienced and normally what would happen is that.
Speaker 2: For instance, I'll give you a classical example, someone comes
Speaker 2: to the friendship mention they're suicidal. They respond yes to
Speaker 2: the question on suicide or thoughts. She's question eleven on
Speaker 2: our screening tool. If a grandma who is engaging with
Speaker 2: that client is not comfortable with dealing with suicidality. She
Speaker 2: will refer to the next level, you know, to a
Speaker 2: grandma who actually focuses on that, and that grandma will
Speaker 2: use a more precise screening tool to establish whether those
Speaker 2: suicidal thoughts are really serious or not. Very basic questions,
Speaker 2: you know, have you thought of when you would do it,
Speaker 2: how would you do it? The usual stuff that any
Speaker 2: therapist will kind of ask. But in all of that,
Speaker 2: there's still the person's story. And what we find at
Speaker 2: Friendship Bench is that you know, over eighty percent of
Speaker 2: the people presenting with suicidal ideation crying out for help,
Speaker 2: and when you give them that space to genuinely share
Speaker 2: their story, healing begins. We discourage our grandmas from immediately
Speaker 2: referring unless somebody is a genuine red flag. And you know,
Speaker 2: the other thing about Friendship Bench, which I have to
Speaker 2: just mention Eric, if you don't mind, is that everything
Speaker 2: that we do at Friendship Bench is rooted in rigorous research.
Speaker 2: We have over one hundred peer reviewed scientific publications, including
Speaker 2: clinical trials, which show that these grandmas are effective therapists.
Speaker 2: So it's not just something that you know, we just
Speaker 2: wake up and think about like that we actually test
Speaker 2: all these things through these rigorous studies which are published
Speaker 2: in peer review journals, scientific journals.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's a really interesting part because that's
Speaker 1: not how it started.
Speaker 2: Obviously.
Speaker 1: It started as an experiment, right like you're like, okay,
Speaker 1: let's go, oh, yeah, do this. But since it's gone
Speaker 1: on and been successful enough in a eye test sort
Speaker 1: of way, like looking at it like wow, this seems
Speaker 1: to really be working, you were then able to say,
Speaker 1: all right, now, let's apply academic methods of research to
Speaker 1: this to see is it really And the answer seems
Speaker 1: pretty convincingly that indeed it is. I wanted to ask
Speaker 1: you about there's three steps that you address in the book.
Speaker 1: And I'm not even going to attempt to pronounce these
Speaker 1: words because I butcher English words on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: But the three steps are opening the mind, uplifting, and
Speaker 1: strengthen And I was wondering if you could speak the
Speaker 1: I assume there's zimbabwe In words for them, and then
Speaker 1: tell us about what each of those are.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the first level training is called opening the
Speaker 2: mind in the local language that is Kuvupour, and essentially
Speaker 2: these terms or the pillars of the friendship bench really
Speaker 2: terms that the grandma's you know, conceived and all I
Speaker 2: did was put them together. But these were ideas based on,
Speaker 2: you know, the wisdom and knowledge that these grandmas have
Speaker 2: that have defined the program. So opening the mind, as
Speaker 2: we call it in Shonna, literally means creating space for
Speaker 2: people to feel comfortable to share their stories, you know,
Speaker 2: for people to feel comfortable with being vulnerable, and that
Speaker 2: is really the first level, and that is achieved by
Speaker 2: using some of the you know, earlier terms I shared,
Speaker 2: like expressed empathy. You know, I'm now using the English equivalent,
Speaker 2: you know, expressed empathy, which is really making people feel
Speaker 2: respected and understood, using eye contact, using nonverbal communication, using
Speaker 2: silence as a tool. All of that is embedded in
Speaker 2: that first level training because we strongly believe at Friendship
Speaker 2: Bench that when you make people feel comfortable in that
Speaker 2: first level where their mind is opened, they then begin
Speaker 2: to see things that they were not able to see
Speaker 2: prior to that, you know, and that's when healing begins.
Speaker 2: You know. In a lot of therapies out there, Eric,
Speaker 2: we measure success on the basis of reduction of symptoms,
Speaker 2: which is, you know, the most sort of common thing
Speaker 2: when you're thinking of you know, clinical psychiatry or psychology
Speaker 2: based on DSM five or the ICD ten. At Friendship Bench,
Speaker 2: you know, we measure success based on hope. Yes, we
Speaker 2: do have all these other screening tools, but for us,
Speaker 2: success is when we instill hope in a person. And
Speaker 2: oftentimes when you instill hope, you haven't necessarily removed all
Speaker 2: symptoms of the depression, but that hope makes a person
Speaker 2: feel that they can carry on, they still have a chance,
Speaker 2: you know, And so we focus very much on that
Speaker 2: element and that is built in that level one with
Speaker 2: KUV opening the mind, and the level two is you know,
Speaker 2: the uplifting level, and that is where we begin to
Speaker 2: go into some of the most structured components of how
Speaker 2: to use screening tools to identify people who are genuinely suicidal,
Speaker 2: or who are psychotic and need to be referred to
Speaker 2: a psychiatrist, or people who have severe depression and may
Speaker 2: benefit not only from the talk therapy but also from
Speaker 2: an antidepressant, you know. And then level three is now
Speaker 2: the structured therapy around problem solving, behavior activation, and activity scheduling.
Speaker 2: So this is how the training actually runs. And if
Speaker 2: you ask me BA on the years of working with
Speaker 2: a grandma's I still think that first level training of
Speaker 2: opening the mind is the most important because that really
Speaker 2: sort of creates that space for healing.
Speaker 1: One of the things that you talk about is that
Speaker 1: the grandmother has described this to you, which was that
Speaker 1: clients get overwhelmed by multiple problems, and so part of
Speaker 1: what they do is help clients focus on one problem
Speaker 1: at a time. Say more about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, typically people who come to the Friendship
Speaker 2: Bench have numerous challenges. So, for instance, I can give
Speaker 2: you an example, and this is a real life example.
Speaker 2: You know, a woman comes to the Friendship Bench. She's
Speaker 2: feeling suicidal because she's unemployed, she's HIV positive, she's in
Speaker 2: an abusive relationship, she has no money to send her
Speaker 2: child to school, and so she's just completely overwhelmed with
Speaker 2: all of these challenges. And she comes to the bench
Speaker 2: and what typically happens is she opens up to the grandma,
Speaker 2: she shares, she talks about all of these things, all
Speaker 2: the issues that are affecting her in her life. And
Speaker 2: what we've found over the years is oftentimes when people
Speaker 2: have numerous challenges, they struggle. They actually struggle to figure
Speaker 2: out which of those problems to start working on, you know,
Speaker 2: and that is something that the grandma's and sort of
Speaker 2: work with a client on. And we use a term
Speaker 2: called the ping pole to describe the interaction between the
Speaker 2: grandma and the client because often when the grandma summarizes,
Speaker 2: which is part of the problem solve? When the grandma
Speaker 2: will summarize this story, and again that summary of the
Speaker 2: story is an indication of being anchored in the present,
Speaker 2: you know. So we test the grandmas in terms of
Speaker 2: their ability to reflect back to the client what they've heard.
Speaker 2: And that is so powerful because it makes a person
Speaker 2: realize that someone is listening to me, you know. Anyway,
Speaker 2: so when the grandma's reflect the story, the grandma will
Speaker 2: then say, so, which one of these views would you
Speaker 2: like to start working on? Your average client will say,
Speaker 2: I don't know, you decide, you tell me which one
Speaker 2: I should start working on. And we always train our
Speaker 2: grandmothers never to select the problem. The grandma simply throws
Speaker 2: it back to the client, you know, by saying something like,
Speaker 2: you know, I wouldn't possibly be able to stand in
Speaker 2: your shoes. I'm here to help you select one problem.
Speaker 2: And so you have this exchange which can take thirty
Speaker 2: forty minutes until a client suddenly decides, you know, I
Speaker 2: want to focus on making sure that my child goes
Speaker 2: to school. And then the grandma will say, all right,
Speaker 2: if that's what you want to focus on, let's work
Speaker 2: on that. And the interesting thing, Eric is that people
Speaker 2: that come to the bench will select problems to focus on,
Speaker 2: which I, as a clinician, as a psychiatrist, may think
Speaker 2: this doesn't makes sense. Like, for instance, if someone is
Speaker 2: HIV positive, my instinctive focus should be, hey, we need
Speaker 2: to put you on medication for HIV. You know. So
Speaker 2: in this particular case, this woman is HIV positive, but
Speaker 2: she is interested in focusing on getting her child to school.
Speaker 2: And when you deep deeper into the story, you find
Speaker 2: that if she gets her child to go to school,
Speaker 2: she will then have time to go to the primary
Speaker 2: health care facility and address the next problem, you know.
Speaker 2: And so we never actually assume that what we think
Speaker 2: is the biggest problem is what we should tell the
Speaker 2: client to focus on, because clients will always come up
Speaker 2: with something which is completely out of the box in
Speaker 2: terms of what they think is a priority. And so
Speaker 2: that's the level too. And then after that, when a
Speaker 2: problem is selected, they will then brainstorm together for solutions,
Speaker 2: and we train the grandmas on how to use what
Speaker 2: we call the smart action plan, which essentially stands for,
Speaker 2: you know, coming up with something that specific, measurable, achievable, realistic,
Speaker 2: and timely, you know, And so the grandmas have to
Speaker 2: go through all of that because you know, when you
Speaker 2: come up with a solution, the more it addresses the
Speaker 2: smart sort of elements, the more likely it's going to work,
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, yeah, so it's in a nutshell, you know,
Speaker 2: those are some of the components that we kind of
Speaker 2: focus on.
Speaker 1: Yet I'm a big believer in that a lot of
Speaker 1: the value that we can offer to people is helping
Speaker 1: them create a plan that will work. And often think
Speaker 1: of it in this way. You've probably heard of like
Speaker 1: the trance theoretical model of change, the stages of change model, right,
Speaker 1: and it posits that there are at least three steps
Speaker 1: before the action step. Right, there's a pre contemplation, there's
Speaker 1: a contemplation, there's a planning, but all of us immediately
Speaker 1: try and jump right into the action step. That is
Speaker 1: so true, which doesn't end well, yeah, because there's no good, coherent,
Speaker 1: structural plan and so you know, having the grandmothers deliver
Speaker 1: that is really valuable. I want to talk for a
Speaker 1: minute about how the grandmothers helped heal you.
Speaker 2: Yes, you know, I shared earlier on about the loss
Speaker 2: of Erica, my patient who took her own life by suicide.
Speaker 2: And I hadn't actually shared Erica's story with anyone. I
Speaker 2: kept it inside me because I was struggling with the guilt,
Speaker 2: you know, and the feelings of imposter syndrome, even after
Speaker 2: I'd started working with the grandma's, you know. But you know,
Speaker 2: over the first year or two of working with the
Speaker 2: first fourteen grandmothers and watching them interacting with clients, I
Speaker 2: began to realize that I needed to open up about
Speaker 2: my own pain, about my own story. And it wasn't
Speaker 2: planned at all. It actually happened one morning when we
Speaker 2: were having a debriefing session, and I write about it
Speaker 2: in the book. So I only started talking about my pain,
Speaker 2: the loss of Eric Carr. And it was the response
Speaker 2: from their grandmothers that really kind of made me realize
Speaker 2: how powerful what they were doing was. Because after I
Speaker 2: shared my story and I cried in front of the grandmothers,
Speaker 2: you know, what they did was they broke down into
Speaker 2: a song. You know, they started to sing this song,
Speaker 2: this soothing, you know, Shana song, each one of those
Speaker 2: fourteen grandmothers just knowing where to place her voice, and
Speaker 2: they sang that song for me, which was almost like
Speaker 2: ten to fifteen minutes. And after that they prayed for me.
Speaker 2: That is all they did.
Speaker 1: Eric.
Speaker 2: They sang and prayed for me while I was in
Speaker 2: the middle them in a sort of circle, and you know,
Speaker 2: it just broke down. But when it was all over,
Speaker 2: I felt this sense of immense relief. And after that
Speaker 2: I was able to share Erica's story and then, you know,
Speaker 2: I subsequently went on to talk about Erica at ted
Speaker 2: in New Orleans. And I think that was only made
Speaker 2: possible because the grandmothers had taught me about, you know,
Speaker 2: the power of being comfortable with being vulnerable in situations
Speaker 2: like that. So yeah, that was really a powerful moment
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 1: We're going to try something here that I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's gonna work, but we're gonna try it. It
Speaker 1: occurs to me that the best way to try this
Speaker 1: would actually be to have the grandmother here and Karen here,
Speaker 1: and we have neither of them. But what I'd like
Speaker 1: to do is I'd like to read a listener question
Speaker 1: that we got. We've recently started taking in some listener
Speaker 1: questions and I'm trying to get them answered in various shows.
Speaker 1: Now again, I think this is only going to be
Speaker 1: so useful because there can't be the back and forth
Speaker 1: that we might want. But I'm going to read the question,
Speaker 1: and I just wonder if you could sort of give
Speaker 1: us a sense of how a grandmother might approach this. Sure, Okay,
Speaker 1: this comes from Karen, and Karen says, about five years ago,
Speaker 1: I divorced from my ex of forty years, and I
Speaker 1: felt liberated and tried loads of new things. However, recently
Speaker 1: I met and fell in love with a married man.
Speaker 1: It was intense for both of us, but it ended
Speaker 1: when he was caught between two lives. He had other
Speaker 1: issues and he took an overdose. He survived, but the
Speaker 1: next day he decided to return to his family and
Speaker 1: immediately cut off all communication with me. Since then, I
Speaker 1: have been completely stuck. I've tried to go back to
Speaker 1: my life and put energy into it, tried to get
Speaker 1: out and about, and it's not working. I feel completely
Speaker 1: without energy and self belief, and I've withdrawn from work.
Speaker 1: I've tried so many things. I've also been doing some therapy,
Speaker 1: and I'm reading a lot, but I'm still really stuck.
Speaker 1: So any suggestions would be extremely helpful.
Speaker 2: If a grandma was listening to this story, the response
Speaker 2: I didn't mention this, but this is something we train
Speaker 2: all our grandmothers to always start off by saying, would
Speaker 2: you like to share your story? So let's say this
Speaker 2: story has been shared yea, As a grandma, I would
Speaker 2: want Karen to tell me more, you know, I would say, Karen,
Speaker 2: I would like you to share more. Start from wherever
Speaker 2: you want to start, but I would like to know
Speaker 2: a little bit more so I can be in a
Speaker 2: better position to help you. So I would then listen
Speaker 2: to Karen. And by listening to Karen, you can see
Speaker 2: where the emphasis is. She might subconscious not know where
Speaker 2: the emphasis should be. But as we tell our stories,
Speaker 2: the areas that are really hurting us the most tend
Speaker 2: to emerge. You tend to see these patterns in the
Speaker 2: story as it's coming out, and we train the grandmothers
Speaker 2: in what we call the rule of three. What are
Speaker 2: the three most salient features of the story that are
Speaker 2: coming out? And so those three most salient features are
Speaker 2: in this case, I wouldn't know what they would be.
Speaker 2: The grandma would at some point then say, if I
Speaker 2: heard you correctly, you are struggling to come to terms
Speaker 2: with this breakup. It's affecting your sleep, it's affecting the
Speaker 2: way you are you're interacting and relating with other people
Speaker 2: in your life. Would you like to share more? And
Speaker 2: you see where it goes. So it's really eric about
Speaker 2: tapping into a story which has not yet been told,
Speaker 2: but it's there inside her Because what she's shared is
Speaker 2: very much the surface. There's a deeper element in those
Speaker 2: different components of a story that need to come out,
Speaker 2: and as it comes out, so does the healing element.
Speaker 2: So I would encourage Karen to share more, you know,
Speaker 2: That's what I would do. The other thing is the
Speaker 2: grandmas don't tell you what to do. Friendship bench is
Speaker 2: not about telling you what to do, but it's about
Speaker 2: unpacking what's happening and you realizing on your own. As
Speaker 2: you unpack, you know, get you hit that aha moment
Speaker 2: and you're like, oh my goodness, this is what it is.
Speaker 2: You know, that's what normally happens. And the other thing
Speaker 2: as well, Before I forget, you know. Apart from doing
Speaker 2: all of that, a grandma would also intuitively ask the
Speaker 2: questions that are part of our screening tools, you know,
Speaker 2: to establish whether Karen is actually struggling with major depression
Speaker 2: or she's you know, struggling to come to terms with
Speaker 2: a loss, but she's notinly depressed. So that's also important.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because there's elements in this story that could point
Speaker 1: towards that. Potentially, if you've sort of grieved the loss,
Speaker 1: but you're really still stuck with no energy, you know,
Speaker 1: no self belief. I'm not saying that Karen is depressed.
Speaker 1: I am certainly I'm not even grandmother level trained, so
Speaker 1: I will stay far away from the DSM five. I
Speaker 1: could say from my own experience, however, that describes often
Speaker 1: for me what depression has looked like. I've dealt with
Speaker 1: the initial thing, but something about that shock sent my
Speaker 1: in my case, my depression prone system into a spiral.
Speaker 1: There is another term that comes out of your language's shona, Shona. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna attempt to say this either, because I'm
Speaker 1: glad I didn't try before, because I was so far
Speaker 1: off it might have been embarrassing. What is thinking too
Speaker 1: much in Shona.
Speaker 2: Thinking too much in Shona is kufungisi.
Speaker 1: I would have been closer on that one. Talk to
Speaker 1: me about why that was part of what the grandmothers
Speaker 1: identified and why that was a key part of the therapy.
Speaker 2: So one of the things that we've done at Friendship Bench,
Speaker 2: you know, as we expanded, you know, we validated screening tools,
Speaker 2: we came up with the most appropriate terms, and the
Speaker 2: whole process of coming up with the term kufungi sisa
Speaker 2: involved not only discussing with the grandmothers but with clients
Speaker 2: as well, you know, to come up with the common
Speaker 2: terms that resonated with both grandmothers and clients. And we
Speaker 2: found that kofungi sisa very often when it was serious,
Speaker 2: severe kufungi sisa I had the elements or symptoms of
Speaker 2: your DSM five criteria for depression. And so that's why
Speaker 2: we shifted to the term kufungi sisa, which resonated with
Speaker 2: with the community. But our kofungi sisa has different levels.
Speaker 2: This kofungi sisa, which is really like your DSM five
Speaker 2: major depression, which needs attention more than just what the
Speaker 2: grandmothers can give, you know, maybe medication and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: but the mild, moderate versions of depression could then be handled.
Speaker 2: So kofungi sisa really is a reflection of how people
Speaker 2: identify the emotional struggles which I guess we could say
Speaker 2: are linked to the DSM five diagnosis or depression and
Speaker 2: anxiety as well, you know, together with ICD ten.
Speaker 1: Yeah, back to your point about the mental health bench
Speaker 1: versus the friendship bench. Terms that resonate with our lived
Speaker 1: experience are always so helpful, you know. I think the
Speaker 1: Western term that we might use for that that I
Speaker 1: know a lot of people listening to the show and
Speaker 1: people I've worked with have identified with, is the term rumination. Right,
Speaker 1: you just going around and round the same thoughts again
Speaker 1: and again. It's not like you're thinking too much novel
Speaker 1: in creative ways. It's just you're thinking about the exact
Speaker 1: same thing again and again and again and again.
Speaker 2: That's exactly what it is. Yeah, you know, and we
Speaker 2: always place a time frame to it as well, you know,
Speaker 2: just like in DSM five, if you had these symptoms
Speaker 2: for more than two weeks, you know, so kufun gi sisa,
Speaker 2: which is like for a day or two, it cannot
Speaker 2: meet diagnostic criteria of DSM five or ICD ten. You know,
Speaker 2: so duration is also important.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like the initial friendship bench lasts, did
Speaker 1: you say six weeks? Yeah, and then you encourage people
Speaker 1: to go into sort of an ongoing support type group.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So what we do is, after the experience on
Speaker 2: the bench, folks are encouraged to join support groups. So
Speaker 2: in essence, you know, it's a little bit like you
Speaker 2: have people who've had the same experience on the bench,
Speaker 2: they've gone through those three levels of opening the mind, uplifting,
Speaker 2: and strengthening. They are then brought together in smaller groups.
Speaker 2: You know, often these are groups of fifteen, twenty maximum
Speaker 2: thirty people in a community, and they then use the
Speaker 2: same skills that they got from the bench to collectively
Speaker 2: address larger issues that they may be facing. But here's
Speaker 2: the beauty of what happens in these circles or support groups.
Speaker 2: Every member of a circle, it's a little bit like AA. Actually,
Speaker 2: every member in the circle has an opportunity to share
Speaker 2: how they're doing and what they're struggling with and what
Speaker 2: they think is a priority issue for them. And so
Speaker 2: each group has what we call it talking piece, so
Speaker 2: only the person who has the talking piece can speak,
Speaker 2: and so after everybody has shared, what then happens in
Speaker 2: these groups is they collectively designed on which problem or
Speaker 2: problems they want to focus on. It can be a
Speaker 2: problem that a single person is facing, or it can
Speaker 2: be a problem that several people are facing, and they
Speaker 2: collectively bring our resources together. They are with them together,
Speaker 2: and sometimes the problem could be something that is financial
Speaker 2: and they all get together to help each other. So
Speaker 2: these support groups have been running for more than ten years,
Speaker 2: you know, some of them, you know, and so it's
Speaker 2: really a powerful way of sustaining the model. After a
Speaker 2: sessions on the bench.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that makes a lot of sense to me,
Speaker 1: because a question I was going to ask and then
Speaker 1: I remembered that you have these support groups was lots
Speaker 1: of people, if I use Western experience, go to a
Speaker 1: therapist six times, and they still got a long way
Speaker 1: to go after the end of those successions. And my
Speaker 1: experience is that true change happens a little bit by
Speaker 1: little bit, right, That's the way most change happens. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that stops a lot of change
Speaker 1: is that we get discouraged part way through or we
Speaker 1: just sort of slide off paying attention to it. And
Speaker 1: so for that reason, you know, support groups or communities
Speaker 1: of practice or different things like that are real ways
Speaker 1: to in essence, keep going, keep making improvement beyond just
Speaker 1: working with a therapist. And one of the things I've
Speaker 1: thought that I found in my own life is really
Speaker 1: interesting is I have had a fair amount of healing
Speaker 1: that has happened by talking to a trained therapist. I
Speaker 1: have probably now not probably, I have definitely had more
Speaker 1: healing happen in group dynamics. There is something about that
Speaker 1: that a lot of us don't want because we're nervous
Speaker 1: about it. But my experience has been it's incredibly powerful
Speaker 1: to have that group dynamic. It brings something else to
Speaker 1: the table that you don't get when you're just talking
Speaker 1: with one other person.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that is that is so so true. What
Speaker 2: I think happens, That is what I've observed at Friendship
Speaker 2: Bench is it helps to build that sense of community,
Speaker 2: that sense of belonging, which is so powerful. When you
Speaker 2: have that sense of belonging, you then get hope. Yeap,
Speaker 2: you know you have hope.
Speaker 1: I just want to read a sentence to you and
Speaker 1: let you reflect on it as a way of heading
Speaker 1: out of here. You say, at the core of the
Speaker 1: model is anchored in the power of storytelling, which we've
Speaker 1: talked about to transform us from the inside out, and
Speaker 1: the belief about empathetic presence. But this is what I love.
Speaker 1: It says it can create a ripple effect of healing,
Speaker 1: beauty and goodness. Say anything you would like in response
Speaker 1: to that as a way of wrapping.
Speaker 2: Up well in essence, that makes us comfortable with feeling
Speaker 2: vulnerable in the presence of other people. And that's really
Speaker 2: sort of the foundational healing.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful, and there is no doubt that what you've
Speaker 1: done has created a ripple effect of healing, beauty and
Speaker 1: goodness and addressing a problem that our world really does have,
Speaker 1: which is lack of availability to getting help with our struggles.
Speaker 1: And so it's a beautiful thing you've done. And I
Speaker 1: genuinely appreciate you joining us on the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me, Eric, Thank you very much.
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