Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.

Virgil’s Aeneid, Book II, line 49, which translates “I fear the Greeks, even when bearing gifts” (a reference to the Trojan Horse).

Hi

On Friday November 16^th we held the third follow-up meeting for the Educational Retreat. This was originally to be the 6^th but was postponed due to Nancy Pena falling ill. Fortunately Nancy is better now. DISCLAIMER: These notes represent my own experience and are not to be considered ‘official minutes’.

1.   Meeting.  Present were Barry Fultonberg, Karen Conrotto, Phil Winn, Alma-Alicia Castillo, and Tom Jurgensen from the Office of Client Empowerment, and also myself, Stephen Blum, Director of Student Relations at C.S.P.P./Alliant Univ. (by speakerphone), and M.H. Director Nancy Pena.
2.   Agenda.  I presented the following agenda and also my report on the previous meeting, hornets’ nest. I also presented an article, attack politics, which I had posted to S-ACC (the Social Accountability list) recently. (See the E.R. Follow-Up website.)
   
   The agenda read:
   

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   1. Direction of Follow-Up Committee
      • Nancy — Work Program
      • Andrew — Work on Client Coalition
      
      
   2. Our Vision & Insight into the Process

      Go around and ask each person how we ought to proceed

   3. Design of Work Process

      How to divide up the labor for the different venues?
      How do we connect to the expectations of the people in the different venues?

   4. Set next meeting

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3.   Prep.  My Latin stopped after the 2^nd year (Caesar) and I never got to the 3^rd year (Cicero) let alone the 4^th (Virgil). Recently I did get a notice that my high school Latin teacher had died at the age of 107. In despite of this deficiency, I tried to prepare the grounds for this meeting as best I could. The morning of the meeting, I met with Stephen Blum at CSPP in Alameda (now: Alliant University). Stephen had missed the Retreat due to family emergency, and this was the first time we met since. I grok it was also the first time since that we communicated at a really productive level. And .. while I was waiting for Stephen, I ran into Phil Cushman, and we also talked for about 15 minutes. I talked with him about my Vision for developing the discipline of client psychology, and we agreed to continue that discussion.
4.   Trust.  I had met with Nancy earlier regarding the work of this committee. I had suggested that one way to overcome the impacted condition of the committee’s work would be if we presented the agenda jointly at this meeting. In fact though this didn’t work out, and in the end the agenda was mine alone — however much it was also a reflection of what she said she wanted.
5.   Forum.  Just prior to this meeting, the California Network of Mental Health Clients held its annual convention (‘Forum’) in neighboring San Mateo County. The Santa Clara County Clients Network did a workshop there on the Educational Retreat, under the able direction of Tom Jurgensen. I helped negotiate this, and I was also able to wangle at the last moment an invite for Nancy Pena, to give a welcoming speech there. Unfortunately her illness prevented her from coming.  :-(
6.   Hornets.  Like I said before, the problem of approaching the Follow-Up as a social change agenda is deeper than people initially realized (including myself, BTW). I reflect on a comment by Jaime Lopez (Director, Family & Children’s Services Division): He said (my paraphrase), “If ‘dialogue’ comes to mean the families and clients taking out their rage on the staff, this won’t do.” Be that as it may, I posed the initial item on the agenda as Nancy’s presentation on how to proceed, being mindful of this complexity, to be followed by mine.
7.   Program.  Nancy said that this was a “Rocky Road,” that the last meeting, on October 16^th, was “not an easy meeting.” She said (or my notes paraphrase her as saying) that there was “still a need to be on the same page” regarding “continued support of consumer involvement in the system.” Her concern was, “Can we all get enough on the same page?”
8.   Change.  I said that I had come to Santa Clara County not with the general goal of “promoting client empowerment” but with the more focused view of doing so in a way that is based on respect. I discussed the traumatic impact of the February 6^th, 1998 Vision and Self-Help Conference, sponsored by then County PRA [MHAP Directing Attorney] Kyra Kazantzis. I said that I was in the “Marcia Donovan” school regarding the interpretation of this event. [Marcia FYI is the client to whom Kyra attributed the idea for this event, but who dropped out of the organizing due to the ‘attack politics’ character of the process.] Of course that conference was a meaningful experience for many, it’s just that I saw the Educational Retreat as leading in the direction of more elevated client social relations. I said that a principled advocacy against attack politics among the clients was where I am at, and the basis on which I intended to help organize the Follow-Up. Are things ‘same-old, same-old’, or is there to be a work program for moving the system over to one based on dialogue?
9.   Dialogue.  Apparently my advocacy was not all that well understood (or not all that well prepared). We discussed the matter of triggering and the kind of dialogical breakdown that happens between providers and clients. I said that in ten (10) years, the administrators “will have clearly” the notion that this is a flash point to which they must attend carefully, but that such is scarcely true today. Sometimes what appears to be a ‘personality conflict’ between clients is an illusion (irrational conclusion) of providers which reflects the ideology of conventional psychology. I believe I was speaking to the direction we must go if we are to do the detailed work of the Follow-Up meaningfully. So anyway for whatever reason (could it be not having studied Virgil?) I did not know how to carry this argument. I got caught in a rhetorical conundrum (‘Cicero problem’) and was challenged with defying a direct instruction from my supervisor (‘Virgil problem’). This did not appear to be a seemly way to go, so I quit.
10.   Reflections.  On this day, there was not the will for social change that is required to move the Follow-Up agenda. Is there the knowledge, or the capacity, to do so? I still think so. Anyway, the committee discussed the awkward turn of affairs at some length. Stephen offered whatever help he could provide in the matter. Nobody at all seemed happy with the outcome. Where will this go? That is now to be seen as an open question.

Respectfully

Andrew Phelps