What Makes Us Unique
Highly Individualized Support
We see our clients as unique individuals – whole people with strengths and challenges, yet fundamentally healthy and sane.
- We customize our levels of support depending on what is needed, which can be increased or decreased.
- Clients work with their team to help design their own treatment depending on their individual goals.
- We offer optional daily group activities, so clients can choose when and how they interact with the larger Windhorse community.
Prospective Clients
Many professionals, agencies, and hospitals refer clients to us whose needs are not met by traditional therapeutic programs.
Our approach could be helpful for those who:
- Want to experience home-based support tailored to their needs
- Need a structured, step-down from an inpatient or residential program
- Prefer a non-institutional therapeutic setting
- Have had challenges making successful attachments to other programs or therapies
- Desire family involvement in their long-term treatment planning
- Want to explore their sexual and gender identities together with their social locations
- Have curiosity about mindfulness practices
Who Do We Serve?
We generally work with adults, age 18 and over. Our approach is particularly effective for complex and high-acuity mental health challenges, which can include:
- Psychosis
- Schizophrenia
- Bipolar disorder
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Autism spectrum disorder
- ADHD
- Personality disorders
- Trauma/PTSD
- Complex co-occurring disorders
- Unique family challenges
There is something magical, something hard to name, that happened in my Windhorse team. It had to do with connections created through gentle attentiveness and genuine care in the midst of, what for me was, a time of disconnection and extreme despair.
Treatment for Psychosis
Windhorse was originally founded to help people experiencing psychosis, delusions and spiritual emergencies. We are familiar with working with clients who have alternative narratives about reality. Our contemplative and relational approach helps clients relax and feel seen even during an extreme state of mind. We try to meet people where they are, and then we bring them along through various skills of attending to their lives and environment. Many of the approaches we use are described in the book “Recovering Sanity: A Compassionate Approach to Understanding and Treating Psychosis” by Edward M. Podvoll, M.D. We are comfortable sitting with people who are going through a psychotic episode, and in cases where a short hospital stay is needed, we provide continuity and support before, during, and after. We often find that after establishing a Windhorse team, someone who used to go in and out of the hospital regularly no longer needs that higher level of care.
History of Sanity: Reconnecting with Roots of Health
The mental health world has historically been driven by the medical model and differential diagnosis—and in the past 50 years by pharmacy and insurance companies. Simply put, the medical model compels the doctor to diagnose the condition accurately. This medical paradigm has had a powerful influence on mental health clinicians as well, often resulting in therapists seeing their patients (consciously, but usually unconsciously) as a series of diagnoses with a long history of failures, disappointments, and traumas. When meeting a new Windhorse client for the first time, we make a practiced effort to see and ask about their history of sanity. There are a variety of examples where a person’s history of sanity may appear, including areas of unique intelligence, creativity, humor, work successes, academic or intellectual achievements, athletic pursuits that have carried over into current disciplines, and relationship triumphs. Although we do pay attention to psychiatric diagnoses, we value and prioritize overall strengths and passions that an individual has cultivated throughout their lifetime. Having the conversation about one’s history of sanity naturally brings a sense of respect for who they know themselves to be.
We Welcome Clients from Around the Country
We frequently help clients move to Boulder from out of state, working collaboratively with them to establish a new home. The client lives in their own apartment, sometimes with a therapeutic housemate hired by Windhorse. If they have the goal of going back to college, the University of Colorado, Naropa University and Front Range Community College are all nearby.