Service Design
Case: The Pilgrimage
Client: A Texas-Based, Multi-Level Addiction Recovery Network
We created a year-long, life-as-laboratory path toward growth that enables those in recovery to begin practicing the psychological skills of a recovered person.
The Story of The Pilgrimage
How it all began ...
Our work with this organization began in earnest when the addiction network’s Clinical Director trained with us as a THE HUMAN JOURNEY® Conductor. He so liked our work on group dynamics and human growth that he sent his addiction counselors who lead inpatient support groups to train with us, too.
This multilevel addiction treatment organization then wanted to bring us in to create an integrated set of recovery experiences across its inpatient and outpatient addiction treatment centers. They’d experienced firsthand what we’d achieved with THE HUMAN JOURNEY® and wanted us to bring our active engagement, psychospiritual learning, and total experience design to their work with people recovering from addiction.
How we worked together ...
Our client wanted something to help those recovering from substance addiction build the insight and the social skills that have proven key to sustained recovery.
We came up with the idea of a calendared set of themes, a set of three “seasons” over the course of a year (each consisting of approximately four months) that corresponded to what effectively are three seasons of weather in this region of Texas. We called these four-month seasons “Cuatros.” The Cuatros incorporated our client’s belief in the healing power of nature with our expertise in the social learning and expression. We also utilized in the design the unique resources of the client’s residential inpatient center on the site of a restored rural bed and breakfast complex.
What it led to ...
The Pilgrimage is a year-long suite of core and weekly psychosocial and spiritual growth experiences that, using best practices in adult learning, puts the “Sojourner” in charge of what they learn and when.
In the course of engaging with The Pilgrimage, people in recovery can pick up and practice some of the essential personal habits and interpersonal skills that are characteristically practiced more easily by those without addictions.
It engages the senses, multiple learning styles, and active engagement with critical content that ingeniously incorporates adventure- and arts-based learning within the metaphor of the archetypal pilgrimage we all take to become whole.
The program has allowed our client to achieve consistency across the entire continuum of care under their organization’s umbrella so that patients can pick up the program seamlessly as they move along the recovery arc. It thus circumvents one of the danger zones of recovery — the loss of progress as patients transition, and potentially drop out, between levels of care.
What this could mean for you
Sometimes you know only what kind of effect you want to have on your audience. We’re experts in framing the questions and creating the solutions that meet every criterion with freshness and delight and give us a truly successful outcome.
Talk with us about what you see for your institution. Let’s see what we can dream up and do together.
We create memorable and utterly distinctive client, patient, staff, and customer experiences, branded to your organization and keen on learning, growth, and behavioral and perceptual shifts.
Dr. Schneider steeped herself in our culture. A very, very different way of doing consulting.
She has created a felt experience that transforms our patients.
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Dr. Schneider steeped herself in our culture. A very, very different way of doing consulting.
She has created a felt experience that transforms our patients.