Healing from Depression and Psychiatric Medication with Community

Dr. Kelly Brogan: Hi, everyone. I have the deep pleasure to spend a couple of minutes here today with Beatrice Birch who is the founder and board president of an incredible place I just recently learned about called Inner Fire.

I have thinking about it pretty much non-stop since I learned about it. I couldn’t be more excited to bring into your awareness what this incredible woman has created.

I want to tell you a little bit about her. I want to tell you about the space that she has manifested. I want to really brainstorm about what’s possible from this launching pad.

Beatrice, as I’ve mentioned, is the Inner Fire founder and board president. She has worked as a Haushka Artistic therapist for more than 30 years in integrative clinics and inspiring initiatives in England, Holland and the U.S. where, of course, the whole human being of body, soul and spirit was recognized and embraced in the healing process.

And this is so much where our work overlaps. I remember reading her work and thinking, “I already love this woman.”

She has lectured and taught as far as Taiwan. And her passionate beliefs in both the creative spirit within everyone and the importance of choice—I want to talk about that—along with her love and interest in the human being that has been taken into prisons where she has volunteered for many years offering soul support through Alternatives to Violence work and watercolor painting.

So Beatrice, welcome!

Beatrice Birch: Thank you very much, Kelly.

Dr. Kelly: Absolutely! I want to dive right in, and I want to talk about how it is that we can meet in this space.

We recently chatted. How is it that we can meet in this space of complementarity and synergy, but have come from such different places? You sound like you were enlightened in the womb or something. You just came out this way. And everyone listening probably has some idea that I am a newbie to the truth in many ways.

So, tell us a bit about how it is that you’ve come to feel convinced that helping this population of those struggling and suffering through different stages of their lives—having been labeled as mentally ill, having been marginalized societally—how did you know that this is what you were meant to do?

And how did you come to the conclusions that you seem to have come to which is that there’s a lot more to the story of healing than just the prescription?

Beatrice: Yeah, I love your questions, Kelly.

I think when it comes down to it, it has to do with my view of the human being. We are not victims. We certainly can feel like victims at times. But in fact, we’re creators.

We have choice which the animal kingdom does not have. And if you can see in our society nowadays, everything is being reduced.

So, for instance, when I hear people talk about mental health, it’s a reductionist view for soul health.

And it’s very interesting. Having worked for so many years with the Haushka Artistic Therapy, you are always looking for the creator in the person. And once they can tap into going into a realm, some people who have never painted before—it’s a very, very vulnerable realm even for artists who I’ve worked with therapeutically who would say to themselves, “I really am an artist. I know I should be able to do this,” but we’re working on a whole different part of ourselves.

So, it’s about freeing ourselves from a spell that we’ve allowed ourselves to be put under—you could say in a way.

And how I got to do this—you know, Kelly, if you had met me 20 years ago or 15 years ago and mentioned me doing something like this, I might have looked at you as if, “Do you know something I don’t know?” because it was not in my plan—not that I have that, a life plan. They don’t work anyway. Life is just throwing you some curve balls.

But really, it was when I was working at a rehab in

, the people there had noticed that the individuals that I worked with really began to change in many ways. I know that had to do with the fact that I was meeting them as

human beings, not as labels. And even that in itself called up something in them.

And then, I started getting individuals coming to me and standing in front of me saying, “I hate being medicated. Isn’t there a choice?”

I was put in a position where I would have to lie and say, “No. Here, take your meds” or actually say, “You do have a choice.”

Dr. Kelly: Because you intuitively knew that to be the case, that there was a choice?

Beatrice: Oh, totally, totally. But see, for many here working in such practices in Europe, we never medicated people. They came in with all different kinds of situations. But first of all, the therapies that they would get involved with their medical and therapeutic centers I was in all had to do with awakening their will to engage.

I say to people, “You know, you can become addicted, to cocaine, to yard sales, to therapists. It doesn’t matter what it is. And that’s not leaving a person free.” And I think as therapists or whatever, we have to be very careful that we leave the person free.

And that could be very tricky when their finance is involved. Having a steady income is great, but that’s not serving.

So, anyway… and then, Kelly, these wonderful people who were asking me, some of them would end up leaving this program where I was working. And within three years, I hear of them committing suicide. And having worked with them deeply—some of them, we’d put on more and more meds while at this place.

And eventually, after the sixth person committed suicide, I said to my husband, “Enough! Enough.” I looked for something, which I felt would serve these people in their life journey.

I couldn’t find anything, so it’s like, “Enough talk, let’s do this.”

Dr. Kelly: I love that. Literally, you could trace back to when I first started blogging, which was a couple of years ago. You can find quotes from me where I say, “I have a dream” really like Martin Luther King level.

I have a dream of a safe place where there is organic food, where there is a means of meeting people’s spirit where we can honor all of these ancient healing practices. And then, let’s see how people do. How about we never medicate them and we just bring them to this space and we see what happens?

But to my knowledge, it didn’t exist.

I have known of one such facility in Australia. I have never heard of one in America. I never knew that it existed.

So, for me to learn about your program (which I wanted to really describe for people what the experience is there), it’s just literally like a dream come true for me.

So, you’re really preaching to the converted already! It’s so necessary to create this community-based healing experience for people who are in need of that level of support.

And obviously, you’ll agree that not everybody is. But what it is that you’re presenting people with is a choice… and I love that choice.

It’s really an informed consent. It’s really bringing the full palette of what’s available to each and every patient.

So, tell us what the choice is in your estimation. There is, of course, the conventional model, which is that “You were probably born with this disease. It needs to be chemically managed. You would be really reckless, if not irresponsible, to not take your medication. And unfortunately, you have to do that for the rest of your life.”

So that’s one choice.  And there’s a philosophy, of course, underlying that which is that the body and the mind can break and that they need help from the outside.

But you embody something quite different.

Beatrice: And actually, Kelly, what’s really important is for people to know it’s not theory. It is not a nice idea. It’s a reality. I had seen this from 35 years of practice.

What happens with these meds is that the spirit cannot enter the body. The soul has been, either through trauma, contrast and you get stuck in the in-breath as a soul gesture where you can’t breathe out. You’re afraid that “if I breathe out, I’m afraid of letting go because I will fall apart.” We know that. We say that to ourselves, yeah?

Or if I’ve been abused from an early age, I am going to get out of this body as far as I can.

So, how do we help through the therapies, through the practical work (which is what we do here)? We get us out of our head.

In my experience, psychosis arises when we get stuck in our head. Listen to how we laugh? When was the last time you had a belly laugh—and really laugh? It’s always the hi-hi-hi laugh.

And definitely, at Inner Fire, everyone knows you’re allowed to cry. Crying is a way of letting go, of breathing out.

So, it’s all about helping to what the soul needs to begin to breathe again, and from there, to come in from the perimeters, from the periphery or to breathe out from the center, to let go, so that we can enter and do the work we need to do in this world.

It totally is a load of rubbish that we were born with bad brain chemistry. As any intelligent person knows, we have no idea. The brain is more complicated than the universe. And it’s totally rubbish. I’m sorry.

It’s very interesting, Kelly, I have to really persuade people that may come here, I say to them “your soul informs your brain.” As long as they tell people it’s the brain, it’s like, “Hands off! No one understands the brain.” So, as long as you tell people, “It’s your brain,” then you have them in the palm of your hand.

Dr. Kelly: That’s right.

Beatrice: And it’s all true. And if we begin to work on this deeper soul level—

For instance, in the mornings, we have first of all, the rhythm at Inner Fire is very important. Establish a rhythm. You can think, “When there’s order, there’s freedom.” If we have a chaotic outer life, it is very difficult to have an inner life of substance.

And so everyone knows, first of all, there’s no smoking, there’s no computer, there’s no cellphone access.

Even last night, we’re saying here, “I would love to listen to some music as I wash the dishes” and the guy that evening, yesterday evening, said, “Well, why not sing?”

She ended up singing these beautiful Joni Mitchell songs. And everyone started singing with her.

So, we create it.

And so, for instance, you start in the morning, you come to breakfast by seven. And then, after seven, you do the washing up. And then we go for a walk. We go out into nature. It doesn’t matter what the weather is. That’s like our soul lives—sometimes it’s rainy, sometimes it’s cold, sometimes it’s hot. It doesn’t matter. We go out.

And then, we come back and we have what we call the “morning circle” where we touch in, and then, very, very important, what are we grateful for.

We can get so wrapped up in ourselves and the challenges we’re going through, that we forget to be grateful.

Dr. Kelly: Absolutely!

Beatrice: And then, we like to go out and work out in the garden. And then, of course, we’re in the kitchen where they learn how to cook properly. And we focus on the GAPS diet, which is high protein and fat, organic. And to be honest, we have a 5-star restaurant here. You can’t get better.

And of course, in Vermont, there’s so much locally-grown. We have people down the road who grow grass-fed whatever it is. It’s not vegetarian (even though I am vegetarian).

And then, also learning how to clean a house properly, to give back to this shelter.

And then, in the afternoon, we have lunch and rest time for an hour.

Three days of the week, people receive a liver compress. Our liver is the organ that deals with toxins as you know. And it likes bitter. So, the bitter herbs, the yarrow, is the herb we use to put a compress on the liver.  And then, the person is swaddled.

That can be very tricky at first. But everyone eventually settles into it and really appreciates this experience of being cared for very simply.

And then, they sleep sometimes during the middle of the day. And then, at 2 o’clock, they get up and they go to either movement therapy, speech. We have movement therapy known as eurythmy or spatial dynamics. There’s also the speech arts, which is not the traditional speech therapy. It’s quite remarkable what happens with that. And then, I continue to do the artistic therapy using either clay or watercolor or pastel depending on the person’s personal situation.

So, everyone is very uniquely met. And then, after the therapies in the afternoon, then we also have something biographical which is a wonderful way to look at your life, it comes in patterns, that it’s not whether it’s good or bad, easy or hard. It’s not black or white. There are so many nuances in life. And to be honest, to be a human being is complicated.

And the pharmaceutical realm would have us all like robots, having no feelings whatsoever. And if we do, it’s wrong… which is, again, a load of rubbish.

Dr. Kelly: I’ll never get over the fact that tearfulness is literally a symptom. It’s literally considered a pathological symptom. One of our most primal expressions in healing soul-based experiences is literally considered by psychiatry to be a pathology.

It’s an amazing statement about how far-flung we have become.

Beatrice: Totally! And you must find this, Kelly, too. When you really go back to when did this begin, it could’ve been—one person was saying when his father was going into triple bypass surgery, he was feeling sad. And his father didn’t know how to handle it, so he sent him to a psychiatrist.

Dr. Kelly: Amazing!

Beatrice: And he’s been medicated ever since. This man was sad, a young boy. He was sad. He was worried.

But I have so many stories like this. It’s like, “This person was unhappy. How can we support people?”  Instead, we don’t. We just medicate.

And as you well know, one medication leads to another leads to another. And then, the chemistry in your brain changes for sure.

But the beautiful thing is as people—you have to be here at Inner Fire for three weeks before you even begin to taper. And then, we have a psychiatrist who is wonderful in helping design the tapering process.

And of course, the experiences of coming off these meds is horrific. And I think one just has to accept, it is going to be hell, it is. So, let’s take note and see what happens as you do it. But keep going. Staying engaged is the key thing.

Dr. Kelly: That’s the birth canal. That’s the birth canal.

So, I interrupted you because you were painting this. I felt healed just listening to the schedule. So, we’re at 2 o’clock. I want to talk about the rest of the day.

Beatrice: Okay, thank you. Then we have therapies until six. And also, during that time, they would use the infrared sauna, particularly in the winter months, as a way of detoxing. And then, each night of the week, they have a different activity.

So, Mondays is an evening that I carry where we have an appreciation evening, which is where you go around the circle and you say what you appreciate about each person. And then, very importantly, and the most difficult at all typically is what I appreciate about myself.

And then, you also have a chance to share if you have an apology to make to somebody.

We’re a small community. We can step on each other’s toes, but that’s life. Maybe I was impatient with you three weeks ago, Kelly, and I’ve been carrying it and I want to say I’m sorry.

Now, it’s not the time to discuss it to work through, but it’s a bit like claiming your voice.

And then, we also have a chance to share if I have been hurt. I might say, “When you didn’t wake me for the walk, I felt left behind, and it made me feel vulnerable.”

Now, again, we don’t talk about the details, but just laying it there. And then, people might sort it out afterwards.

And then, Tuesday nights, we need a biography. That might take a few months or so. But it’s important to listen to other people’s stories and to see that being a human being, as I’ve mentioned, has ups and downs. How did this person get through it, but they did. You see?

And then, Wednesdays, we have drumming. And also, I have a musician who comes and works with us. He also plays the kora. So, up until

people are just simply listening to this beautiful West African instrument. And so you’re just breathing in this music.

And then Thursdays, we have singing. And Fridays, we have knitting. That’s for about an hour and a half after supper.

And then, they go home, go back to their rooms.

And on weekends, Saturday or Sunday, they clean their own rooms. And then, they always have a hike. And in the evenings, Saturdays and Sundays, they’re out hiking in the afternoons in all weather. We’ve never had a seeker who complains about that.

And then, there are different sorts of activities in the evening. They can do yoga. They can just journal. They can play games. It’s a bit freer. There is a formed group, but it’s a bit freer.

But I’d like to mention, Kelly, why we call people “seekers.”

Dr. Kelly: I was just going to ask. Yes, please.

Beatrice: So, for many years, I’ve worked in maximum and medium security prisons as a volunteer. I used to say to the guys, “You all want to get out, but I’m coming in.” And I did because you really meet so deeply in ways that we rarely are able to meet in our busy lives outside.

But one day, a young man named Ian came to me and said, “I was trying to write to a friend on the outside about this art class.” (I was painting watercolor paintings with them.) He said, “It was so hard to describe what happens in this class. Eventually, I wrote to my friend, ‘It’s an art class, but it’s really a spiritual class.’”

And then, he said to me, “This is what I was looking for on the outside. Isn’t it strange I had to come to prison to find it?”

And I thought, “Oh, my God!” I thought, “You are a seeker. You are looking for something more than this fast-paced, superficial, materialistic life.”

And so, when Inner Fire was being formed, I thought, “Well, what are we going to call people who come here. I’m not going to call them clients or patients.” I thought, “We’ll call them ‘seekers’ because they are searching.” They are wanting. And seeking is a verb. To be a seeker is a good thing.

And when one man turned up and he spoke to me about his life for an interview, he began by saying, “Well, I’m schizo and this and this…” I listened for a little bit and I said, “You know, I’m not actually interested in your label. I’m much more interested in who you are and what are you looking for.”

And then I said, “Actually, we call people seekers who come here.” And you’re going to see in almost everybody there’s a sudden flash in their eye as if “I’m not a label? I’m actually a striving human being?”

Dr. Kelly: Yeah, it’s a rejuvenation, absolutely.

Beatrice: It is an amazing experience. And it is a birthing as you just said. They’ve been given a physical birth by their mothers, but now they birth themselves. All of us, the guys in practice here, the men and women here, we’re really like midwives. They have to do the work. They have to do the breathing. They have to keep themselves engaged. We can’t do that for them.

And when you’re used to taking pills, that can be something that takes a while to get used to. Actually, it’s your work, but we’ll help you.

And I’m also a gardener. And with one man, I picture it was as if he was wrapped so tight as a rose bud when he came. And as time went on, it’s as if these petals began to open and out he began to rise, above the husk that held him tight. He became quite exposed.

That can be scary, but he’s only blossoming because he’s ready. He came there to let go of these protective layers and come out. The real person begins to stand up.

And there are moments here because you’re allowed to scream and shout. People say, “This is the first place I ever felt safe.” They know we’re not going to send them to a hospital. They can cry. They can go outside and scream. We’re on a dead-end

, so you can scream if you need to scream and scream. Just be engaged, you see.

So, it’s a total honor. It’s remarkable to see what I would call the resilience of the human spirit. And even though you’ve been meditating for all these years, you can blossom. You can blossom as we give that human spirit the opportunity to get out from under these meds. It’s remarkable what happens, Kelly. It’s totally remarkable.

And every time somebody walks through the door, you know what’s going to happen.

Dr. Kelly: I just said that to a patient this morning. When we begin the process, as much as there might be some apprehension, I feel this inner, kinetic experience. I can’t wait to see what’s coming. Truly, it’s something that you can’t envision from the starting point, and that’s, by definition, why it’s so glorious.

When you can secure your life, all the control variables and you think, as you’ve said, that you have your plan laid out and you’ve gotten your mental illness under control, you know where your doctor is and you take your prescriptions to CVS, you just got to go to work and punch the clock, then the future is really rather binary. It’s good things that happen or bad things that happen. And you’re doing your best to make more good things happen, right?

But when you move through this process and you have this awakening—which you and I would both acknowledge is really, in many ways, facilitated by the withdrawal process from these meditations. It’s the journey they had to go on to wake up—the future becomes this incredible blinding with all of its possibilities.

You had no idea. You can’t even envision what’s possible. It’s freedom. It really is the truest sense of freedom and wonder.

So, it’s so amazing for me to interact with someone who has seen this first-hand because, as you know, it’s quite rare. It’s the most incredible human experience that is being made available.

I think what’s amazing about your program, just listening to the schedule itself, I was reflecting on how, essentially, what you’ve done is re-creating an ancestral life experience.

There’s not any real bells and whistles so to speak beyond the way people used to live in community—with music, with expression, with ritual, with the inclusion of grief, working their bodies, committing to a relationship to their environment.

This is how we used to live.  We’ve just come so far from that that, thankfully, we have people like you to remind us exactly what that looks like.

Beatrice: And see, Kelly, also, as I often say to people, this is not rocket science—it’s not. We actually practice and use the L-word, love.

Love is the main ingredient here. We’re interested in each other. We believe in each other.

But it’s also important to say that after 15 or 20 years of being medicated, as one seeker said to me, “I don’t know who I’m going to find when I come off. Who am I?”

And I love to stir them right to rage. You should be rageful, you should be. It’s not that you should be, but it’s understandable if you are.

Dr. Kelly: It’s a stage, yeah. It’s a stage.

Beatrice: Yeah. But rage, their anger, is blocked creative energy, you see? So, acknowledge it, and then shift it, move it. And when you begin to see—

And that’s why with all the activities that happen here—and there is also breathing, Kelly. If you can imagine, in the mornings, we’re working in community with others. We’re doing for the broader community. It’s more like a breathing out—a giving, a helping, aware of the other.

Then you’d have the in-breath in the afternoon when you come to yourself.

So, there’s this working with the soul, this breathing—breathing out, breathing in, in our daily activity, you see.

Just look at our education system. What are we doing to our children? We’re asking them to sit for six hours a day. That’s not what childhood is about. Childhood is activity and exploration. But that’s a huge subject.

Dr. Kelly: We’re going to have to talk all year, I know.

But these are the foundational tenets. These are the beliefs that inform your conviction that there is another choice for these people. And you’ve made this choice available to, already over the year, a broad range of people with testimonials that are tear-inducing.

I have to believe that the people who can and must heal through this work will find their way once they know that this is a choice (which is of course why I wanted to speak to you). So, maybe you can talk to us just a bit about the logistics if there’s someone watching or listening who wonders if this might be for them, for someone they love.

And then, it’s my deep belief that I am here to help support what it is that you’re doing. And I want to make sure that everyone knows how to support you as well and what you need to succeed because I would love to see a whole network of Inner Fires around the world. And I believe we will get there because there’s never been more need and also receptivity, I think, to this kind of simple, powerful, profound message.

Beatrice: Well, I should also emphasize—because sometimes, I don’t get it across clearly enough—I would say it’s not that I’m anti-meds. If you’re happy on meds, that’s not my business. It’s not my business. But I’m pro-choice.

And for people to take their lives because they’re not aware there’s a choice, that simply is wrong.

So, the Inner Fire is really for anybody 18 years and older who want to come off meds. And unfortunately, we do have a cost, it’s private pay. I would love it to be otherwise. I am in conversation with the state of Vermont about whether they would support five seekers a year because I do believe healing is a right and not a privilege.

And when I left New York City where I used to live and worked in the precincts, I really hated leaving these men. And I thought an Inner Fire must be available for them and not that they see it as the place where rich, white people go to.

So, that is a very, very deep process. We had seekers, one seeker whose mother was amazing in how she was able to raise the money. It costs $135,000 for the year. Some people say, “That’s nothing compared to other places.”

And our program is so much richer and so much more intentional. We don’t do anything to keep people busy or to buy the time.

As a new seeker who’s going to join us in January said when he came to visit the other day, he said, “Now, I know what it means to communicate as human beings.”

The conversations between the seekers here are remarkable. It is so remarkable how they meet.

And another wonderful quote he gave was when the seekers were talking about being normal, this man said, “Normal is a setting on the washing machine.” I love that. I said, “So perfect!”

So, it is the question. I get phone calls and emails from all over the world from people who were just so glad.

And it means a lot to me. We’re pioneering. There isn’t another initiative like this in this country. I would love for there to be more and more, but we’ve got to get this one established as a mother, and then for sure go out and help establish other ones.

And then, there are some wonderful people who will phone, and then they ask me the question how much is it. It’s like, “Well, to be honest, I don’t want to tell you.” It is very hard for me to say, “I don’t want money to be the reason for you not to come, but yet we as a people who are working here volunteered. And they’ve left good jobs with benefits to work here because they believe in this.”

So, nobody’s getting rich by working here.

So, we have what we call a Support-a-Seeker fund.

There was this one woman who lost a son to suicide because he didn’t know there was a choice. She made a donation to the fund to give somebody else the opportunity her son never had.

So, there’s that population of people who have lost loved ones. But if people would donate to this fund, and then someone who could never imagine coming to the Inner Fire could come.

And eventually, we hope that no one has to pay. That we’ll have such a big jackpot, a pot of gold, so to speak, that we can just go from there. It should be a right.

And then, on the other hand, in the field above the farmhouse where I’m sitting now, we have beautiful plans for a home. And the home would be for 12 seekers.

And so, we’ve raised around $500,000. We need another eight. We’re starting to build the foundation this spring after mud season

And so then, hopefully, we’ll be able to have everybody in one building which would be really helpful.

And at the moment, the seekers are also busy building a greenhouse. We’ve got some garden-sowing and someone up in the fields. So we’re already up there.

So, donations to support that

I have this huge realization somebody is just going to one day pull out an $8000 check and say, “Oh, for God’s sake, just get on with it.”

Dr. Kelly: I can’t think of a more meaningful, philanthropic effort just so you could see in real time the effects. And as you and I both know, every person that heals has a resonant effect on literally the entire planet in this particular way.

And then I think about the days that I spent at in-patient psych units as a trainee and attending and thinking about what the tens of thousands of dollars they cost to keep a patient in the hospital, in a cage basically, there’s just a deep injustice in that of course because it’s just a revolving door of dependency where as you’re graduating people from this program and they’re flying from the nest on their own forever.

Beatrice: Kelly, we’re $375 a day. The state pays nearby at a residential home $836 a day. And nothing happens. They’re just maintained.

I say to the state, “You’ll be saving money. While people come off their meds, they come off their disability, they’ll eventually re-engage in life as tax-paying citizens. How can you lose?”

I see also Inner Fire as like just a homeopathic drop. We’re only a drop in the ocean, but we’re potentized. That’s all I can say. We’re a drop, but it spreads, it spreads.

And the time is so right. I say to others, “You work with the politics. I’ll work with the people in the meantime.”

And at the moment, we can only have six people. Hopefully, we’ll have 12. And I’d love to work with people who are coming from war with awful, awful experiences, so they have time to digest, with people from prison, anywhere. We’re open for all people regardless of their religion, their race, whatever. I want us to meet simply in our humanity to support each other.

Dr. Kelly: So beautiful! You’re such an inspiration. I’m so honored to spread the word and to just make people aware that this kind of healing is possible because I think that, sometimes, the greatest service is just to create, as you’ve said, the awareness of the choice, the possibility.

So, thank you so much for everything you do, for your time today. We’ll make sure people have the links available. We’ll take it from there, how we go.

Beatrice: Hey, Kelly, I must say it’s such a pleasure to find you as a colleague. It’s very, very exciting to find someone. And I love your book. I love your straight talk.

Dr. Kelly: It’s my big, Irish-Italian mouth. I can’t keep it shut.

Beatrice: It’s very refreshing, dear. Thank you so much.

Dr. Kelly: Thank you. Thank you so much.

Beatrice: Bye bye.

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