Observations on Human Spirit
Pocket Ranch Institute News
Dear Pocket Ranch Friends,
I am so pleased to introduce our new newsletter. As you can see from a glance, activity abounds at Pocket Ranch these days. I am grateful to all the employees, referring therapists and the many people who make our work possible. Of particular note are my fellow Board members, and Vice Presidents, Tony Elite, M.D. and Ken Pelletier, Ph.D. Both agreed to serve last year when we created the non-profit Institute, and have been invaluable ever since.
Tony has been a practicing psychiatrist in the Bay Area for over twenty years. Most recently, he has been the Chief of the State Department of Mental Health’s Office of Prevention. He has worked extensively with Native American communities, indigent populations and the people most often deprived of mental health services.
Ken is a leader in stress management and corporate health promotion. He is the author of the best-seller Mind as Healer, Mind as Slayer, as well as numerous articles on behavioral medicine.
I feel very fortunate to be working with Tony and Ken and appreciate so much what they bring to Pocket Ranch.
In May, I spent 4 days in Poland at a conference on Pre- and Peri-Natal Psychology and Medicine. It is a beautiful country. I don’t know exactly what I expected. Whatever it was came heavily colored by the media. What I found was a country doing a lot of building, working and eager to move forward to “catch up” with the West.
Nine years ago, I gave a European copy of our film Journey To Be Born to a Polish woman whom I met at a European conference in Austria. This same woman approached me in Crakow and reminded me that I had given her the tape. At that time, Poland was “Behind The Iron Curtain.” Since our initial meeting, she has been showing the video at her clinic in Warsaw and to groups interested in birth. Amazing!
I also met a lovely Polish Psychologist who has been teaching Pre-and Peri-Natal Psychology at the University since 1984, using Tom Verny’s book The Secret Life of the Unborn Child and other American books. She has managed to teach that subject in Poland, even under the Communists, for eight years. As far as any of us at PPPANA (The Pre- and Peri-Natal Psychology Association of North America) in the USA can find, there is no accredited graduate or undergraduate school in this country that offers a course in Pre- and Peri-Natal Psychology. In some respects, we need to catch up with what is happening in Poland. I was inspired and moved by the strength and determination of the people I met there.
There were also speakers from several of the Soviet Republics. One told me he lived with his wife and his parents and each one of them had to stand in some line every day to bring something home to eat. In talking to people who have and are struggling so hard, I couldn’t help but feel how fortunate we are in this country. It also left me concerned and wanting to find some way to help. I know you can’t “save the world” but if everyone helped a little bit... So, I am a believer.
I’ve always been moved and inspired by the courage of people in therapy, and in STAR groups. My journey to Poland was more of the same human spirit that I see daily.
The whole thrust of Pocket Ranch is to free and enhance that spirit. It is a lot of hard work, a challenge and a demonstration of our belief in the possibility of transforming the human condition from fear to love.
Thank you for your support and for your faith in the awakening of the spirit. I appreciate each of you for doing your “little bit.”
Lovingly,
Barbara
