The Tao of Restorative Ecology

Have you found yourself frustrated with traditional methods in counseling? Have you been waitlisted? Does the office you go to eliminate your distractions or heighten them?

Allow me to take this a bit further. Does the place you go seek to bring you wellness or get you back in-session next week? What is the going rate? What ER doctor would say “we need you to stick around for a few more hours?”

How about this? Maybe you’re tired of seeing the same thing. Maybe you ended up here because you’re looking for something different… Well, you found it.

Hmm, some context first before we go straight into it, you say? My thoughts, exactly. if I may…

My name is Chad Bartalone and I am a graduate of the IUSB School of Social Work. Before entering into this field, I committed the last twenty years of my life cutting my teeth in emergency medicine doing work as a paramedic. I have practiced in Kalamazoo, Benton Harbor( and the greater part of Southwest Michigan), and twelve years as a firefighter and paramedic with the City of South Bend.

During that time, I also worked as a field training officer, peer fitness trainer (ACE Certified), and educator in the fire department, Ivy Tech Community College, and South Bend Community School Corporation.

I hold professional certifications with The National Registry of EMTs, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Heart Association, and I retain licensure in Indiana as a practicing paramedic.

People often ask me what the craziest thing I ever saw was, hoping I’ll produce for them a story filled with blood and gore, explosions, and everything that makes up a good action movie. More often what I come back to is the anonymous conversations that drove what would eventually become this practice.

It was the dying patients and their final moments with family, young and old. It was the home births and all the new names for new life in this world. It was the incalculable number of conversations between the nursing home and the hospital. People born in the 1800s, descendants of slaves, survivors of concentration camps and genocides the world over. It was the space between the notes, the rides to and fro where therapy occurred. And it did, and it was those moments that occurred and persist in my mind in far greater number than the intubations, extrications, and Chicago Fire scene arch’s.

Working with patients in an ambulance for 20-years was a unique opportunity to see parts of people for a brief moment in time that they wouldn’t otherwise share with anyone else, even (often) the people closest to them. More than not, there was little more to do other than be witness to and receive the gift of their stories. In EMS, this was called supportive care, and this was a great honor to have. Our stories our not other people’s to tell. When they are gifted to us, as they often were to me in those vulnerable times, they should be treated with the respect of the magnus opus of a life’s story.

The Tao of Restorative Ecology works within and seeks to expand that supportive care framework through teaching, online content, and in-person social-work-informed coaching sessions. Together, we can explore the various sides of the coke can.

This includes:

-Writings (Excerpts with Eyes Unclouded) which are an exploration of the observations and experience this work had on the human soul

-Podcast content (The Abiders Urban Achiever Podcast,
which features conversations between people -many local to Michiana – sharing their articulations of the human experience)

-and The Circle Spot.

The Circle Spot is located just outside of the city on the West Side of South Bend. This 3 1/2-acre green space includes open and wooded areas where we host classes in:

Movement (Yoga, Qigong, Tai Chi)
Artisan skills (mead and wine making, maple syrup production)
Social-work-informed coaching.

What is social-work-informed coaching? I have heard it said that psychologists treat the brain, whereas social workers treat the person. The core values of social work emphasize among others “the dignity and self-worth of the person.” Much of this is meeting the person where they are at. Social-work-informed coaching is a non-directive form of one-on-one and group support. The generalist practice is informed and directed by therapeutic models in social work and psychology but retains a non-therapeutic, peer-led atmosphere.

Moreover, it has been demonstrated that much of the healing work that does occur in traditional talk-therapy can happen of itself in a mutual arising of spontaneity – from within – when the individual comes with the right frame of mind (set) and the right environmental conditions (setting) are met.

It is of the educated understanding therefore that if we facilitate a non-judgmental space where visitors can be free from distraction, and if we employ active listening and offer honest and intuitive reflection, guests can arrive to their own right frame of mind, however that may look.

It has been said that people are often showed honesty but not love. We should show them both.

Inspired by the framing of some fine examples I’ve had the pleasure of studying under, Social-Work-informed-coaching employs the skillful alteration of the trance we are all in to open an altered state, to open the heart, to stop time. The way is different between cultures, but the goal remains the same…

Be real with ourselves. Be real with one another. Be WITH one another. Nothing happens without trust. No judgement. This is where lost people find themselves.

Together we will employ the techniques of:
-Breath-work
-Sound/lack-of
-Bioenergetic Feedback
-Therapeutic use of natural space
-Motivational Interviewing
-Movement Techniques based in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)

Methodology is based upon the following theories FROM clinical counseling:

-Psychodynamic Approach (Developed by Psychiatrist Carl Jung, heavily influenced by Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist principles of personal transcendence)

-Systems Theory (A person’s conditions are influenced and largely determined by the environmental conditions that surround them)
-Motivational Interviewing (Evolved from Psychologist Carl Rogers’ person-centered and non-directive therapy)

-Bioenergetic Theory (Developed by Psychiatrist Alexander Lowen, posits that a person’s subconscious psychological ailments present with physical symptoms that include pain, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Treatment is focused on traditional talk-therapy coupled with myofascial release of trigger points in the affected muscles).

*Social-Work-Informed-Coaching is NOT clinical talk-therapy and should not be confused with individual, couples, or marriage and family therapy.. Anyone experiencing serious mental health issues should consider seeking the help of a licensed clinical therapist.*

Clinical Therapy is more appropriate for:
-Diagnosis and treatment of mental health condition(s)
-If you wish to pay through medical insurance
-Inpatient services
-Serious mental health concern(s)
-Long-term care

Coaching may be appropriate for:
-Relationship problems
-Help with motivation and energy
-Improving social functioning
-Reducing or eliminating problem habits and behaviors
-Improving relationships with friends and family
-Processing and unpacking in a safe environment
-Developing Goals for Well-Being
-Short term work

If you are experiencing any thoughts of harm or suicide, please reach out to a mental health professional immediately or call 911.

Group and one-on-one sessions are available.

Prospective clients will meet for an initial 1-hour assessment.

Inquiries, initial consultations, and pricing can be arranged by contacting Chad at thecirclespot@outlook.com or by phoning at (269) 757-4830.

*Please be patient as the digital landscape for the Tao of Restorative Ecology and the Circle Spot is still coming together. Online Optics come secondary to services rendered in this line of work and requests for services have taken precidence. The best acupuncturist and Traditional Chinese Doctor I ever met had only an obscure referral page on Facebook that his patients created. Take a chance on something different.