Published: October 2026

Keywords:
Susan Swim, humanising ourselves, collaborative-dialogical practice, accompaniment, relational intimacy, everyday conversation, out-of-the-office work, ranch work, lived experience, de-pathologisation, diagnostic narratives, aesthetics of dialogue, reclaiming life.

Dr Susan Swim

Susan Swim, PhD, Executive Director Now I See A Person Institute. I have almost four decades of helping to serve the most hopeless of populations, especially those clients and their families who have lost all hope and have not found success in previous therapies, hospitals, medical regimes, or institutionalizations. My passion is to aid our field to see people as people suffering through trauma and not bound to it and that diagnosis and labels are not a person. These are social justice issues. We find with the client being a collaborative partner for change and honored for their resiliency and strengths that up to 98% of our clients (qualitative research) transform along with their families.

swiminc@aol.com

Editorial note

Susan Swim and her colleagues chose to send us this article, which conveys their ideas, feelings, and practice far better than the hastily prepared video presented at the 2026 Metalogos two-day conference.

Abstract

This article grew out of our recent presentation at the 2026 Metalogos conference and the dialogue that unfolded among us as we reflected together on these experiences. As faculty members, practitioners, and people bringing our own lived experience, we found ourselves continually returning to the significance of nature, aesthetics, everyday spaces, and the relational intimacy that characterised much of our work. As we listened to one another, experiences previously known to us individually became visible to us collectively. The presentation became more than an account of our work; the dialogue itself invited us to reconsider what we had learned through these relationships and became the starting point for this article.

The article explores Humanising Ourselves for the Other through many years of experience in collaborative-dialogical practice. The authors argue that meaningful change arises primarily through egalitarian relationships, dialogue, presence, trust, and accompaniment, rather than through diagnoses, professional interpretations, or predetermined therapeutic interventions. Everyday settings and natural environments, such as homes, gardens, parks, and horse ranches, help create a relational atmosphere in which people can free themselves from pathologising identities, reclaim their dignity and agency, and participate once again in everyday life. This process also requires practitioners to transform themselves by tempering their certainty, relinquishing authority, and reducing the distance associated with the expert role, so that they can encounter the other as a person. The accounts of those who experienced this accompaniment reveal that hope and new possibilities for living emerge within human relationships in which each person is heard, their experience is believed, and their identity is not confined to their diagnosis.