The Royal Song Evoke Therapy Programs

This song was recorded in Group 4 at Evoke Entrada (Dr. Paul Goddard’s group) on Friday July 7th. Performed by AZ, SM, GH, MTC, AS and KB. Written by AZ.

On Friday, July 7th 2017, I was part of the team hosting several professionals for a visit out to one of our adolescent girl’s groups at Evoke Entrada. We arrived midday somewhere in Dixie National Forest on a warm summer day in the desert. After being greeted by the staff, we walked the short distance to the group sitting under the shade of a tarp holding a group therapy session. They asked for some privacy and we stepped away for a few minutes to allow them to wrap it up. Then we were called over and sat in a widened circle and held the customary “Introduction Group.” Each student, staff and visitor shared their name, age, time in the field, reason for being there, and a fun-fact. Fun-facts offer some interesting and often humorous flavor to introductions and the mood was light. The visitors and students asked a few questions of each other and one of the girls asked if we would be interested in hearing some songs they wrote.

That young woman led out and the rest of the group joined in. The lyrics were clever and fun. The second song, “They Started Out at Daybreak" brought tears to the eyes of some of the visitors, Surely, everyone was touched by the message of their music. As they were singing I had the thought that while they weren’t expounding complex clinical insights, they were communicating the essence of the value of their program. As one of the girls put it, “My favorite thing here is that I am learning how to have fun and be silly again like I did when I was a little girl.”

I have heard groups expand on therapeutic issues with more articulate descriptions of their issues, yet I could not have been happier with what I saw and heard that day. Sometimes people think wilderness is harsh or for behavioral, adolescent boys. But what we saw was what we think wilderness is: it is a place to find your authentic self; a place to learn to be a child in all the best ways; it is a place where genuine and deep connection leads to healing.

The Royal Song
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