Learning Pathways in Collaborative-Dialogical Practice
For more than forty years, our qualitative research and practice have shown that recovery and transformation emerge not from coercion or pathologizing labels, but from relationships of dignity, trust, and belief. Building on this legacy, we now offer three distinct learning opportunities that reflect the breadth of collaborative-dialogical work.
The first, Community Engagement: A Collaborative Recovery Model, speaks to the realities of mandated services—where clients are referred through legal or state systems and practitioners are called to navigate compliance while fostering genuine recovery.
The second, Humanizing Ourselves for the Other, invites participants into a stance beyond the medicalization of normal human struggle, where clients, families, and practitioners have reclaimed life once freed from psychiatric labels, hospitalizations, and medication regimes.
The third, International Certificate in Collaborative-Dialogical Practices (ICCP), extends these principles to global and cross-cultural contexts, where professionals must adapt dialogical practices across diverse cultural, systemic, and legal frameworks while preserving their ethical foundations.
Together, these programs illustrate how dialogical practices can take root within mandated systems, beyond medicalized frameworks, and across international contexts—expanding possibilities for practitioners, lawyers, coaches, and all those committed to ethical, relational, and non-coercive approaches to human suffering.
Community Engagement: A Collaborative Recovery Model
This course examines recovery as a collaborative process embedded within mandated services. It is designed for practitioners, attorneys, and allied professionals working with clients referred through state departments, courts, and legal systems where therapy is often imposed.
Drawing from four decades of qualitative research in collaborative-dialogical practice, participants will explore how to:
- Build trust-based partnerships between clients and mandated practitioners
- Reframe compliance-driven services into relational, dignity-based engagement
- Navigate legal and systemic mandates while supporting authentic recovery
This model demonstrates that even within highly regulated systems, collaborative practices can transform mandated care into opportunities for mutual respect, accountability, and healing.
Humanizing Ourselves for the Other
This course engages practitioners, lawyers, and coaches who work with clients and families whose suffering was not resolved through medicalized approaches. It draws on lived experience and research with individuals who, after years of diagnoses, medications, and hospitalizations, became asymptomatic when freed from the limits of “severe mental illness” labels.
Through a focus on relational presence, belief, and dignity, participants will:
- Examine how psychiatric pathologization often obscures human stories of suffering and resilience
- Learn dialogical practices that honor complexity without coercion or reduction
- Witness how parents, families, and clients reclaimed life and agency through collaborative, non-medicalized relationships
This course offers a transformative framework for practice: one that resists the medicalization of normal human struggle and instead nurtures possibility, dignity, and relational recovery.
International Certificate in Collaborative-Dialogical Practices (ICCP)
The ICCP is a two-year advanced certificate program that extends collaborative-dialogical practice into international and cross-cultural contexts. It is designed for practitioners, lawyers, coaches, and allied professionals who work across borders or within diverse cultural, legal, and community frameworks.
Grounded in more than four decades of qualitative research, this program emphasizes how collaborative and non-coercive practices can be adapted to address the complexities of global practice, cultural difference, and systemic diversity.
Participants will:
- Explore how dialogical practices can be contextualized across cultural and legal systems without losing their ethical core
- Learn to support cross-cultural recovery and reconciliation where clients encounter multiple, and sometimes conflicting, frameworks of care
- Engage with an international cohort of peers, fostering dialogue and shared learning across professional and cultural boundaries
- Develop the capacity to create spaces of dignity, trust, and belief in global practice settings where coercion and pathologization too often dominate
The ICCP culminates in an internationally recognized certificate in collaborative-dialogical practice, affirming participants’ commitment to ethical, relational, and culturally responsive approaches to human suffering and recovery.
Shared Foundation
All three programs are grounded in over forty years of qualitative research into collaborative-dialogical practices, illustrating how connection, dialogue, and belief consistently generate outcomes beyond what pathologizing or coercive models achieve.
- Community Engagement emphasizes recovery within mandated systems, showing how dignity and dialogue can flourish even under legal and institutional constraints.
- Humanizing Ourselves for the Other highlights recovery beyond medicalized frameworks, where clients and families shed limiting labels and reclaim life through relational practices.
- The ICCP expands this work internationally, equipping practitioners to adapt these practices across cultures, systems, and global contexts.
Together, they provide practitioners across professional domains with comprehensive frameworks for supporting ethical, relational, and non-coercive responses to human suffering—locally, systemically, and globally.
Earn an International Certification in Collaborative Dialogic Practices
Earn CEU’s
Expand your professional practice
Promote healing through a more humanized approach
Become a member of a Global Network – 18 countries and +3,000 members
We offer a totally customizable, conveniently virtual, and highly transformative learning program. Our Self-Paced virtual learning courses are the perfect way to earn CEU’s while broadening your practice approach. Our Collaborative-Dialogical focus has transformed practices literally all over the world.
We are a CAMFT Approved Provider of continuing education for CEPA (CAMFT Continuing Education Provider Approval) and, prior to CEPA, an Approved Provider for the BBS in continuing education since 2011. Now I See A Person Institute is devoted to teach mental health providers in proficient evidence-based theories {CLS, Open Dialogue and Recovery Premises) and philosophies of collaborative-dialogical and recovery models to therapy, life coaching, mediation and organizational development.
Our theory Community Engagement: A Collaborative Recovery Model (CEACRM) was first introduced to the field in 2008. We have conducted over a decade of qualitative research using CEACRM. This research reflects how the concepts of CEACRM induce sustainable change in clients previously considered unable to change and not progressing in traditional models of therapy, medication regimes, hospitalization or institutionalizations, considered hopeless and high risk and referred by the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), other legal systems and ancillary staff, clinicians and word of mouth. CEACRM embraces the tenant of recovery and collaborative theories. (Anderson, 1997, Anderson & Gehart, 2007, Gehart, 2012, Swim, Priest & Makawa, 2013 & Swim, Stephan, Abramovitch & Stone, Swim, Abramovitch, 2018, Wilson, Kadler & Takeda, 2020, Swim 2021, Swim, 2022 and Swim, 2023).
How Does It Work?
It’s actually quite simple. The Now I See A Person Institute staff will help you design a self-paced virtual learning experience that is tailored to your specific needs. Your learning experience can earn you up to 130 CEU’s, and can last up to two years for licensing requirements.
Our Primary Courses
Community Engagement: Collaborative Recovery Model approach to couple and family therapy.
Developed by Dr. Susan Swim
Course Description:
This course will facilitate a greater understanding of this innovative, collaborative approach to conducting therapy with clients that will help participants implement collaborative intervention strategies to maximize long-term client
gains. Participants will engage in lecture, discussion, and hands-on exercises to support learning and retention of class material.
Modality:
This course is a self-paced, online course. Voluntary, not required, virtual meetings with course professors are available upon request.
Course Dates:
These courses run on an open schedule. You can start and complete the course at your convenience.
Course Length:
Self-paced. The student has one year from the date of initiation to complete the course.
Prerequisites:
This course does not have any prerequisites.
Required Materials:
You do not need to purchase texts for this course, and we offer a recommended reading list that will supplement your studies.
CEU’s:
Upon successful completion of this course, you will earn 8 CEU’s.
Advanced Practice of the Community Engagement: Collaborative Recovery Model for Couple and Family Therapy.
Developed by Dr. Susan Swim
Course Description:
This course will provide advanced instruction in the Community Engagement: A Collaborative Recovery Model approach to couple and family therapy developed by Dr. Susan Swim. This course will highlight advanced intervention strategies used in this innovative, collaborative approach to conducting therapy with clients that will help participants implement collaborative intervention strategies to maximize long-term client gains. This course is complementary to the introductory course for the model and will immerse participants in the use of the CECRM approach. Participants will engage in lecture, and hands-on exercises to support learning and retention of class material. Additionally, participants will view and discuss videotapes of real case studies in order to facilitate learning.
Modality:
This course is a self-paced, online course. Voluntary, not required, virtual meetings with course professors are available upon request.
Course Dates:
These courses run on an open schedule. You can start and complete the course at your convenience.
Course Length:
Self-paced. The student has one year from the date of initiation to complete the course.
Prerequisites:
This course does not have any prerequisites.
Required Materials:
You do not need to purchase texts for this course, and we offer a recommended reading list that will supplement your studies.
CEU’s:
Upon successful completion of this course, you will earn 8 CEU’s.
Special Offer: Register and pay for both courses today for a 10% discount.
Ready to get started? Register today!
Welcome to Humanizing Ourselves for the Other
A Collaborative-Dialogical-Educational Virtual Learning Experience
Join a learning space shaped by presence, humility, and belief. Humanizing Ourselves for the Other is more than coursework—it is a way of being and a stance toward life itself.
At the Now I See A Person Institute (NISAPI), we carry forward the legacy of Harry Goolishian, Harlene Anderson, and Susan Swim, who challenged the diseasing of mental health. This program invites participants to listen into people’s lives as human stories—stories that deserve belief, dignity, trust, and respect—and to hold the belief that change and possibilities are always possible.
Program Overview
- 30+ hours of immersive study
- Optional Continuing Education Credits
- Direct access to faculty and recovery consultants from the US and across the globe
- 30+ hours of client-informed learning, where individuals share how collaborative-dialogical practices shaped their recovery and growth
What You Will Explore
- Listen with openness and curiosity, allowing collective dialogical relationships within suffering to create space for new possibilities.
- Explore belief, trust, and dignity as lived through process ethics.
- Immerse yourself in interviews and case examples showing how people transformed suffering and reclaimed life beyond pathologizing labels.
- Discover how clinicians learn to listen with openness and curiosity, allowing relationships within suffering to open space for new possibilities.
The power of dialogue and relationships:
- Change is always possible—through dialogue and relationships, people discover new ways forward.
- Community is essential—healing unfolds within supportive networks that sustain growth and connection.
- Hope often begins simply—dialogues that co-create hope and happiness may sound simple, and often they are.
- Simplicity holds depth—within these conversations, profound shifts take place.
- Trust awakens possibilities—conversations grounded in trust and mutual presence open pathways once thought unreachable.
- Healing is relational—both clinicians and consumers experience how healing unfolds in relationship: where suffering meets dignity, belief opens new life directions, and stories are honored as the foundation for transformation.
Real-World Learning & Outcomes
- Long-term research: Built on 40 years of faculty research and lived experience in collaborative-dialogical practice.
- The first video: Draws on therapy research with a family whose children were in the state system for 3 years and at risk for adoption. Through collaborative-dialogical practice, reunification occurred in the mid-2000s; 15+ years later, the children are thriving—now married or in college.
- Client-informed learning: Over 30 hours of clients directly informing clinicians of the benefits of collaborative-dialogical practices.
- Collaborative partnerships: NISAPI worked alongside child services departments, multiple agencies, foster parents, and biological parents to achieve reunification.
- Recovery stories:
- Children, teens, and adults once facing depression, anxiety, psychosis, eating disorders, and life-threatening crises are now choosing life and flourishing without medication or services.
- Individuals once burdened by the label of “severe mental illness” have shed those limits, reclaimed freedom from treatments, and discovered new life directions.
- Those who spent years in hospitalization are now living years of thriving in relationships, work, and community.
- Communities of support: Sustainable and long-lasting change grows through collaboration with families, child services, courts, probation, schools, and lawyers—working together as communities of support.
Faculty Interaction & Learner Support
Through ongoing faculty interaction, learners benefit from processing their individual learning agendas in conversation with faculty members, in peer dialogue, and through supervision opportunities. This creates a dynamic, reflective environment where learning becomes lived practice rather than abstract theory.
What Previous Learners Have Said
- “Being able to listen to these videos was a game-changer. I could learn at my own pace.”
- “The faculty and recovery consultants created a space where I could immerse myself fully into the learning.”
- “I left this program with not just new knowledge, but a new way of being with the people I serve.”
Our Invitation
This program invites you to see beyond preconceptions, to honor human connection, and to co-create practices where dignity, freedom, growth, and new possibilities flourish.
Enroll today: www.nowiseeaperson.com
Questions? Contact us at: admin@nowiseeaperson.com
Course Description
This course facilitates a greater understanding of an innovative, collaborative approach to conducting therapy with clients. It helps participants implement collaborative intervention strategies to maximize long-term client gains. Learners will engage in lecture, discussion, and hands-on exercises to support learning and retention.
Modality
Self-paced, online course. Voluntary (not required) virtual meetings with course professors are available upon request. And are an extra cost.
Course Dates
Courses run on an open schedule—you can start and complete at your convenience.
Course Length
Self-paced. Students have one year from the date of initiation to complete the course.
Prerequisites
None required.
Required Materials
No required textbooks. A recommended reading list is provided to supplement your studies.
CEU’s
Upon successful completion, participants earn CEU’s.
International Certificate in Collaborative Dialogic Practices
NISAPI offers a certificate program in International Collaborative Practices sponsored by the Houston Galveston Institute and Taos Institute (please check the ICCP link to view two programs in the United States and programs globally-Europe, Northern Europe, Central Europe, Czech Republic, Asia, South America, & Central America), a certificate program in CEACRM, and a hosting program for learners to spend weeks or months through the Taos Institute. Please contact NISAPI about learning events at the Chatsworth location. NISAPI offers course work every month self-tailored to our learners. Some courses will repeat monthly but learners can inquire about self-tailored venues or our certificate programs. For specialty courses or course work for our two certificate programs please email NISAPI, we can accommodate your schedule for out-of-state and international learners. Call or email admin@nowiseeaperson.com or call 626-487-9305 or 310-993-9144. Examples of our past programs are below. For our courses contact us for the calendar of dates.
Modality:
This course is a self-paced, online course. Because this is a tailored experience, the CI 1101 and CI 1102 can contribute to the ICCP Certification.
Course Dates:
You set your start date and term.
Course Length:
18 months to 2 years (depending on your licensing needs)
Prerequisites:
This course does not have any prerequisites.
Required Materials:
You do not need to purchase texts for this course, and we offer a recommended reading list that will supplement your studies.
CEU’s:
You can earn up to 130 CEU’s with your tailored virtual learning experience.
Tuition and Enrollment Options
We offer two levels of learning: short courses for continuing education and comprehensive two-year certificate programs, including the International Certificate in Collaborative-Dialogical Practices.
Short Courses & CEU Modules
Designed for practitioners, attorneys, coaches, and allied professionals seeking continuing education and flexible learning options.
- Full Course (Standard) – $1,200 USD: Includes all 30 videos and CEUs.
- Full Course (Premium) – $1,500 USD: Includes all 30 videos, CEUs, plus 3 hours of faculty time.
- Individual Videos – $35 USD each
- Video + Faculty Bundle – $145 USD: Includes one video plus one hour of faculty time.
- Additional Faculty Time – $120 USD per hour (optional add-on)
Two-Year Certificate Programs
Our certificate programs are intended for those seeking advanced, immersive training in collaborative-dialogical practice. Each program includes long-term cohort learning, direct faculty engagement, and the application of over four decades of qualitative research.
- Community Engagement: A Collaborative Recovery Model (Certificate Program) – $10,000 (two years)
- Humanizing Ourselves for the Other (Certificate Program) – $10,000 (two years)
- International Certificate in Collaborative-Dialogical Practices (ICCP Program) – $10,000 (two years)
Payment plans available: $5,000 per year, with additional installment options upon request.
Choosing the Right Path
- Short Courses & CEUs are well-suited to individuals seeking flexible, modular learning or continuing professional credit.
- Two-Year Certificate Programs are designed for practitioners, attorneys, and coaches who wish to pursue advanced, relational training that transforms practice at both systemic and personal levels.
- The ICCP Program provides an internationally recognized certificate, making it especially relevant for participants engaged in cross-cultural, global, or multi-systemic contexts.
Reflections from former learners
“Things I leaned from you and peers at NISAPI have been a strong core of who I am as a therapist and a person. I truly appreciate all your teaching and sharing of wisdom. When I don’t know what to do, I try to think of your teaching and what you would say. You gave me so much encouragement to not give in to negative judgements and trust unique ways of therapy, as well as unique ways of happiness in personal life. They will stay with me for all my life. How did I get so lucky? Thank you so much, Dr. Swim.”
“Things I leaned from you and peers at NISAPI have been a strong core of who I am as a therapist and a person. I truly appreciate all your teaching and sharing of wisdom. When I don’t know what to do, I try to think of your teaching and what you would say. You gave me so much encouragement to not give in to negative judgements and trust unique ways of therapy, as well as unique ways of happiness in personal life. They will stay with me for all my life. How did I get so lucky? Thank you so much, Dr. Swim.”
Learning at Now I See A Person Institute (NISAPI) with Dr. Swim and the team was experiential. It is rare to find professionals who truly embody the theories, philosophies, and ethics of care that are academically written. Somewhere along the way, between processes of conceptualizing and actual implementation of practice; there can be a disconnect. With Dr. Swim, the qualitative research articles that I read and reflected on before visiting the ranch came to life. I learned about Community Engagement: A Collaborative Recovery (CEACRM) through the way that Dr. Swim embraced, respected, and related to me as a person. Through genuine encouragement, authenticity, and interest in who I am, Dr. Swim generously and graciously facilitated an experience of learning where I felt safe, supported, and heard.