Our History, Origins, and the Work of NISAPI Today
Beginning the Journey
NISAPI’s roots trace back to decades of work in postmodern, social constructionist, and collaborative family therapy. After years of teaching and clinical leadership at the Houston Galveston Institute, Dr. Susan Swim moved to California in 2002 to continue advancing non-pathologizing, relational approaches to healing. She witnessed the growing dominance of diagnoses and illness narratives and remained committed to understanding suffering through context, trauma, and relationship—not as personal defect.
The Birth of NISAPI
In 2007, inspired by an email about outdoor, relational therapy spaces, and drawing on a lifetime with horses, Dr. Swim created a community-based clinical institute on a California ranch. Students and clients gathered in an environment of normalcy, openness, and relational presence. These early years shaped the ethos that continues today: therapy grounded in human connection, not clinical distance.
The Meaning Behind Our Name
During a supervision class, a student shared her struggle with a client. Through a profound shift—leaving treatment plans and pathology outside the room—she discovered a genuine relational connection—she walked in with an open heart—and saw a person and could understand the suffering of her client. This experience revealed a core truth: healing emerges when therapist and client see and believe in each other as people. From this moment, Now I See A Person Institute was born.
Our Mission Today
NISAPI offers relational, community-based therapy for individuals and families who have primarily experienced harm, multiple hospitalizations, or long histories of psychiatric treatment that increased rather than eased suffering. We always meet clients in relationship—with family members, loved ones, or others important in their lives—and we define people by what they say—we call this being client led.
Our Model: CEACRM
Decades of research have shaped the Collaborative Dialogical Practices of CEACRM (Community Engagement: A Collaborative Recovery Model), a non-pathologizing, relational, systemic approach documented in numerous peer-reviewed publications. Healing emerges through relational safety, dialogue, and often community-based support, not through medicalized labels.
What We Do Now
NISAPI’s work reaches across communities and continents:
- Research on the dis-diseasing of mental health
- Quarterly international conferences: Humanizing Ourselves for the Other
- Certificate and learning programs in CEACRM and collaborative-dialogical practice
- The NISAPI Podcast on YouTube, Podbean, and Spotify
- Weekly Substack series: Humanizing Ourselves for the Other
- Global workshops, presentations, and collaborations
- Advocacy to reduce medicalized narratives and restore dignity
NISAPI is home to a growing international movement committed to healing through dignity, presence, and human relationship.