The concept of woodshedding goes back to December 2002.

Dr. John Strauss, Professor Emeritus of Yale University Medical school wrote an article in a newsletter about On Recovering From Schizophrenia:

“A lot of people with psychiatric problems talk about the importance of this kind of period of what we call ‘wood-shedding.’ That comes from the world of jazz, when a musician will go into the ‘wood shed’ when they’re trying to do something new. They’ll practice when out of the public eye. They’ll work things out by themselves.

When you see somebody or if you are somebody who has that kind of plateau, you don’t know that they’re going to stop there. In fact, it’s a fairly common thing that happens to quite a few people who then go on to improve significantly.”

Dr. Strauss admits there are no recipes and that different people do different things to help themselves and some people do opposite things, like spend time by themselves instead of with people.

A plateau is not the endpoint. There is no endpoint in recovery.

Only continual self-growth and the capacity for everyone to change their lives for the better in whatever fashion they’re able to.

Giving up on ourselves is not the answer even when others might not think we can recover. You can believe in yourself even when others do not.

Woodshedding. It’s something to think about.