Interdisciplinary Teams, One Shared Language: Bridging Silos Through the Four Layers

Abstract
Interdisciplinary teams are essential to high-impact care—but often function in silos, fragmented by training, professional identity, and communication styles. This article explores how the SWEET Healing Circle provides a common language and structure that honors diverse expertise while unifying teams across disciplines. Grounded in systems theory, trauma-informed practice, and the Four-Layer Model, we examine how Circles enhance empathy, reduce hierarchy-based tensions, and support coordinated action.

Keywords
Interdisciplinary collaboration, team cohesion, SWEET Healing Circle, SWEET Institute, implementation science, applied neuroscience, communication across disciplines, professional silos, shared language, reflective practice, team integration, psychological safety, trauma-informed systems

1. Introduction

Interdisciplinary teams are the backbone of community mental health, supportive housing, education, healthcare, and reentry services.

Yet despite shared goals, many teams are splintered—divided not by intent, but by:

• Training language

• Role expectations

• Power dynamics

• Unspoken cultural norms

This article explores how the SWEET Healing Circle framework creates a shared lens that bridges the professional divide, fostering mutual understanding, trust, and collaboration.

2. Theoretical Framework: Systems, Silos, and Shared Meaning
2.1 Siloed Professional Identity
Each discipline carries its own worldview:

• Clinical staff may focus on insight or diagnosis

• Case managers may prioritize function and housing stability

• Peer specialists may center lived experience and connection

• Program directors may emphasize outcomes and funding streams

When these views are not translated, they clash.

2.2 Shared Language and Systems Integration
According to Weick (1995), organizations are systems of meaning-making. Shared language is not a luxury—it is a mechanism of coordination. Without it, teams confuse feedback for threat and clarity for control.

Healing Circles offer a common framework—four layers—that all roles can relate to, regardless of discipline.

3. Application and Analysis: Circles as Bridges Between Disciplines
3.1 The Circle as Equalizer
In the Circle:

• Everyone has the same time to speak

• No one interrupts

• Lived experience holds equal weight with licensure

• Emotion is valid data, not something to fix

This rebalances hierarchy and allows different forms of wisdom to emerge.

3.2 Examples of Integration Across Roles

• A housing coordinator reflects on their schema of “I have to fix everything” after hearing from a peer advocate

• A licensed therapist acknowledges their reactivity to system constraints during a check-in

• A director recognizes the weight of responsibility carried silently by the frontline team

In each case, the Circle softens professional defensiveness and humanizes the work.

4. Implications for Teams and Leadership
4.1 Improved Communication
When teams speak from a shared framework (e.g., “this is a pre-conscious belief I’m working on”), misunderstandings drop and nuance increases. 

4.2 Team Identity and Belonging
Circles foster team identity that transcends job title. Staff begin to identify not only with their discipline, but with the collective mission and culture.

This improves:

• Role clarity

• Empathy during conflict

• Staff retention

5. Conclusion
The Healing Circle does not erase difference. It honors difference within shared humanity.

When interdisciplinary teams reflect together—not just work side by side—they become more than co-workers. They become collaborators in something larger than their role. In that space, healing isn’t just possible. It’s shared.

References

• Edmondson, A. C. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383.

• Senge, P. M. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. Doubleday.

• Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in Organizations. Sage.

• Brown, B. (2018). Dare to Lead. Random House.

• Siegel, D. J. (2010). Mindsight. Bantam.