S.F. volunteers lend ears to strangers on the street

Rachel Pickel, (right) talks to listener Shanon Sitkin during ÒSidewalk Talk,Ó a one-day event designed to promote listening and destigmatize therapy, in front of the Ferry Building along the Embarcadero as seen in San Francisco, Calif., as seen on Thurs. May 7, 2015. less Rachel Pickel, (right) talks to listener Shanon Sitkin during ÒSidewalk Talk,Ó a one-day event designed to promote listening and destigmatize therapy, in front of the Ferry Building along the Embarcadero as ... more Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 14 Caption Close S.F. volunteers lend ears to strangers on the street 1 / 14 Back to Gallery

San Franciscans were offered something free on the streets Thursday — just the opportunity to talk and be listened to for a few minutes — but most simply rushed by, burying their faces in their smartphones or wondering what the catch was.

A few, though, noticed the “You Talk, We Listen” signs, saw an opportunity and sat down in a folding chair across from a stranger.

It was all part of what could best be described as a two-hour therapy flash mob held in a dozen outdoor locations around the city for two hours Thursday afternoon.

“It’s like Lucy van Pelt. Therapy help. Five cents,” said Steve Swanson, 41, an Apple “Genius” technician, describing a character in the classic Peanuts comic strip. He plopped down in front of Pavi Sandhu, a marriage and family therapy intern, at a spot set up in front of the Ferry Building and proceeded to say he didn’t have much to talk about.

“It’s not even 5 cents. It’s free,” Sandhu said, smiling. Ten minutes later, the pair had covered a range of topics, from Swanson’s move from Chicago to the city two years ago to his newly avowed dedication to fitness and meditation as a way to manage stress.

Called Sidewalk Talk, Thursday’s event was the brainchild of two San Francisco therapists, Traci Ruble and Lily Sloane. They recruited nearly 30 volunteer “listeners” — mostly psychoanalysts and therapists-in-training, but also drag queens, actors, restaurant workers, corporate employees and a makeup artist — to invite people to talk as a way to destigmatize therapy and promote listening.

Ruble said she was inspired in part by performance artist Marina Abramovic’s 2010 exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in which Abramovic invited observers to sit across from her and maintain eye contact. “She was willing to have anyone sit across from her and simply be seen,” Ruble said.

That got her thinking, “Wouldn’t it be great if there were some visual representation of people listening to each other on the streets?”

Both Ruble and Sloane stressed that Thursday’s event was simply a listening exercise, not therapy. The volunteers underwent a training session in which they were advised only to listen, not to offer any advice, and were given information about how to their manage time and boundaries and what to do if someone appeared to be in crisis.

Locations throughout the city included the Castro, where members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence listened, in Cole Valley and in front of Twitter headquarters at Market and 10th streets.

At Ruble’s listening post on Market near the Embarcadero BART Station, a young woman wearing a knit cap made a beeline toward the chair, as if she were waiting for an opportunity to be heard.

Turns out the 18-year-old, who would give only her first name, Kitty, had only been in San Francisco for a week, having moved from Ohio “for a girl.” It didn’t work out, and she had been living on the streets and had gone off her medications for bipolar disorder.

Ruble listened, asked about her safety, then directed her to a free clinic to get medical help.

Next up, 22-year-old Donnell “D.J.” Haynes sat down and dived straight into his troubled family background, growing up poor in Southern California and without a father for most of his life.

“I’m going back to school. I want to be able to pursue my dreams without being held back by family,” Haynes said, adding that he didn’t want to blame or feel angry. He said his passion was music, and his eyes lit up when he talked about his fiancee.

Jennifer Hamlin of San Francisco, who is studying to be a psychotherapist while raising a 9-year-old son on her own, said she was happy to have the opportunity to talk. “I needed that,” she said. “I’m looking for a therapist, so I needed to talk to somebody.”

Sloane and Ruble said Sidewalk Talk appears to be the first listening event of its kind, and they have already received questions from therapists in other cities and states who hope to hold similar events.

“I want people to feel like it’s OK to need help and it’s OK to need people to talk to and have that moment of reflection,” said Sloane, of Lily Sloane Therapy. “It’s the idea that anyone can listen.”