My experiences through many years of work, in different settings, but particularly on the street, formed my opinions as to what modalities I feel should have dominance, or have a substantial influence in supporting people in such deep distress that they are on the margins of society.
In a previous Chapter I referred to liquids defying gravity at temperatures close to absolute zero.
Analogous to that situation, I have met people who have suffered deep hurt and trauma, and whose confidence, esteem and general sense of self is so low that I sometimes imagine them to be at a kind of psychological absolute zero, where the cognitive process that most of us use in decision making doesn’t work.
To demonstrate this point I will recall two incidents in the next two posts – illustrating the power of compassion and surprise in situations where normal cognitive behavioural interventions, would have (in my opinion anyway) failed abjectly.
I could have chosen many examples – I chose the ones in the next two posts because I thought that should the actions not have had the effect that they did the outcomes may have been, well, pretty bad!
I am sure that you (that is, if you have worked in this area for any length of time) will have stories of your own illustrating how compassion worked when all else failed.
I encourage you to dig them up from the deep nooks and crannies of your memories and reflect on them.