It is evident from the previous post that not only is the level of complexity in the helping environment determined by the characteristics of the person being helped, it is also influenced by the characteristics (and attitude) of the helper, or practitioner.
This suggests a major challenge!
We, as practitioners, to be effective, need to be part of the process but not so immersed in it that is we are lost in it, or, to use a Gestalt Therapy expression, confluent. (This challenge was referred to already when we discussed why crime always seems to be an insolvable problem).
I describe what is known as Person Centred modality later, which suggests that we are empathic, that is, we endeavour to walk in another’s shoes, i.e. connect with the person seeking help – like the parent with the 7 year old child at the start of this Chapter – and try see the world through the eyes of the person seeking our assistance.
But we also need to be self-aware enough to continue to see the world through our own eyes, and indeed through the eyes of common sense, reason and what will work.
A major difference between the complex variables in the world of technology and the world of humanity is that while the former can be expressed mathematically (using reduction) it will usually only be possible to express the latter qualitatively (or holistically).
Another difference is the challenge (as we just described) presented by the lack of knowledge of what is going on.
In the world of technology we almost always have to know what is going on, so we can analyse it and fix it.
However in the world of helping people lack of knowledge of what is going on in someone else’s mind, body or indeed spirit should not be a major problem!
It simply means that we need to be aware of, use and trust the root foundations already referred to.
That is, trust in the powers of relationship, love, time, emergence, consciousness, affect etc. and believe that whatever materialises as an outcome will contribute to positive growth and development of the person.
Now if I am fixing an engine and I leave it on a Friday for the weekend – I can return to the same engine on Monday morning and take up where I left off.
However if I leave a human being on a Friday and have no contact for the weekend, many changes may have taken place in the intervening period. These changes may be due to:
1. An event or events in the person’s environment that she may have no control over.
2. The active presence of the root foundations as mentioned above.
(And, mixture of 1 and 2)
3. Intentional responses by her, to events in her environment, which, due to conscious or unconscious activity of the root foundations, may be different on Monday morning to what her response to the same event might have been on Friday evening.
But the challenge of complexity isn’t confined to the individual practitioner.
Complexity also presents challenges to organisations who are responsible for protection of vulnerable people including children as I will discuss in the next post.