3.5.9 Musings On 'The Way Things Are Done'

Prior to discussing what modalities would be of most benefit to our Focus Group I will once again quote the Brazilian sociologist Paulo Friere:

Attempting to liberate [empower] the oppressed [FocusGroup] without their reflective participation in the act of liberation [empowerment] is to treat them as objects which must be saved from a burning building; it is to lead them into the populist pitfall and transform them into masses which can be manipulated.

I hope that Paulo will forgive me, but in his quotation, to kind of, fit with what this website is about, I put in empower and empowerment for liberate and liberation, and Focus Group for oppressed.

Like many noble, idealistic aspirations, applying the quotation in the real world is a lot easier said than done. One of the principal reasons that it is so challenging is that it involves sharing power.

But Paolo posited a real opportunity here – that is, the power of reflective participation (as he put it) in strengthening genuine autonomy, i.e. bolstering awareness of and resistance to manipulation by powerful others.

You might remember that in the Chapter on Power and Control in Society, I described a phenomenon that I called corporate closed-ness.  In the next post I will consider this phenomenon and how it has a link to choice of modalities for agencies in the helping professions.

As is clear from the Sub-Chapter on corporate closed-ness, the corporate world would prefer if we (ordinary people) didn’t have too much awareness of systemic processes, i.e. how one area of human existence affects another. This affects our choice of modality.

For example, if I, in Ireland knew that in order to have some cheap luxury goods (or even some cheap necessary goods) poor farmers and children in a faraway country would be impoverished through their land being taken over, or their livelihood destroyed, or their watercourse polluted by the giant corporation that manufactures the goods, I might think twice about buying them [1].

It is sobering to think that my decision to spend money on something that I don’t need anyway might impoverish a family half a world away.

My becoming aware of this reality is an indication that I am thinking systemically.  The corporate world may tell us the truth, and may even tell us nothing but the truth, but – if it gets in the way of their profits – it often suits them to keep the whole truth well hidden!

In contrast to the modality of person centred therapy, which acknowledges the importance of systemic thinking, behaviourism (as distinct from cognitive behavioural therapy, CBT) sits very neatly (though, giving the behaviourists the benefit of the doubt, probably unwittingly) into the political/corporate world, in its assertion that we can be manipulated, influenced, that is, conditioned into behaving the way others want us to, (the opposite to what Paulo Friere proposes in the quotation in the previous post) as we are firstly encouraged, and then feel pressure to want something that we have no need for.

I believe that behaviourism also risks reinforcing dependency in the person being helped, and doesn’t bring many opportunities for growth of the practitioner – so vital in PCT – where sharing power is central.

Doing something with a person in distress (instead of for) truly opens the door to two way knowledge flow and is potentially (because it focuses on relationship) equally as challenging if not more for the person being helped as for the practitioner.

It is also a lot slower.

Slow growth, however, optimises endurance, strength and longevity – because development is more circular than linear.

The difference between fast growth and slow growth is as true in nature as in humanity.  Consider the solidity and strength of an oak tree that grows slowly.  The wood produced by the fast-growing spruce is not at all as hard.

And everyone knows that plants (and animals) that are forced to grow quickly by creating an artificial environment are not as nutritious as those that grow naturally.

[1]. The Fair Trade Programme exists to ensure that all producers of goods in developing countries get a fair price for their products.  Fair Trade, is, of course, very welcome, but even in the 21^st Century there are many examples of giant corporations destroying the environment, paying near slave wages, pressurising  Governments of poor countries etc. in order to maximise their profits.

Because they want us to consume, consume, consume, the corporate/political worlds do not generally think that it is desirable to promote the idea that helpless people (particularly helpless poor people) can think for themselves.

Like corporate closed-ness already described, this thinking filters, through the Pillars, into the world of helping and influences the way we do things.

Modalities chosen by many mainstream helping agencies often contain strong beliefs that we, the professionals, know best, and that they, the helpless, must fit into our world whether they like it or not.

We then pronounce people as having failed if they don’t live up to our expectations or do what we want them to do.

While I accept that practitioners will be positively disposed to the modality that worked for them, or that they see working, I believe that this kind of thinking has significant influence on the interventions that are so prevalent in the mainstream world of helping. 

Many – if not most – of us (practitioners, that is) will have experienced, and been trained, predominantly, in the CBT modality. We will also have experienced (sometimes up to 20 years) mainstream education – based predominantly on CBT principles and practices. It is natural that we are biased towards that way of working.

Poor, dependent people are universally viewed as passive consumers of professional practices, opinions, norms, values and standards with little or no value placed on the power of innate root foundations such as emergence, consciousness, love, relationship (or indeed time) to be important drivers of change.

Sometimes this reminds me of the 19^th century when people who were colonised were known as the white man’s burden exemplified in Rudyard Kipling‘s poem of the same name.

(I don’t think that I’m being too hard on society in general when I state that there is a tendency in the mainstream to think that the poor are a burden on the state, and we have to do their thinking for them, like parents sometimes have to do for their children).

This, like many other mainstream beliefs, can also be held within the helping professions.

In turn, it prevents us from embracing two-way-knowledge-flow, so necessary if we wish to share power.

In most modalities of helping, generally speaking, when someone looks for help, the practitioner will deem himself to be responsible for (metaphorically) carrying the person and holding his suffering. This is usually for a limited time until the person can hold his own suffering.

In a way this is borrowed from the world of medicine where the patient hands over complete control for the alleviation of his physical pain to the medical staff treating him.  (One could say that the doctor or nurse temporarily holds the pain of the patient – like the minor operation I described previously).

It is also like good enough parenting, as parents hold the suffering of their children if they have to deal with some difficult experience. Teachers will also do it in schools.

For all holistic practitioners, however, it is worth pondering on who is supporting who.  When we claim that we are supporting people, or holding their suffering, how do we know that they are not supporting us?  Or holding our suffering?

I am sure that people who are hurt and in distress, (mostly unconsciously – but sometimes consciously), protect the person offering help.  They sense intuitively what the person can and cannot handle, just like children learn what parents can handle.  I certainly have had experiences of my suffering being held by people who I was journeying with.

I have a memory of a very funny episode, having an argument with a young man from the travelling community. He was calmly convincing me that I was angry with him when I was claiming that I was not. He was right!

So I believe that when we think that people are a burden (or that we support or metaphorically carry them – particularly if it is over a long time) we should be open to thinking that something is getting in the way of us enjoying our work. (This is particularly true if we are committed to sharing power).

In our two-way knowledge flow (particularly in the emotional or spiritual dimensions) there is every possibility that there is some reciprocity in the holding of suffering.

And, of course, it is well known that people get into the world of helping others to help themselves.

I reach into my experience again to illustrate this point. One night working on the street a young teenager put it to me that we, the professionals, are also being supported by the community – in that they are providing us with the opportunity to have a job that we like.

I am grateful to the young man for his perception and his frankness – and I will refer to this kind of perceptiveness again in the Chapter on Cultural Matching.