On help

[msagara]

A discussion elsewhere on-line, to which I will not link because I think it will generate a lot of heat for a very little light, has got me thinking about two things I’ve been mulling over for months. The first is ‘help’, the nature of help, and what people - or at least people who are Michelle - want when we say we want help. (The question evolves

Comments

[kateelliott]

[metteharrison]

Helping is not easy, but it is enormously harder when we refuse to listen to what people say that they need. Most people can say it, though they stop articulating if they end up getting not-what-they-need often enough.

[mtlawson]

Michelle, you make me think. (And yes, that's a good thing.)

I suspect that offering the type of help that another person really needs is what sets therapists apart from most normal humans. And it is also important that people understand each other, are cognizant of each other, in order to understand how to help each other.

I think I may have to reevaluate my own thought processes concerning others, as I should make sure of my own reasons and motivations first.

[msagara]

I suspect that offering the type of help that another person really needs is what sets therapists apart from most normal humans.

I think observation and long-term familiarity can fulfill this function, if we can see and hear clearly outside of our own personal contexts and expectations - which, I admit, is not simple.

But on occasion, when people are upset that others don’t appreciate their help, they get so angry it’s really not about the other person anymore. And it’s not that the person isn’t trying to be helpful or isn’t genuinely offering help - but they’re offering something that is not what the other person needs.

So - it’s a miss, and it’s frustrating on both sides. My husband, when he read this, said something interesting about the ability to genuinely communicate both what is needed and what is helpful, and in part people can be bad at this because they haven’t full assessed and owned the needs they have; they come out as a very specific series of things and not as the overall deeper difficulty

[mtlawson]

And it’s partly because a lot of us (I include me strongly in this category) need to make plans, and we want metrics that are clear, accessible and actionable - and that’s not, in interpersonal relationships, always immediately possible.

Coming from myself, whose entire job revolves around metrics, the temptation to impose that on relationships can be overwhelming. However, I've found that if I pull back from using metrics and simply let things develop organically, I can figure out both what I want and what they (might) want.

Some of the time, anyway. We humans can't all be put neatly into a box, as much as people like to try.

[la_marquise_de_]

I was brought up to help: it's more or less hard-wired into me. But, in my head, help has to be about the other person, or it isn't help (if that makes sense). Which is probably a clumsy way of saying that I agree with you, and that this is an excellent article.

[msagara]

But, in my head, help has to be about the other person, or it isn't help (if that makes sense).

It makes perfect sense, to me. It's my take on help, and being helpful, too.

[ext_179766]

*waves* -- somebody pointed me at this post as "awesome", and indeed, it is. more people need to read it.

i've always been a person who needed help in a very different way from everyone i grew up with, so part of this dawned on me very early. i decided that the much-vaunted "golden rule" was totally useless, and for a while i operated under the "reverse golden rule" -- don't do to others what you'd hate having done to yourself. that worked a lot better, and it took a lot more years and experience before i dumped that one too.

your last line works from both ends, and it's even short and pithy. thanks!

[msagara]

My husband read this post (he's my external editor, in that he sometimes thinks some posts are not yet ready for public consumption) and he said something interesting about communication, which I'm now thinking about. He said it's not simple to communicate your needs in a way that another person can access. He feels that communication is the key to the ability to be helpful.

So I'm mulling that over now.

I think the "golden rule" is a very useful rule (which I'm often incapable of following) for vanilla social settings - large work environments, large gatherings - in which people don't know each other and aren't expected to spend much time together in the future.

But I think it's not a good rule for close relationships, because communication is key. Not all people communicate with words - but sometimes, it's the words on the table that open up avenues of interaction that allow both people to be themselves.