The \u201cHelping\u201d Profession<\/p>\n
April 6, 2013<\/p>\n
What would you think about your Doctor for treating only your cough, while all along he knew you had TB? I am guessing that after you passed on, your family certainly would lawyer-up.<\/p>\n
I won’t pretend to be simplistic in my answer and will start my reply with an incendiary statement. Only treating “at-risk” youth is the same as only treating that bad cough you have after the x-ray confirmed TB. It is criminally negligent and unethical. The problem is that no one out there in the MH community is willing to talk about the real causes. Instead, we pat ourselves on the back for working countless hours in impossible conditions for low pay so that we feel glorified when making statements like, \u201cif I can just save one\u2026”.<\/p>\n
There are countless people and systems that have a \u201cfinger in the pie\u201d of responsibility of this problem. That is exactly why it won’t get solved, but rather it will evolve. Also, the problem did not come in the last four years or even in our generation. We now have multi-generational, circularly-reinforced cultural degradation. Eventually the “problem” will become so large and so prevalent, that it will simply become the norm; ergo, no more problem. We have seen this type of evolution in concepts many times.<\/p>\n
In a perfect world, everyone would be happy, no one would need anything and there would be no trauma or the resulting drama. Heaven is the only utopia and Adam and Eve blew our chance of having that utopia here on earth. Now, chances are that by saying “Heaven”, I lost a large portion of the MH community. Regardless, I will soldier on. Absent a perfect world available anymore, we are living in a fallen world. Pain and consequences are often indicators of something being wrong. For quite a while, our societal culture has chosen to do pain management, rather than prevention and\/or surgery. If you notice more than a few metaphors relating to healthcare, it is not a coincidence.<\/p>\n
Our culture is the parent of our next generation. Parents gave up the difficult task of parenting a very long time ago. There are many excuses for the cessation of that responsibility AND a tremendous amount of \u201chelp\u201d from agencies, schools and the government. The common excuses I have heard why parents are absent are usually related to money or work. Besides, there is an after school program or a local kids\u2019 club to keep them busy. Jump back about 200 years or maybe even just 100. We still had crime. We had people out of work. We had natural disasters. What changed? Now we have unnatural disasters to add to the list.<\/p>\n
I will give you wonderful MH professionals another analogy to chew on. Johnny is an alcoholic. He has lost or severely damaged many relationships and has lost multiple jobs directly due to the effects of his drinking. Now, Sally comes along and she feels sorry for Johnny and wants to help him out. Johnny is without work, behind on the rent and doesn\u2019t seem to even have enough money for food. This tears Sally\u2019s heart into pieces. Sally believes that all Johnny needs is a break. He just needs a chance to get out from under the stress of his situation. If she can take some of the burden of Johnny\u2019s life off of his shoulders, he will have a chance to get back on his feet and start the healing process. Sally offers to pay Johnny\u2019s light bill and rent for the month. She feels empowered and fulfilled by doing such a good deed for someone in need.<\/p>\n
Pretend this is one of those \u201cyou pick the ending\u201d books. As a MH professional, what do you believe the outcome will be? Does Johnny, see the light and become the model father, neighbor and employee? Or does Johnny continue to drink and make Sally another in the long list of broken relationships in his life? Specific to MH, what is it called that Sally did? Starts with an \u201ce\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n
Does enabling help the \u201cclient\u201d? Does it help the helper? Does it help anything? OR, does it hurt and prolong the pain, suffering and damage? Take the concept and act of enabling out of the individual situation. Globalize it to an entire culture at the societal level. Please tell me why it is WRONG to enable Johnny in his alcoholism, but it is GLORIOUS to enable generations by eliminating consequences for their choices with programs, assistance, grade leveling, welfare (corporate or individual), or any other attempts to manipulate outcomes??? We feel so DAMNED GREAT about our attempts to fix, help and treat those in need\u2026<\/p>\n
Is the community of MH Professionals so lost in incestuous thought, education and practice that we cannot do critical introspection for our efforts and effects on a societal level? Or are we just scared of offending somebody that we are willing to continue to walk down the path of destruction? Two questions: Is it working and are you really helping?<\/p>\n
— R. A. Grier<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The \u201cHelping\u201d Profession April 6, 2013 What would you think about your Doctor for treating only your cough, while all along he knew you had TB? I am guessing that after you passed on, your family certainly would lawyer-up. I won’t pretend to be simplistic in my answer and will start my reply with an … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-qui-tacet-consentire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ragpages.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ragpages.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ragpages.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ragpages.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ragpages.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ragpages.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":153,"href":"https:\/\/ragpages.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions\/153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ragpages.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ragpages.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ragpages.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}