The Problem With Helping

I’ve been in a “helping” field for my entire adult life.

On a resume it would be branded a “human services” field, but most people use the former wording when discussing it.

“I became an XYZ because I wanted to help people!”

“Oh you’re so noble for helping XYZ demographic!”

Hearing either of these statements makes me feel kind of grody. And I never really knew why. Especially because when I tried to formulate my own career desires, it generally also boiled down to “help” someone do something.

Then, on a recent call, one of my clients absolutely blew my mind. Casually discussing her own issues, she said “The dark side of help is control.”

Once more for the people in the back:

The dark side of help is control.

Well… fuck.

If you read my last post about leaving behavior analysis, that was kind of my whole deal. I went into a field that I believed would raise people up, and instead found it forcing them down into boxes. Instead of environmental modifications, accessibility options, or general curiosity, the question was always “How do we help them do it?” 

Translated, that means “How do we make them do it our way?”

“Help,” is so generic that every profession could be redefined as a “helping” profession. The cashier at Rita’s helped me last night by dispensing the gelati that I wanted. Office workers help the rest of their office facilitate whatever business they have to attend to. I’ve now used the word “help” so many times it’s lost all meaning and hit semantic satiation. 

When we “help” someone, we’re trying to get them to a specific place. We’re trying to enact a change in them or their lives. We’re leveraging our own power. That’s control. It’s even judgment, a condemnation that their efforts aren’t good enough.

This does not mean that people in human services fields all seek control. Quite the opposite, actually. The vast majority of those who go mindfully forth do genuinely want to do good, to cause positive change in people’s lives. 

But what change counts as positive? What is, objectively speaking, “good”?

Let’s reserve that topic for another blog post. Possibly a book series.

If practitioners (coaches, for example) don’t examine what biases we hold, what we believe to be a “good” choice or outcome for the client… we really are just trying to control them.

My coaching program CTI teaches detachment, but to me, that's insufficient. We can’t just throw up our hands and say “Fine, I don’t care about the outcome” because that’s antithetical to building a relationship with the client and, more to the point, is generally untrue. We’re humans, after all, and we can attach to just about anything.

We can care about the outcome in relation to the client. Is it the outcome that makes the client happy? Is it one they can live with while they pursue other, more pressing areas of life? We can feel empathy with our clients and walk alongside them and be curious about what they’re thinking and feeling. We can want what they want, but not what we think they should want.

That’s not helping. That’s coaching. And that differentiation is hard.

Respect makes all the difference. Respect for the client, their choices, their own unique process. 

Nobody needs controlling, judgmental help. 

Everybody needs empathetic, respectful presence. 

What do you need?