Emotions: Opening up
The Relational Worker
Letting the guard down
Entries and exits. Difficulty is littered with entries and exits of people who come in peace and leave behind pain. Over time, the self learns not to reveal to others. It learns how to avoid further hurt. Emotions become impenetrable.
It takes time but the first sign of a strong relationship between a helper and helped is the guard coming down. The relationship breaks through the barriers of past experiences. First, the relationship makes people who feel unworthy and unable to also feel good about themselves. Second, relationships help people who typically keep emotions in to let a few of them out.
How does the relationship get to this point? In the same way any relationship gets to this point. By talking. Not talking therapy. Just talking. The weather. Sport. The state of the world.
For people in great difficulty, it means feeling normal. Regaining the sense of being like everyone else. Blending in with other people. For their struggles not to dictate every interaction. They crave connections where the focus is not on the problem — the homelessness, the addiction, the abuse, the lack of money — and how it can be fixed — housing, rehab, counselling, a job. They see their worker seeing them. Seeing who they are, their interests, the movies they like. The books they read.
They pay attention to the ordinary, the everyday, the common aspects of interaction. Sometimes it starts with a greeting, as this young person explains:
You always stopped and you asked me how was your day, and, you know, you have this kind of interaction. It wasn’t looking for, actually, anything. It was just…It didn’t sound like professional concern, it looked like a human concern.
The two talk food, books, relationships. As two friends getting to know each other, not as two people with roles of helper and being helped.
Overtime, people begin to feel understood and accepted. The guard doesn’t descend suddenly. Workers are continually tested. Do they care? Do they understand? Can they help?
One young person recounts a moment when he needed his worker:
I just called her to confide in her because I had lost my little sister. She was part of the agency too. We had the same worker. The day I met with my worker, my sister died that same day. I called my worker at 12:00 midnight, crying to her about it. She was hurt because she was helping her too. It was just crazy. She had my back on that, though, and I appreciated that.
The small things matter. Remembering someone’s favourite book. How they take their coffee. Going to the aquarium because they like it there. Sending a welcome card when they move to new accommodation. Wishing good luck before a job interview.
None of these gestures are about fixing the problem. They convey, instead, that people are special, that they matter, that someone is willing to keep on coming back, to keep on fighting for them.
