Well, Duh

Have you ever made a discovery about yourself that, once having discovered it, seems so bloody obvious that you even feel a little silly about it?

I've known for some time that I have the tendency to get into relationships in which I bear the bulk of the responsibility for the relationship itself. In other words, I do all the talking, feeling, consoling, cajoling -- I do all the relating because my beloved of that moment is so guarded, reticent, angst-ridden, or whatever else his bag might be that if I didn't do all the relating, we wouldn't be a couple so much as two people just sharing a newspaper. Not to worry, though. I've long since come to the conclusion that I don't want to have to work that hard for the privilege of giving up first dibs on the crossword, and my personal relationships reflect this feat of self-knowledge.

I bring it up because it only just recently occurred to me that my professional life more or less requires that I engage in the very same relational habits at work that I've banished at home. Take Andy, for example. Remember Andy? Wordless pacing guy? Well, Andy finally got his state hospital bed. With some luck, it'll be a step toward home and a return to some kind of functioning. I felt a little like I imagine a mother feels when she sends her kid off on his first day of school: some mixture of excitement, sadness, pride and fear. I think Andy was just relieved to be getting a new hallway to pace. I helped him get some of his things together and wished him luck and good care. He nodded and asked for an envelope. I got a feeling of deja vu.

As a therapist, as a social worker in particular, I'm trained to think about mutuality in the therapeutic relationship, about subverting the authority inherent in being the one with the license. Power with, not power over and all that. That's all well and good, but postmodern rhetoric isn't going to get me very far with an inpatient population of decompensated schizophrenics. Sure, I've always got an eye on enhancing self-efficacy, but these relationships are anything but mutual. A guy like Andy's got so much chaos in his head that he needs cues from other people to figure out how to respond to the world. He needs a cheerleader and a coach, and I get a lot of satisfaction out of being able to do that for people like him.

The only thing that's surprising about any of this is that it took me so long to see that the pattern. And I have to admit to feeling a little dim-witted for not having seen it sooner. Why, it's just as plain as the nose on my face.

I suppose I've hidden this from myself for the obvious reason: I don't really want to have to ask myself if I've made a healthy adaptation, or if I've just transferred the pathology from one area of my life to another. I think for now I'll take the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach and just call it an interesting observation.

Ciao,

Madeline