Helpers and Helpees

"I know a lot about mixed motives. I'm the world's expert on mixed motives—my own—trying to disentangle the good from the evil, to unravel the knotted skein of my better self...the weeds growing with the wheat...and suddenly I am overwhelmed by my kinship with this man, for we are both sinners hoping in the mercy of God and His forgiveness."— Bruce Ritter on himself helping homeless children and a pimp's financial donation to his efforts, from 'Sometimes God Has a Kid's Face'.

There is a common relationship between helpers in our society, such as doctors, therapists, and counselors of all sorts, and the people they help, call them patients, clients, or helpees in general. Reflection implies that the helper and helpee are connected in a 100-100 relationship. The helpee fills the helper's needs just as fully as the helper fills the helpee's needs. The helper is not on a higher plane. Each reflects the inner needs of the other.

I became aware of this aspect of Reflection while working as an in-house computer consultant at an aerospace company. I worked with the central computer facility and it was my job to help the engineers, who were not as familiar with computers, to use the computer to solve their engineering problems. This was at a time in my life where my own interest in computers had me on a steep learning curve.

During this period, I was struck by what seemed to be an amazing coincidence. Whenever I learned an exciting new technical trick, engineers would immediately start coming into my office with problems to which it was the answer. For example, when I had learned of the mysteries behind IEFBR14, people would stream into my office with problems to which IEFBR14 was the answer. The problems I was solving for them were on my own learning curve.

The needs of the helper and helpee can be totally different, but the shared reality is the same. In my case, as a counselor for engineers using the computer, I needed to solidify my understanding of the applicability of IEFBR14. The engineers who came to me needed to solve some engineering problem on the computer. I helped them solve their problem, they helped me further my knowledge and insight into IEFBR14. The same relationships hold true for healers and patients.

This relationship is most clear in the field of psychiatry, where it is almost a cliché that psychiatrists are a little nuts themselves. Why would you enter psychiatry unless you had deep questions about the workings of your own mind? And what better person to counsel others on the workings of their minds than one who has questioned his or her own? The psychiatrist and patient are working on the same problems. To be more precise, the reality they share reflects the inner needs of both.

The success or failure of a healer has to do with the healer's inner needs. If they are learning, growing, feeling good about themselves and what they are doing, they will have positive results. They will get patients that need to be helped. On the other hand, if the healers have doubts about themselves, and their techniques, then those doubts will be expressed in their reality. They will get patients that do not need to be helped. In either case, the healer's and patient's needs are perfectly reflected in each other.

There is a serious problem with many healers today that is ironically caused by a partial understanding of Reflection. It is becoming more and more commonly understood that a person's ailments are related to that person's inner self.

This idea has been misused and interpreted by some healers to mean that the patient created their ailment, and if they got in harmony with themselves they would be cured. That message puts the healer on a higher spiritual plane, puts no responsibility on the healer, and puts a value judgment on the needs of the patient. It denies the interconnections between the healer, the patient, and everyone else close to the situation.

The result is that the patient is made to feel worse about their condition rather than better. Not only are they physically sick, they are to blame and somehow a lesser person because of it. Furthermore, if they don't have the spiritual strength to heal themselves they appear even worse in the eyes of those delivering the message to them.

There are a number of problems with seeing the patient as responsible for his or her ailment without understanding all of the connections.

The first is, the ailment cannot be judged as good or bad. The ailment, as it exists, meets some inner needs. My colds showed me understanding with my parents, my father's heart attack got him to an earlier retirement, and Mary's sprained ankle gave her control over her rugby experiences.

The second problem is that putting responsibility solely on the person with the ailment denies the full web of Reflection. While that person is 100 percent connected with the ailment, so is everyone else, including family and the healers involved. When this is recognized, the person with the ailment is no longer to "blame" for the ailment, but an equal player in a web that binds all together.

While sometimes responsibility for the ailment is placed on the patient, oftentimes the healer takes responsibility for the cure, especially if the healer has ego involved with his or her healing capabilities.

This applies to all healers and counselors, not just doctors and therapists. It is true for clergy, new age spiritual leaders, lawyers, and computer consultants as well. In each case the vanity of the helper creates a lie for both the helper and the helpee, the lie that the helper is responsible for the cure, but this is a lie that serves the helpee as well, as he or she attempts to avoid responsibility for whatever the condition being helped is.

Even when people are out of harmony with their inner needs, that being out of harmony meets inner needs. In this case, the mutual self-deception that goes on in a healer-patient relationship meets the needs of both perfectly. The patient does not want to accept responsibility for curing the ailment and wants to give it to the healer. The healer wants to take that responsibility for his or her own inner needs. Neither is fully honest about the relationship but both want and need it that way.

The following stories show some of the connections between helpers and helpees.

My daughter, Mary, and myself were sitting in a New Hampshire diner for breakfast. We were all hungry, but, at the time, Mary was trying to lose weight. She was agonizing over the menu choices that looked good to her. She wanted both the cheese omelet and the pineapple muffin, but knew eating both would be too much.

Then my daughter piped up with what she wanted. She wanted both the Creme of Wheat and two eggs, more than she could eat.

Mary immediately started to council and advise her on the problem, explaining how that was too much and she would have to choose which she wanted more.

My daughter's problem was a perfect reflection of the problem Mary had just worked out. By telling my daughter what to do about her breakfast dilemma, Mary was really reasserting her decisions on her own breakfast dilemma.

For my daughter, Mary was the voice of reason she needed to hear in helping with her choices.

So Mary reflected my daughter's need to have control put on her over-ordering and my daughter reflected Mary's need to reaffirm her own decisions on not over-ordering. Both were connected, 100-100, helper and helpee.

I was there too of course. The whole situation was a perfectly clear example of the relationship between helpers and helpees that was just the message I was looking for as I wrestled with that issue. They acted out in a simple example the pattern in which all helper-helpee relationships fall, just what I needed, 100 percent.

It was a beautiful sequence of reflections. Mary's dilemma, followed by my daughter's ordering, followed by Mary's advice, all just flowed, each perfectly reflecting the other in turn. The connections between us all, and the beautiful harmony of life, with all its bumps and wrinkles is there for us to know and understand every day—in this case it was there one morning in a New Hampshire diner with too many good choices for breakfast.

I was the editor-in-chief of a subscription computer information service that can best be described as evangelical. It touted the advantages of using new improved software technology for companies to better run their businesses. It derided those who were in a rut using old technology and who refused to update to the new technologies that would improve their productivity.

The information service claimed that those who wouldn't change were not changing because of old habits and fear of accepting new technologies. The publication educated people on the new technologies and told them how to use them.

The publication was written using word processors and personal computers. The word processor being used was old and inefficient. Everybody in the office decided to switch to a new and better word processor that would improve all of their productivity—everybody, that is, except P.

P refused to learn the new technology. He had others convert his files for him. He couldn't stand to change. In general, the state of computer software in the office was abysmal and did not take advantage of any of the new personal computer technologies designed specifically to help a small publishing company such as his.

Here was a perfect example of the helper sending out a message which was really aimed at himself. The strength of his message to learn and use new technology, and the fervor with which he promoted it, were directly proportional to the depth of his own resistance to new technology.

Near the end of my marriage, and shortly after I moved out I encountered three therapists, all illustrating the Reflections between therapist and patient. While at least two of the three were very professional, it was still not possible for them to stop their own biases from showing through in therapy.

The first therapist was Z, recommended to me by Mary. Z saw me as a horribly constrained and pained individual. She met with my ex-wife and saw her as a constraining force. Her therapy encouraged me to learn to be free. While she didn't say so directly, it was clear that leaving the marriage as a step towards my freedom would be a positive move. This is a message I wanted to hear. This is the message Mary wanted me to hear. It turns out Z had gotten divorced herself in her forties to affirm her own independence. My case clearly reinforced her life decisions for her.

My ex-wife wanted to try another therapist and found J. He was an excellent counselor who provided me with many valuable insights, but a very different person from Z. Unlike the informal mess at Z's, J's home, where he met his patients, was immaculate. He explored all the issues, but when pressed talked about the values of arranged marriages, the love that comes from years of commitment, and the problems of simple infatuation.

While not directly saying so, it was clear that, to him, marriage was commitment and work and the more rewarding course in my life would come from working on the marriage. This too was a message I wanted to hear—it was the other side of my indecision. It was the message my ex-wife wanted me to hear.

After one of the sessions, I caught a glimpse of J and his wife, and in that glimpse saw a cold and formal relationship. Just as Z was reaffirming her life decisions, it seemed J was reaffirming his. I opted to listen to Z and follow my heart.

After the separation, my ex-wife and daughter were going to another therapist, E, whom I also went to a few times. We had a lot of trouble getting together. We both missed sessions. When a patient misses a session it usually indicates they didn't want to go, and I admit that, but what about when the therapist misses the sessions? She didn't want to see me either. She did not seem to like dealing with me. She finally told me she felt the problems in many relationships were entirely due to narcissistic men like myself victimizing their mates. She is counseling my ex-wife and I'm sure that message is well received.

The three therapists I have seen all have given me insights I needed, and helped me understand myself. That is, I needed to understand the three aspects of relationships at the time of the breakup of the marriage—love which comes from hard work and dedication, love which comes from the heart, and the grief caused by narcissistic behavior.

It should be clear at this point that the inner self is not always a simple place. It is just as complex as the external reality we all live in. Oftentimes our reality will include conflicting messages, but these conflicting messages are themselves a perfect reflection of what is happening inside. In this case three different therapists were all part of my reality, each reflecting different aspects of my inner conflicts, and I was part of theirs, presenting issues that they were dealing with themselves.

Father Bruce Ritter was the founder of Covenant House, a shelter for kids who live on the streets. The kids he helped were the down-and-out of our society, the ones with no family, often selling themselves on the streets for survival. His program grew tremendously with many shelters in major cities across the country. Eventually he ran into trouble. He was accused of having sexual relations with some of the kids he was taking care of.

Father Bruce Ritter's difficulties expose our unrealistic expectations of figures in public light. We like to project the myth that Father Ritter was a pure and holy man, who out of the goodness of his heart chose to devote his life to helping the unfortunate kids whom fate had landed as victims of the streets.

This myth does not make sense. Father Ritter is drawn to the environment he works in for a reason, just as we all are drawn to our vocations. I always had a love for logic and a desire to help other people. It is no coincidence my career is built around helping people use computers. It is no coincidence Father Ritter works with troubled street kids.

Father Ritter understands this. The reason his book, Sometimes God Has a Kid's Face, is so powerful, is that this truth comes through. He recognizes that he gets as much from the kids as they get from him. They trigger a deep nerve within him that allows him to articulate their stories so well.

The depth of his feelings come out in a passage in the book describing his interaction with a pimp trying to give money to Covenant House. Initially, he is very angry but then says: "I know a lot about mixed motives. I'm the world's expert on mixed motives—my own—trying to disentangle the good from the evil, to unravel the knotted skein of my better self...the weeds growing with the wheat...and suddenly I am overwhelmed by my kinship with this man, for we are both sinners hoping in the mercy of God and His forgiveness."

This is not a man on a pedestal, but rather a man who exemplifies the highest, humblest Christian ideals, a man fully aware of his own sin, made compassionate by it, and willing to devote his life to helping others in need. He is perfect for his ministry—he grows, his kids grow, and we are all the richer for it. His honesty and compassion set him apart.

Were the charges against him true? Whether they were or not, I suspect they hit sensitive nerves within him, but it is precisely that sensitivity that makes him so good at what he does, and why he has dedicated his life to his work. He is fighting the demons within himself just as I was wrestling to understand IEFBR14.

His problems with Covenant House really only came about as his organization grew big enough to be in the public light. There, we refuse to accept that Bruce Ritter's greatness and weakness were inseparable—we want to idolize the greatness and deny the weakness. But once we destroy him for his weakness, we also destroy his greatness. To me, Bruce Ritter was a real hero of our times, not only for the work he did but for the understanding he conveyed of his relationship with his kids.

Copyright ©1992 Dennis Merritt. All Rights Reserved.