{"id":7344,"date":"2011-02-25T11:18:56","date_gmt":"2011-02-25T10:18:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=7344"},"modified":"2011-05-18T15:52:23","modified_gmt":"2011-05-18T14:52:23","slug":"muir-gray-what-is-helping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2011\/02\/25\/muir-gray-what-is-helping\/","title":{"rendered":"Muir Gray: What is helping?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bmj.com\/site\/blog\/icons\/muir_gray.jpg\" alt=\"Muir Gray\" width=\"160\" height=\"110\" align=\"left\" \/>Raymond Tallis\u2019 excellent Times article on Humanity on 17 February made me reflect on helping, a topic about which I had been forced to rethink by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Helping-Offer-Give-Receive-Help\/dp\/B001O2SSPW\/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1298112257&amp;sr=1-3\">Edgar Schein\u2019s new book on helping<\/a>. Schein is one of my heroes. His work on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Organizational-Culture-Leadership-J-B-non-Franchise\/dp\/B001QCXSU0\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1298112257&amp;sr=1-1\">organisational culture<\/a> has been a major influence on me in the last decade and I knew he was also a clinician but this book is a revelation; short, and humorous. It also refers to another hero of my schooldays \u2013 Stephen Potter, whose <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gamesmanship\">gamesmanship<\/a> taught me many ploys, as some of you may have observed. Here is fillet from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Helping-Offer-Give-Receive-Help\/dp\/B001O2SSPW\/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1298112257&amp;sr=1-3\">Schein\u2019s book<\/a>, but buy it and enjoy it.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><em>Five possible traps for the client<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>1.\u00a0Initial mistrust<br \/>\n2.\u00a0Relief<br \/>\n3.\u00a0Looking for attention, reassurance and\/or validation instead of help<br \/>\n4.\u00a0Resentment and defensiveness<br \/>\n5.\u00a0Sterotyping unrealistic expectations and transference of perceptions<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> Six possible traps for the helper<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>1.\u00a0Dispensing wisdom prematurely<br \/>\n2.\u00a0Meeting defensiveness with more pressure<br \/>\n3.\u00a0Accepting the problem and over-reacting to the dependence<br \/>\n4.\u00a0Giving support and reassurance<br \/>\n5.\u00a0Resisting taking on the helper role<br \/>\n6.\u00a0Stereotyping a priori expectations, counter-transference and projections\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Whatever the structure, and I have had 21 re-organisations, it is essential to distinguish eternal verities from ephemera and the helping relationship is certainly one of the former.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Muir Gray<\/strong> is visiting professor of knowledge management, Nuffield Department of Surgery, University of Oxford. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Raymond Tallis\u2019 excellent Times article on Humanity on 17 February made me reflect on helping, a topic about which I had been forced to rethink by Edgar Schein\u2019s new book [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2011\/02\/25\/muir-gray-what-is-helping\/\">More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2087],"tags":[2090,2088,2089],"class_list":["post-7344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-muir-gray","tag-edgar-schein","tag-helping","tag-organisational-culture"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Muir Gray: What is helping? 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