It is in weakness and through failings that one finds purpose and is made useful. The struggle is one’s credential and authority. We cannot deny our brokenness and hope to be helpful to our neighbor. We are not merely generally fallen we are individually imperfect. As human beings we all bear the hand print of God and there is a dignity and stature which is granted us but we all also should be hum
bly kneeling in the recess of our heart. It is important not to alienate ourselves from our pain with denial, minimization or rationalization. One cannot hope to be whole if we do not embrace our brokenness as a treasure and gift to offer to one another as unvarnished truth and testimony of our authenticity. Each of us has weathered storms which enables us to see one another as our neighbor and not someone alien to ourselves or foreign to our experience. During the course of a career in counseling there is a reoccurring question which arises in the mind of the client “How do you help?” Treatment begins when such prejudices of “otherness” is challenged. Our shared humanity is the bridge in healing and a sign that assistance is really on the horizon. My function as a psychotherapist is to respectfully defer all judgment about the cosmology of the condition and defer all certitude about the great enigma that is the person. No matter how well I know a person or a diagnosis (condition) inherent in each session there is an opportunity for learning and not assuming to know too much. It comes from the respect for the unknowable about the person before. What drives someone into counseling: the unmanageably of his/her life is not synonymous with the personhood. It is the intersection between two individuals who are willing to encounter and explore the hidden or less familiar terrain of the mind-body-soul. In my case I assume the posture of guide but very often clients guide me to the untended or cultivated parts of myself. There is always the 'apophatic mystery' of the person which cannot be presumed or devalued. It is my willingness to be affected by the other person by the same measure and to the same degree that each client is undertaking.