Hello folks:
I just am now getting through the 3rd Edition of Motivational Interviewing by Miller and Rollnick. I feel like a lazy student.
I was excited to read that another new Global Rating has been added and that is Compassion. I am curious to see how Moyers et al will develop a Likert scale as well as Verbal Anchors for this skill. How is compassion measured? How is it manifested? Compassion furthers separates MI from most of the other counseling skills even though we are all helpers.
I find that I must examine my own motives for why I would want to be compassionate. I used to think I was, as I was always involved in Social Justice issues, went out of my way to provide pro bono services in MI, and taking the time to mentor new MI practitioners. Yet why was I doing it? Was I doing it to look good to the rest of the world? "Look at me! Perhaps I should be canonized as a saint!"
In retrospect, I was wanting to be compassionate for all the wrong reasons.
For me, compassion is present when I have a willingness to help/assist in some way without people knowing that I have been compassionate. Anonymity may be essential in some cases. I read somewhere that the greatest way to share gifts is to give them anonymously and never know how the other person reacted. To give gifts/assistance without expectation of being thanked or acknowledged is very hard for me. To be giving in this way means that I will never feel the glow of "What a good person I am." I like that glow. Yet my motives are way, way off.
I agree with Bill and Steve that compassion is what brings us helpers into the helping profession. And in looking back, I became a therapist because I wanted to "help people". Yet what good is helping if the rest of world isn't around to tell you what a fabulous person you are.
Compassion also means never giving up on someone. It is difficult to be around folks when they are suffering yet we do ourselves a great injustice by avoiding them and telling people "I am setting clear boundaries." What boundaries surround suffering? What boundaries surround folks wanting to make a behavior change and feeling helpless/hopeless about it?
I also believe that I have to be open and experience compassion before I can be that way with someone else. I thought I was being compassionate. I was self-righteous and self-absorbed.
I am perfect in my imperfections. I strive to still maintain the "pathological optimism" that Bill Miller talks about and I am working on being "relentlessly compassionate". This is the hard work.
I just am now getting through the 3rd Edition of Motivational Interviewing by Miller and Rollnick. I feel like a lazy student.
I was excited to read that another new Global Rating has been added and that is Compassion. I am curious to see how Moyers et al will develop a Likert scale as well as Verbal Anchors for this skill. How is compassion measured? How is it manifested? Compassion furthers separates MI from most of the other counseling skills even though we are all helpers.
I find that I must examine my own motives for why I would want to be compassionate. I used to think I was, as I was always involved in Social Justice issues, went out of my way to provide pro bono services in MI, and taking the time to mentor new MI practitioners. Yet why was I doing it? Was I doing it to look good to the rest of the world? "Look at me! Perhaps I should be canonized as a saint!"
In retrospect, I was wanting to be compassionate for all the wrong reasons.
For me, compassion is present when I have a willingness to help/assist in some way without people knowing that I have been compassionate. Anonymity may be essential in some cases. I read somewhere that the greatest way to share gifts is to give them anonymously and never know how the other person reacted. To give gifts/assistance without expectation of being thanked or acknowledged is very hard for me. To be giving in this way means that I will never feel the glow of "What a good person I am." I like that glow. Yet my motives are way, way off.
I agree with Bill and Steve that compassion is what brings us helpers into the helping profession. And in looking back, I became a therapist because I wanted to "help people". Yet what good is helping if the rest of world isn't around to tell you what a fabulous person you are.
Compassion also means never giving up on someone. It is difficult to be around folks when they are suffering yet we do ourselves a great injustice by avoiding them and telling people "I am setting clear boundaries." What boundaries surround suffering? What boundaries surround folks wanting to make a behavior change and feeling helpless/hopeless about it?
I also believe that I have to be open and experience compassion before I can be that way with someone else. I thought I was being compassionate. I was self-righteous and self-absorbed.
I am perfect in my imperfections. I strive to still maintain the "pathological optimism" that Bill Miller talks about and I am working on being "relentlessly compassionate". This is the hard work.
A young friend of mine was paralyzed in a diving accident a little more than a week ago. He turned 31 recently. His accident occurred about 3 hours away so I made the 6 hour round trip twice last week. His mom is one of my best friends from high school.
ReplyDeleteI thought a great deal about compassion during those long rides. Empathy is the ability and willingness to enter another's shoes. Is compassion a virtue one can experience without expressing in action?
Is action needed for a person to experience compassion, both as helper and recipient?
yikes.