When talking about the qualities of those who work to support and care for troubled children and young people, Clare Winnicott said,
“Acceptance goes very deep. It is not a passive thing, but an active effort on the part of the worker to know the individual as he is, as a person in his own right, with his own life to live, and his own intrinsic value as a human being. This does not mean that we accept or approve all that an individual does or says, but that we try to reach behind the delinquent act and the deceitful language to the suffering in the human being which causes the symptoms that we see. Acceptance in this sense is in itself a basic therapeutic experience. For one thing it is the opposite of rejection, but in a more positive way it implies to the individual a sense of value, of worth, which is essential to life.”
Clare Winnicott (1964) Casework and the Residential Treatment of Children Hitchin, Hertfordshire Codicote Press pp 28-29.
(First posted on the goodenoughcaring website http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/ on October 17th,2010)
If you would like to read more about the work of Clare Winnicott and her influence on Donald Winnicott visit Joel Kanter's article at http://www.goodenoughcaring.com/JournalArticle.aspx?cpid=91
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