The American psychoanalyst, Harold Searles, is something of a free spirit in his field and one of his many contributions to the helping professions is his idea that there is a symbiosis or mutual dependency in the relationship between those being looked after and those who do the looking after. His notion reminds us that it can sometimes be puzzling and threatening for those of us who as a vocation look after children and young people to find that our charges are so accurate in their assessments of our insecurities and anxieties.What is more, they frequently take some pleasure in our discomfort and particularly so when we try to hide how irritating we find all this. In illustrating this phenomenon Searles is noting that our work cannot be defined by simplistic solutions and two-dimensional constructs. It is often, he implies, messy and confused and so we must keep our whole reflective selves in play at all times to deal with this.
To learn more about Harold Searles read Robert M Young at http://www.human-nature.com/rmyoung/papers/pap129h.html).
This was first posted on the goodenoughcaring.com home page on December 15th, 2010
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