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It is important for those of us in the caring professions to have…
It is important for those of us in the caring professions to have meaningful, positive work experiences. Some practitioners do not have them on a daily basis. However, on a random and intermittent basis, they can be very reinforcing for us. Are you having a high ratio of positive work experiences in your work life? If not, what is missing? What can you do to increase the ratio of positive experiences in your life as a practitioner?
ost readers of this book are nurturers of human development. This can be very rewarding. Making a positive difference in human life – in the growth and health of the Other – is a central career interest for counselors, therapists, teachers, clergy, health professionals, and other practitioners, too. The close connection to others and the opportunity to help, teach, guide, advise, and heal people brings the joys, rewards, and gifts of practice. Being successful in helping relationships can produce a profound sense of satisfaction.
People have asked us why we did not choose a research career in a lab or a technical field such as software design. We have a variety of answers, such as experiencing a wonderful sense of satisfaction in working with people struggling with life’s difficulties. Interacting closely with the most complex of all species is so enriching. The opportunity to try to make human life better for others is a great privilege. And to get a salary for often deeply satisfying work adds to the privilege of having such work. What are some of the specific joys, rewards, and gifts of practice?
Joys of Practice
The focus of the work is on positively affecting human need. This goal can be elusive and difficult to achieve, a reality quite familiar to veteran practitioners. Consequently, when the practitioner hits a bull’s-eye of success, there is a joyof-practice reaction. Witness these joy-of-practice reactions.
Michelle recalls a practitioner joy that drew her into the professional helping field:
As a lay helper right out of college, I worked at a summer residential camp for adolescents who were struggling with emotional and behavioral issues. I worked with one young woman who I will call Mary. Slowly, through my work with Mary, I was seeing small indications that Mary liked setting goals and making changes in her life. After a special outing celebrating Mary’s birthday, she came to me and said: “I had a really fun day today. All my other birthdays I was gone – drunk or high – but today I had a lot of fun. Thank you, thank you for today.” Hearing this from this young woman helped me to know that the caring professions were for me. I wanted to be there to help others, like Mary, connect to themselves and their capacity for growth.
Tom recalls a practitioner joy, a bolt of appreciation that felt like the nurturing warmth of a summer sun.
I received a phone message long after the counseling work was over. The former client said, “Thank you, Tom, for the fantastic work you did in the counseling and consulting; it was so valuable. May come back but everything is good now.”
Good, very good, excellent, helpful, feel much better, fantastic, am more hopeful – these are reassuring, kind, and encouraging words from clients about our work together. These words get our hearts pumping and corpuscles jumping. We are reminded of Frank McCourt, who taught adolescents for 30 years in the New York Public Schools and later wrote Teacher Man (2005), and his words: “Sometimes they will tell you that was a pretty good lesson and you’re on top of the world. That somehow gives you energy and makes you want to sing on the way home” (p. 77).
Larson (1993) asked nurses to describe “the most positive moment he or she ever had as a helper.” Three of them said:
When a wife of a patient whose case I just opened called the office after I left their home and told my supervisor, “Thank you for sending us such a wonderful nurse.”
When a patient said to me, “I’m so glad you’re my nurse today because I wanted you to be the one to be with me on the day I die.” She died at the end of my shift that day.
A mother of a child with leukemia once said, “We come to this clinic every week and know that you care for many, many children, but when you come to see us, I feel like we are the only people you have seen that day.”
(pp. 6-7)
A senior psychologist at a Southern university described to Tom a joy in his practice:
I had a very nice phone message when I checked in yesterday (on my birthday); a client who I worked with about four years ago had called to tell me that she is doing very well, is about to be married, and feels that the only reason she is alive and living so happily now is because of the work we did together. She had been clinically depressed and suicidal for months, and I had worked my butt offwith her; such a nice result!
For a member of the clergy, the pleasure of helping came in this way:
One day he went to visit a woman who was very ill. As he started to leave the room, the woman spoke to him: “You have been such an important person in my life. I want you to know that I have great love for you.” These kind words sailed straight into the minister’s heart.
An elementary school teacher experienced a similar “practitioner joy”:
This past fall I received in the mail two letters from two former students, then beginning fifth grade. They were their teacher to write a letter to their favorite elementary teacher. These two girls each wrote to me, telling me that I had been their favorite, and they each had their reasons why… The letters brought tears to my eyes, and I know I will save them forever. I kept them at my desk this whole past year, as a reminder that I’m a good teacher and that I am positively influencing children’s lives. Receiving those letters was one of the happiest moments during my teaching career.
(S. McNeill, personal communication, 1996)
Can you think of anything better than to have a ringside seat in the human drama and, at times, assist in making the drama turn out well? We are fortunate to be in the helping professions. We acknowledge this with happy memories of past practitioner experiences, enjoyable present work, and positive anticipation of the future in this field.
Rewards of Practice
I do not try to help the other grow in order to actualize myself, but by helping the other grow I do actualize myself.
– M. Mayeroff (1990, p. 40)
There is richness to the experience of relating on an intimate level with many people.
– P. P. Heppner (1989, p. 74)
As described in the Mayeroff and Heppner quotations, the relationship-intense fields can provide many “psychic income” rewards. Radeke and Mahoney (2000) describe some of the rewards in the high-touch field of psychotherapy (see Table 2.1). In comparing the experience of research psychologists and psychotherapists, the therapists were significantly higher on important dimensions.
In their book, Leaving It at the Office, Norcross and Guy (2007) cite the following as some of the rewards of practice: satisfaction of helping, freedom and independence, variety of experiences, intellectual stimulation, emotional growth, reinforcement for personality qualities, and life meaning.
Some rewards are related to the “helper therapy principle,” an idea first described by Reissman in a classic 1965 article. Essentially, the idea is that the giver in a human exchange gets a lot from giving. An example is the sponsor role in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). In an article, Tom elaborated on Reissman’s idea by suggesting four ways that giving is rewarding (Skovholt, 1974):
Identity development – The idea here is that the giving role gives the practitioner a sense of identity. Also, the need for effectance motivation (the joy of being a cause) and competence motivation (the innate desire to be competent) is met through the practitioner’s work. Last, a close connection with others reduces a sense of loneliness. In recent years, much professional literature in psychology has documented the importance of social connections for wellness. For example, Rupert, Stevanovic, and Hunley (2009) found that when surveying psychologists, family support was an important ingredient for well-being, whereas conflict between work and family were associated with burnout.
Social exchange theory – Theories of social exchange attempt to explain the human rules used in resource exchange. Foa (1971) developed a six-resource model: love, status, information, money, goods, and services. In essence, by giving one or more professional resources – information and services – the practitioner receives versions of love, status, and money. People, including practitioners, treasure receiving these resources.
Modeling – The modeling literature is rich with examples of how we learn by observation. Examples are learning to teach by watching one’s teacher and learning to parent by watching one’s parent. This is a powerful human development method. Practitioners closely observe those they work with when attempting to make positive changes in an emotional, intellectual, spiritual, or physical area.
Much of the interaction and observation occurs in private space, although some is public (i.e., the classroom). Like a cultural anthropologist in these encounters, the high-touch practitioner is able to closely observe human behavior and learn from it. Of course, this must be done in a way that is both ethical and in which the needs of the other are primary. Yet, these encounters do provide rich opportunities to learn via modeling. Often the learning is about deeper human themes, such as the impact of motivation on change, the ingredients of success, ways to encounter pain, and how friends and family affect goals. If done in an ethical way, this modeling can be instructive for the practitioner. Here is an example. A few years ago, Tom attended a ceremony for winners of teaching awards. Eight awards were given out. All eight of the award winners spoke passionately about how much they learned from their students. Ironic, in a way. These were distinguished professors. Aren’t they supposed to be the givers of knowledge to the unenlightened? No, they spoke of how their students were their teachers and how grateful they were for what they had learned.
Direct reinforcement – The practitioner’s work can lead to direct social reinforcement, such as forms described by Skinner (1953) of attention, approval, and affection. Certainly, getting reactions like these can help make the practitioner’s work satisfying.
Gifts of Practice
One great gift of practice is species immortality. This is a term that we use to describe the connection that we, as practitioners, have to the ongoing evolution of our species, Homo sapiens. Through helping, teaching, religious and spiritual ministry, and health care, practitioners are connected to the great human life chain that stretches from the far past into the far future. Like sharing one’s DNA with others in a biological chain, practitioners, through their acts of empowering human growth, are connected in a positive way to the ongoing human story.
Connecting oneself to the growth and development of other people can provide enormous meaning, sometimes clearly felt and sometimes unconscious, for the practitioner. When the search for meaning is elusive for so many in contemporary society, finding a source of meaning is a great gift to the relationship-intense practitioner. Conversely, meaning burnout, a concept explored in Chapter 6, can be very distressing for the practitioner because the gift of meaning seems to be gone.
A master therapist quoted in Norcross and Guy (2007) expresses this sentiment about the value of meaningful work:
I have learned so much about life through the experiences of my clients. They have changed me, and I’m a better person for having been a part of their struggles and pain. I’ve lived several lifetimes and viewed life through the eyes of literally hundreds of people. This can’t help but improve my own chances for a happy life.
(p. 30)
Another gift of practice relates to how we grow at a deep and profound level through our work with our partners – such as our clients, patients, students – in the helping relationship. Van Dernoot Lipsky describes her work in a hospital as a practitioner:
Even at the most devastating moments of their lives, people somehow called up their highest selves. They were suffering on a level I could relate to, and yet despite their anguish, they didn’t give up. I received an infusion of awe and hope with each and every shift… I felt my old isolation melt. Because I had an opportunity to bear witness to others’ pain while helping them to know they could be loved and taken care of as they suffered, I experienced a profound healing. My work at Harborview gave me a gift.
(van Dernoot Lipsky and Burk, 2009, pp. 118-119, reprinted with permission)
In summary, there can be great joys, rewards, and gifts for the practitioner. They can combine in unique forms at different times during a practitioner’s life. They can vary in form and intensity across different practitioners and different caring career fields. Yet, although differences exist, the positive qualities of the work – the joys, rewards, and gifts – can be very real and sustaining.
