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It's natural to feel inadequate when someone - perhaps a friend or relative tells
you their troubles, but you can often be of real assistance. Neighbors, friends and
relatives who show warmth and common sense can be a wonderful help in many instances.
This fact sheet includes suggestions for helping people who are temporarily upset
or disoriented following a change, crisis or loss in their lives.
Show by words and actions that you care
Our society tends to put a "taboo" on tenderness, so simple, open affection
might embarrass some people. Remember, however, that a friendly arm around troubled
shoulders, a kind deed and the expression of sincere feelings of affection, admiration or
concern for a troubled person can mean a lot. Let the person suffering a crisis experience
your warmth and concern.
Help the person accept help
One way people avoid facing a crisis is the key to deny they need assistance. Studies
show that people who have difficulty working through a crisis or loss are inclined to
brush off offers of help and persist in the fantasy that everything is all right. The
person who acknowledges that he/she is in trouble, actively looks for help and gratefully
accepts it, is on the way to a healthy solution of the crisis.
Help with everyday tasks
The idea that person in trouble needs help with small, everyday tasks is right and
sound. For example, it is considerate to cook dinner for a friend with a sick child or to
quietly assume extra work when a co-worker is having trouble at home. A crisis
disorganizes and disorients a person. Ordinary tasks seem to take more time and energy for
a person in crisis because energy must go toward recognition of pain or grief.
If you can give help without suggesting the person you are helping is weak or
incompetent, an act of simple kindness can be a real support.
Talking it out
Burdens shared with a friend are often lighter to carry. Discussing your troubles with
someone is a way of expressing emotions and can help get rid of some of their effects,
too. Putting feelings into words can help a person see the situation more objectively.
Sometimes just knowing someone is aware of our hurt feelings, worries or difficult
decisions and cares about us can mean a great deal.
Be a good listener
If the person is going to talk it out, you must be a good listener. Good listening
encourages people to talk about their problems. Here are a few ways of listening to
others:
- Stop talking. You can't listen if you're talking.
- Put yourself in the other person's place. Recalling how you might have felt in a similar
situation or how others were affected might help. Don't assume, however, that the person's
responses will be or should be the same as yours.
- Show you're paying attention. Relax your body, and let your movements be natural. if you
usually gesture a lot, feel free to do so now.
- Initiate and maintain eye contact with the person. If you're going to listen to someone,
look at him/her. Vary eye contact rather than staring fixedly or with undue intensity.
- Take your cue for response or action from what the person is saying. Don't jump from
subject to subject or interrupt. If you can't think of anything to say, go back to
something the person said earlier and ask a question about that. There's no need to talk
about yourself or offer your opinion.
- To help the person get started, use open-ended questions that can't be answered with
"yes" or "no". This will allow the person to go into the subject at
length. Some examples of open-ended questions or statements are:
- "Tell me about it."
- "Would you like to talk about it?"
- "Let's discuss it."
- "I'm listening."
- "This seems really important to you."
- Once you've encouraged the person to talk, your response can make a big difference in
keeping the conversation going. Remember to nod your head, interject with short,
encouraging statements such as, "Oh? or "Then what happened?" In response
to a statement, try saying:
- "Tell me more."
- "How did you feel about that?"
- "What doe that mean to you?"
- Ask questions and listen to the answers. Try and find out how the person feels.
- Don't second guess what the person is going to say and don't answer without really
listening.
- Repeat what you think the person said, asking if you are right, for example: "Is
this how you feel?"
- Don't judge the person, it can stop communication.
Don't give false hope
People in trouble desperately want to be reassured and all your feelings may urge you
to give that reassurance. But a "there, there, everything will be all right"
approach may actually be a disservice - everything may not be all right. By giving false
hope you may be relegating the troubled person to the role of a child, making them feel
weaker. The kind of reassurance people in difficulty need is not some meaningless comfort
that the crisis will take care of itself, but rather a statement of faith that he/she will
be strong enough to work it out even if it is not all right. Help the person help
themselves. Let him/her know you're available to help find a solution. Lend a shoulder as
an equal, instead of reassuring him/her like a parent. This provides a more important kind
of reassurance - that you have faith in the troubled person's ability to handle the
crisis.
Don't encourage the blaming on others
Typical stages of mourning are anger and blaming others for a crisis or loss. Research
shows that people who do not cope successfully with a crisis have an overwhelming tendency
to dwell on the people or things they imagined were responsible for their trouble. Blaming
is a way of avoiding the truth, of looking at the "Might have been" instead of
looking at the problem at hand. Don't encourage someone in trouble to speculate on the
"villain" in the case with the idea that he/she will feel better if they place
the blame on someone else. Laying blame can make it harder or less likely for the person
to come out of the crisis strengthened. Blaming can occur whether it's discouraged or not,
so listen patiently and try not to fuel the blaming. Encourage the person to see the other
side.
Point out illogical thinking
When people are hurting, they may make predictable, illogical statements. For example:
- All or nothing thinking -
seeing everything in black and white. If their
performance falls short of perfect they are total failures.
- Over generalizing - seeing a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of
defeat.
- Mental filter - picking a single negative detail and dwelling on it exclusively
so reality seems bleak and dark.
- Disqualifying the positive -
rejecting all positive experiences by insisting they
"don't count."
- Jumping to conclusions -
making negative interpretations even though there are no
facts to support them. For example, "mind reading" - person concludes someone is
reacting negatively to them, but does not bother to check it out. Or, "fortune teller
error" - where a person is so convinced things will turn out badly they believe this
prediction is an established fact - "It's just a matter of time now" is what
they're likely to believe.
- Magnifying or minimizing the
importance of things.
An example of
magnifying a problem is viewing a mistake as "your goof up". Minimizing is when
a person doesn't recognize a job well done - "I didn't do anything special."
- Emotional reasoning -
assuming negative emotions reflect the way things really
are. For example, "I feel it therefore it must be true."
- "Should" statements -
the troubled person tries to motivate or punish
him/herself or blames someone else. Guilt feelings can result from using
"should", "must" or "ought" in self statements. When
directed at someone else, these words can create anger, frustration or resentment.
- Labeling or mislabeling - instead of defining the error, the troubled person
attaches a negative label, "I'm a ~loser" or "he's a louse."
- Personalization - the person may see him/herself as the cause of a negative event
when in fact he/she was not primarily responsible - "It's all my fault".
If you recognize illogical thinking, try to soften the words of the person you're
trying to help. For example, you might say, "So you think you're a total failure.
Tell me something, you've done in your job you're proud of."
You might point out to the troubled person that he/she may not be seeing things as
clearly as he/she thinks. For example, you might respond to a negative comment with
"You're predicting a gloomy future. But you still have the time and ability to turn
things around."
Encourage the presentation of facts and constructive possibilities.
Emotional tension can easily lead to misunderstanding and misinterpretation, so it's
important the facts be made clear. It's amazing how often people make important decisions
without taking the time to look at all the facts and consider all options.
Ask the person to tell you about the change, crisis or loss - when it started, how it
occurred or developed, what consequences have resulted, how it has affected him/her, how
he/she feels about it.
Here are some specific steps you may want to consider when guiding a troubled
person:
- Help sort out the pieces of the problem.
- Help separate those parts about which he/she can do something from those he/she can't.
There's no use wasting energy on the latter.
- Encourage the person to describe how he/she has tried to solve the problem. There's no
point in repeating something that didn't work before.
- Encourage the person to describe or discover other possible solutions and help examine
probable consequences.
- Help decide which of the various alternatives he/she will want to try now.
Focus on the future
Encourage the person to focus on the practical future rather than
dwelling on past wrongs and mistakes. Spouses, children, relatives and
neighbors do make
mistakes and outside events may cause injustices, inconveniences and discomfort. But
bemoaning misfortunes does not help build a better future. Heaping blame on other people
or on fate may even lesson that person's willingness to accept responsibility for current
actions and may prevent him or her from coping with the problem.
Naturally, you do not want to criticize those you are trying to help. A person in
crisis may interpret the criticism as more rejection. Instead, aim at guiding him/her
gently by showing your interest, attention and sympathy when he/she begin to talk about
solving the problem. If the person does not voluntarily indicate such intentions, you may
- again gently - want to raise some questions such as, "All right, what can you do
about this matter?".
Some steps in this process probably include the following:
- Begin solving the problem. An action plan should be realistic and have achievable goals.
- Help the person find the resources to cope - spiritual, interpersonal, inner.
- Encourage the person to start resolving the problem soon. Help establish a start-up
time.
- If the person resists acting on the problem, discuss this and help resolve this feeling.
Point out how he/she will start to feel better, less depression and more hopeful once
something (however small) is done about the situation.
- Find out how the action plan worked. Have him describe what happened, affirm any
successes in implementing the action plan, help rethink any goals (what's the next step?)
and repeat those parts which are necessary to help him continue coping.
Encourage sensible health habits
The body also has an influence on emotions and mental functions. People are
particularly likely to be upset when they're hungry or overtired. You might remind a
troubled friend that when problems seem insoluble, a new perspective might be gained
simply by having a good night's sleep and well-balanced, wholesome meals. Encourage some
form of exercise, too. Walking is a great tension reliever.
Respect privacy
When people are upset they may sometimes tell intimate secrets. Later, they may be
sorry they talked so freely. If you are listening to a friend's troubles, try not to lead
him/her into revealing information he/she may later regret.
Recognizing the value of every human person, no matter how he/she has acted, is basic
to the philosophy of helping others. In some situations, you may have to try especially
hard to understand.
Resist any temptation to pass on confidences that have come from intimate
conversations. People who confide in you can be comfortable about accepting help only if
they feel sure their privacy will be respected. If you violate this confidence, they are
almost certain to eventually learn of it and any trust that has developed will be lost.
Similarly, sharing with them conversations others have confided in you will suggest you
might do the same with their confidences.
Knowing your limitations
Serious problems need professional and experienced help. Individual
counselling by a
mental health worker. Inter-Faith Pastoral Counselling Services (available in Brandon and
Winnipeg), clinical psychologist, marriage counsellor or psychiatrist can often supply the
help needed. Group help from psycho-therapy groups or specialty groups (such as Alcoholics
Anonymous) also meet the needs of many. If you become involved with someone who you think
may need more help than you can provide, scout around for possible referrals.
Most everyday human troubles are not serious enough to need outside assistance. A wise,
warm, kind-hearted spouse, parent or friend can do much to ease the emotional distress
that comes from the worries, disappointment and conflicts of life.
If enough of us are aware of the ways to help others in times of trouble, more and more
people can be helped through the inevitable hazards that confront us in life.
Adapted from a Minnesota Extension
Service bulletin, "Helping Persons Cope
With Change, Crisis, Loss"
For more information related to this topic ask for the following fact sheets:
For Further Information See Your Local
Manitoba Agriculture,
Food and Rural Initiatives Office.
Prepared by:
Jill Falloon, PHEc
Home Economics Section
915 - 401 York Avenue
Winnipeg MB R3C OP8
Revised 2003 |
