self-help: In facing our problems, ultimately self-help means help-self

FATHER LOU GUNTZELMAN | PERSPECTIVES The woman was disturbed with her therapist. In her last session she had asked him, "Do you think it's time for me to get out of my marriage?" He answered, "The important questions are usually unanswerable, especially by other people." Then he asked her, "What do you think you should do?" That's why she's angry. Instead of a definite answer he put the ball back in her court. "I'm paying him money so he can know me and tell me the best thing to do," she fumed, "but he just takes my money and won't tell me." The multitude of self-help books today imply there are always answers to the problems and ambiquities of life -- but only a few other people have them. We think "self-help" means to find a guru (an all-knowing wise person), read their book or make an appointment to see them, present our problem, and they'll tell us what to do. Adroitly we're saying to them, "My world is broken and you have to fix it for me." There certainly are competent people who can be of immense help to us at times. We should not hesitate seeking their insights. But in the long run what self-help really means is help-self. An old Zen teacher instructed his followers thus, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." That's not an invitation to violence but an invitation to destroy the idea that another human can run our lives, solve all our problems, or make us happy. We bring on many of our own problems, we unconsciously hide from the awareness of what we must do (because we're afraid it will hurt too much), and the answers are already inside us. The woman angry at her counselor is actually being given a vote of confidence by him. He is willing to discuss her problem with her and offer valuable insight. But his respect for her keeps him from trying to fix or run her life -- even though she is trying to get him to do so, if he did what she wants, eventually she would lose respect for him. She would also reach a point where she disrespects herself by thinking, "How weak and useless I am that I can't even handle my own life!" His goal is to skillfully guide her to follow the road inside herself where she can choose her solution. Therapist Sheldon Kopp imaginatively describes what he sees is really happening when a new patient comes to him: "It is as if I stand in the doorway of my office, waiting. The patient enters and makes a lunge at me, a desperate attempt to pull me into the fantasy of taking care of him. I step aside. He falls to the floor disappointed and bewildered. ... If I am sufficiently skillful at this psychotherapeutic judo, and if he is sufficiently courageous and persistent, he may learn to become curious about himself, to know me as I am, and begin to work out his own problems." Father Lou Guntzelman is a Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Reach him at life@communitypress.com. Please include a mailing address if you wish for him to respond.