THE PHILOSOPHY

Neil has been involved in working with people and their problems for over thirty years. Over this time he has developed his own philosophy, with its roots in existentialism (the subject of his PhD studies). Neil summarises his views below. Please note that this is a summary and not an exhaustive account of Neil’s ideas and approach.

People Working with People

Realism

Working with people brings both challenges and rewards, although it is very easy at times to get so engrossed in the challenges that we can lose sight of the rewards. A key part of my philosophy is the need to balance positives and negatives. Some people see the glass as being half empty (the pessimists), while others see it as half full (the optimists). Of course, both views are distortions, oversimplifications of much more complex issues. Pessimists tend to see only (or predominantly) the negatives of a situation, and thus run the risk of failing to build on strengths and draw on the positives available. Optimists, by contrast, tend to see only (or predominantly) the positives, and thus run the risk of naïvely failing to address significant threats or pitfalls, thereby leaving themselves in very vulnerable circumstances. So, if both pessimism and optimism are far from ideal, where does that leave us?

The short answer is what I would call ‘realism’.1 By this I mean, a philosophy based on recognising both strengths and weaknesses, positives and negatives. It is not a case of ‘either … or’ but rather ‘both … and’. If the glass is half empty, then it is also half full – to mix my metaphors, they are two sides of the same coin. A realist approach is one that recognises that life in general and our specific circumstances in particular can be both wonderful and terrible. It is not a case of choosing between the two, but rather taking both elements on board, making the best of the positives while trying to deal constructively with the negatives. We should not see this as a simple or naïve panacea, but more as a challenge to be faced. Maintaining realism is not easy, but it is important if we are to do justice to working with people and their problems.

All action is interaction

I was fortunate to learn, in the early stages of my career, that ‘all action is interaction’. What this means is that my actions in any given situation will depend in large part on the actions of others involved – and their actions will also depend in part on my actions. People influence people.

While this may sound obvious, it is something that is often forgotten, with many people trying to explain behaviour as if it happened in a vacuum, unconnected with the actions and reactions of others. This has important implications in terms of how we relate to other people, as it means that we have to consider:

1. How is my behaviour affecting the behaviour of the other people involved?
2. How is their behaviour affecting me?
3. How are the behaviours of others affecting each other?

A key part of this is recognising the crucial role of communication. Much communication is intentional. However, we should not neglect the fact that much communication is unintentional – that is, we send out ‘messages’ without necessarily intending to do so (for example, that we are bored or disappointed). If we want to understand people and the problems they encounter, we need to understand how we send each other messages through our actions and interactions.

Problems are part of life

It is often assumed that people who are experiencing problems in their lives are, in some way, weak or inadequate – people to be pitied and looked down upon. This is both inaccurate and judgemental. Experiencing difficulties is, of course, part and parcel of life, a basic ingredient of human existence. Some people, because of their social starting point in life and other such factors, may be more prone to problems than other people, but we should not make the mistake of simply dividing the human race into two categories: ‘weak’ people who have problems and ‘strong’ ones who do not. Anyone can experience problems at any time.2 This should not make us despondent, but nor should it make us complacent – again it is a matter of realism, balancing positives and negatives.

Personal and social

Just as all action is interaction, all action also takes place in a social context. That is, even on a one-to-one basis, there will be significant social dimensions to consider (gender, class, ethnicity and so on). However personal or even intimate an interaction between individuals may be, it none the less takes place in a social context. Every individual will have been influenced by social expectations (whether by fulfilling those expectations or by rejecting them) and so will each of the individuals with which he or she interacts.
It is important not to lose sight of the fact that, although each of us is a unique individual, we are unique individuals in a social context. The personal and the social dimensions of our lives are both important.

We are what we make of what is made of us

It is not uncommon for people to assume that individuals have a fixed personality - that due to biological predisposition, our upbringing or a combination of the two, who we are is more or less set in stone. This view is both inaccurate and unhelpful. It is inaccurate because it implies that change is not possible, and yet cases of people making major changes in their identity (as a result of a crisis in their lives, for example) are very common. It is unhelpful because it contributes to a defeatist attitude: if a person’s problems arise in part at least as a result of their own behaviour, then the idea of a fixed personality is likely to stand in the way of progress in tackling those problems.

An alternative view is that put forward by existentialism. Early existentialist thought3 put forward the idea that ‘we are what we make of ourselves’ – that is, our identity is based on the choices we make and the actions we take. Our identity at any given time is a snapshot that forms part of a moving picture (our ‘biography’). This approach was criticised for being too individualistic and not taking sufficient account of the social context and the way in which it constrains and shapes the life chances we have available to us at any given time. Partly as a result of this criticism, later existentialist thought4 refined the idea of ‘we are what we make of ourselves’ to ‘we are what we make of what is made of us’. This refers to the notion that we do make choices and, on the basis of those choices and the subsequent actions, maintain our sense of who we are, but all this is within the constraints of our social context. That is, the person I can be is largely within my control, but not entirely so because of the social circumstances that open certain doors for me but close others.

This is a complex philosophy, but its basic tenet is: we all have a say in who we are and how we live our lives, but the social circumstances we find ourselves in also shape our sense of self and how we conduct ourselves. We therefore have to make sure that we do not:

1. Adopt a defeatist perspective which regards matters as being beyond our control when, in many cases, they are things we can do something about. For example, a man once told me he could not give up smoking – it was ‘beyond his control’. However, when he subsequently found out that his mother, who was also a heavy smoker, had been diagnosed with lung cancer, he discovered that giving up smoking was within his control after all.

2. Adopt a naïve, idealistic approach that fails to take account of the social circumstances that have such an influence on our sense of who we are and what we do. For example, it would be a mistake to ignore the extent to which our gender influences the way we relate to other people and the way we tackle problems5.

Equality and social justice

Equality is a term that is often misunderstood. It does not mean treating everybody the same. Rather, it means treating everybody with equal fairness. It is therefore linked to the idea of social justice. Equality does not mean uniformity.

Equality is, in my view, not only a personal value commitment, it is also an essential part of effective practice in dealing with ‘people’ problems. If we do not treat people fairly, how can we expect to be successful in helping them overcome any difficulties they are encountering? Equality is not a matter of ‘political correctness’ – it is a foundation we need so that we can build successful working relationships with those people we are seeking to help.

The importance of loss and grief

When someone close to us dies, it is understandable that we experience a loss reaction and have feelings of grief. However, what is often not appreciated is that loss and grief feature in people’s lives much more than most people think. It is not only when someone close to us dies that we experience a loss reaction.

Whenever we lose someone or something that is important to us, we can begin to grieve – although we may not recognise the feelings (sadness or anger, for example) as grief because we tend to associate grief with death, rather than with loss more broadly. Sometimes we can fail to help people who are grieving because we do not recognise what they are going through – we do not appreciate the significance of grief in that person’s life at that time.

The role of conflict

Conflicts come in different shapes and sizes and in different degrees (from minor tensions to all-out war). However, just as we can sometimes miss the significance of loss and grief if we are not tuned in to such issues, we can also sometimes fail to recognise conflict and its influence on people and the way they treat each other. For example, a poor working environment and a low level of productivity in a particular group of staff may be put down to the staff group not being committed, whereas in reality, the problem may owe more to an unrecognised conflict (or set of conflicts) that are being stifled rather than addressed. Failing to address conflict issues can lead to disastrous situations where either the conflict has a long-term insidious negative effect (it ‘festers’) or it builds up to the point where it erupts and causes a lot of harm. Being sensitive to conflict issues and having the courage and sensitivity to deal with them constructively are therefore important parts of effective ‘people work’.

The workplace reflects the community

The problems that staff in the caring professions encounter in families and the community more broadly can also often be found in the workplace. This is for two main reasons:

1. People who are having problems in their personal lives are unlikely to be able to leave them entirely behind when they go to work. It is not surprising that such issues get carried into the workplace much of the time.

2. The workplace can be a source of significant problems in people’s lives which can impact on the personal sphere. Again, we should not be surprised that the areas of home and work influence each other. Problems in one sphere can not only manifest themselves in the other sphere, but can also exacerbate existing problems in that sphere.

So, it does not matter whether you are a professional working with family and community-based problems or a manager or human resources person within an organisation, it is important to recognise the significance of workplace issues and how they can have a very detrimental effect on both the individual concerned and the organisation which employs him or her6.

Conclusion

What unifies the various points made in this paper is the idea that working with people and their problems, in whatever setting, amounts to people working with people. What this means is that we should never forget that:

1. Those we are seeking to help are people – they have feelings, wishes, desires, aspirations, fears and anxieties, just like anyone else. They have values and beliefs; relationships and networks; things to lose and things to gain. They have a cultural background, a gender, a sexual identity, a set of life experiences and so on. They seek meaning in what they do and will act according to what situations mean to them. If we want to help them solve or alleviate their problems, we need to see the situation from their point of view. They cannot be reduced to a ‘depressive’, an ‘aggressive person’, a ‘slacker’ – we need to look more closely to try to understand why this person is depressed, why that person is angry and potentially violent and why some people lack motivation.

2. Those of us who seek to help others are people too. We also have feelings, fears, anxieties, aspirations, values and so on. We too are trying to make sense of the situations we encounter and act according to those meanings. If we lack self-awareness, we will be ill-equipped to help others and, if we do not look after ourselves, we may not only fail to be of help to others, we may actually cause them harm – and indeed may cause ourselves harm in the process

We must therefore take very seriously the principle that we are people working with people.

Neil Thompson

Notes

1 ‘Realism’ is a term that means different things in different contexts. My usage of the term in this specific context should not be confused with its use in other contexts (for example, in relation to research methods).

2 The sorts of problems I have in mind are: stress, conflict, communication breakdowns, loss and grief and so on.

3 See, for example, Sartre, J-P. (1958) Being and Nothingness, London, Methuen.

4 See, for example, Sartre, J-P. (1963) Search for a Method, New York, Vintage. Note that existentialist thought features heavily, both directly and indirectly, in Neil’s written work.

5 A good example of this is the way in which gender often influences styles of communication – see Thompson, N. (2003) Communication and Language: A Handbook of Theory and Practice (Palgrave Macmillan).

6 For further discussion of these issues, see the paper on Occupational Social Work on the Avenue Consulting Ltd website.

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