The Importance of Emotional Helpers
How I went from being a patient to being a mentor
I have always been a fan of Mentoring, Coaching, Counseling, and when needed for maintaining emotional health and healing — Psychotherapy. I use the anagram MCCP all of the above. In recent years I have also added A.I. tools, and even NLP to my wheelhouse of expertise
MCCP is a type of developmental process on which a specially training and experienced person, called a mentor, coach, counselor, supports a client, or learner in achieving a specific personal or professional goal or desired outcome by providing guidance, training, healing or a unique and positive personal growth experience.
Here is an introduction to this thread in stories concerning the mind, emotions, mental health, and emotional and mental healing. I wrote this piece with my mentor Daniel J. Wiener PhD.
In this Story we want to explore the concept of professional emotional helpers.
Most of my life I have made wise choices because of the guidance and suggestions of counselors, guides, mentors, and coaches.
Being a loner, and a bit eccentric in my youth I could easily have been pulled into dangerous scenarios, unhealthy groups, and toxic behavior. Luckily, or possibly through intervention of some angel, I was led to the right person at the right time.
This pattern of healthy guidance began when I first entered public school at the age of five and has continued to this day.
When I was 23 I met Daniel J. Wiener PhD., the co-author of this book. Dan is an extraordinarily knowledgeable, kind, and visionary psychologist who generously took me under his wing and has consistently guided me and influenced my own work as a Results-Oriented Life Coach, and Independent Scholar over the last forty plus years.
You can imagine how honored I felt when I told him I was writing a book about mental and emotional healing and after asking him to write the introduction, he offered to co-author the book.
Dan has been my mentor, my therapist, and my good friend and I am grateful to be able to share this work with you, with his important contribution, and knowledge.
What I have learned from Dan is that at some time or other, more often than not, we all need Professional Helpers (PH). A PH is usually a formally trained, skilled individual that can offer guidance, advice, motivation, inspiration and in times of stress and serious challenges a mental and emotional safety net. A good, wise friend or family member can do some of this for us, but not all of it. More often than not, those who care for us the most have emotional blinders concerning our needs, and may be limited in how they can serve us best. In this ever-more chaotic and complex world Professional Helpers (PH) can be an invaluable tool for personal growth, self-improvement, and general problem solving.
This is what Dan Wiener has taught me about why we all need help at one time or another.
Human beings evolved as a social species which could survive and prosper only when people cooperated with one another. The earliest social groupings — family, clan and tribe — became effective in meeting their member’s basic needs for physical comfort, safety, social interaction and personal identity. The ever-growing complexity of human society is highly interdependent — to handle complexity efficiently, people specialize to an ever-greater degree. Very few of us are totally self-sufficient in meeting even the most basic survival needs — food, clothing and shelter — let alone satisfying higher needs and our endless wants. Yet we in the West live in a social world where a positive cultural value is placed on individuality and self-reliance.
In many areas of life we experience no shame in seeking help from others and automatically participate in a myriad of social transactions. Economic transactions are a case in point. We think it unremarkable when we earn money by offering others our time and skilled effort, while we spend money to obtain the desired goods and services that others can offer. We continually solve so many problems by engaging in these economic exchanges that we seldom view our participating in them as problems or pay attention to our collective economic interdependence.
But not all human transactions in life are economic ones — when parents take care of their children, when friends socialize, or when adults romance one another, money doesn’t change hands. In essential ways, people help others by providing attention, nurturance, protection and advice. Such transactions appear distinct from those overtly economic ones described before precisely because they are supposed to be motivated by caring, not advantage. Indeed, when money is exchanged for their performance, they are often thought to be morally suspect, of inferior quality, or even worthless.
People have always turned to friends, tribal and family elders, clergy, spiritual and physical healers and advisors to provide help in transcending mental, and emotional challenges. This has usually taken the form of valued support, encouragement, guidance, advice, guidance, and wisdom. Only in the recent past (about 130 years ago) did the specialized helping professions that are collectively called Psychotherapy come into being in Western society, and it has been less than 50 years since life coaches, professionals mentors, and pastoral counselors have become respected professions . In contrast to traditional helpers, what is distinctive about Professional Helpers (psychotherapists, life coaches, social psychiatric social workers, and pastoral counselors) is that they are professionals. As with many other professionals the quality of their services is perceived to be based on their formal, specialized training, licensure, and or certification. These professionals are paid/compensated for these services; and their services are available to everyone who can pay.
The Takeaway
It is difficult to define rigidly Professional Helpers (PH), and there are so many kinds of professional help for the mind and emotions (called “Approaches” in this book), each of which employs its own, distinctive methods, goals, terminologies, principles and theories, much of my contribution to the book is written to present a very broad framework for understanding the foundation of what professional help aims to accomplish.
Necessarily, this presentation can get a bit abstract, which may not appeal to all readers. We have tried to provide examples of foundational concepts to make this presentation easier to follow.
Here is a great story: @josephgibson-63985
Here is one from the archives@LewisCoaches
Author: Lewis Harrison is an author, strategist, speaker, and a seminar leader. He is the Executive Director of the International Association of Healing Professionals an educational organization that offers programs around the world in Intentional Living. He is also an Independent Scholar, with a passion for knowledge, personal development, self-improvement, creativity, innovation, and problem-solving.
For a decade, Lewis was the host of a humor-based Q & A talk show on NPR (National Public Radio) affiliated WIOX FM in NY.
