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Probation Forum

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
Date01 December 1976
DOI10.1177/026455057602300408
Published date01 December 1976
Subject MatterArticles
/tmp/tmp-17YT2lsdznz1Ib/input
PROBATION FORUM
EMOTIONAL INVOLVEMENT
&dquo;There is no such thing as a sane psychiatrist&dquo;.... &dquo;Social workers are
in the profession to solve their own .problems&dquo;. These sweeping generalisa-
tions are common comments to most of us, yet there is no smoke without
fire. How many of our most disturbed clients have indicated their desire to
be social workers and how many of us cannot say we have never met the
rather odd psychiatrist, or the strange social worker or probation officer, or
see ourselves sometimes as rather neurotic with various hang-ups? How-
ever, somehow in the past most of us have survived, safe in our alleged
superior intelligence, authority and our expert defences!
When I undertook my training, concessions were beginning--we were told
not to have our desks between us and our clients, as the desk created a
barrier. Yet I remember, fresh after training, that I personally found too
many barriers difficult to accept. Somehow I felt I was never seen as a nor-
mal human being by my clients, I found the God-like image difficult to live
with. The words of my training kept ringing in my cars-&dquo;Don’t get emo-
tionally involved&dquo;. Yet I could not help asking myself, could I expect some
emotional response from my clients, which I considered to be important, if
I was not prepared to give any, and yet I was beginning to hear of other
techniques in 1974 which seemed very exciting but would demand more
emotional involvement.
So I applied to join a new project in London where these newer techniques
were being tried. As a Group Leader at the Day Training Centre, I became
involved in the different world of co-counselling, art therapy, role playing,
games therapy, music therapy and other techniques. It was a revelation but
I found that not only did it lay open the emotions of the men in the group,
but my own and at a level that I did not expect. My co-leader and I did
not have automatic authority, distance or defences and our intelligence was
...

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