The Obligation to Risk
| Published date | 01 September 1978 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455057802500302 |
| Author | David Millard |
| Date | 01 September 1978 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
74
The
Obligation
to
Risk
DAVID
MILLARD
EVERY
time
that
the
social
worker
enters
into
a
genuine
therapeutic
encounter,
he
commits
himself
to
a
relationship
that
exists
in
two
dimen-
sions,
the
technological
and
the
existential.
The
one
is
concerned
with
aims,
methods,
evaluation
and
effectiveness;
the
other
is
concerned
with
a
reformulation
of
the
worker’s
being
in
the
world.
The
first
consequence
of
the
client’s
approach
to
the
social
worker
is
that
the
worker’s
sense
of
distance
between
himself
and
his
client
is
confirmed.
Where
the
client
brings
failure,
the
worker
brings
success;
where
the
client
brings
emotion,
the
worker
brings
rationality;
where
the
client
brings
glimpses
of the
most
private
areas
of
his
life,
the
worker
brings
formal
propriety
and
reserve;
where
the
client
brings
a
great
deal
of
investment,
the
worker
brings
only
a
partial
investment
because
he
must
apportion
out
his
time
between
a
variety
of
demands.
This
aware-
ness
of
the
differences
between
them
is
likely
to
cause
a
variety
of
emo-
tions
in
the
worker,
any one
of
them
having
a
potential
ascendancy
at
a
given
moment
in
time.
He
may
feel
compassion
for
the
client’s
misery,
anger
at
his
own
helplessness,
doubt
as
to
whether
he
has
anything
to
offer,
frustration
at
the
perceived
inefficiency
of
others,
etc.,
etc.
But
at
this
initial
stage
of
his
relationship
with
his
client,
these
responses
are
all
essentially
frivolous.
The
worker
does
not
yet
know
his
client
in
any
real
sense
at
all.
He
relates
to
him
as
a
type
to
be
pigeon-
holed,
and
these
immediate
responses
of
his
-
the
responses
which
form
the
common
currency
of
his
public
relations
with
his
colleagues
-
are
typified
responses.
&dquo;My
God,&dquo;
he
will
say
to
himself,
&dquo;how
that
poor
woman
has
managed
to
live
like
that
for
all
these
years
is
beyond
me.&dquo;
Or
alternatively,
&dquo;When
is
that
local
authority
going
to
pull
its
finger
out
end
do
something
about
accommodation.&dquo;
And
as
he
says
these
~
he
will
convince
himself
of
the
reality
of
his
feelings
and
he
will
um- it
to acommt
for
himself
to
others.
But
even
as
’he
does
so
he
will
know
that
he
has
been
seduced
away
from
s
much
profounder
truth
and
one
that
is
much
more
difficult
to
bear.
For
what
in
fact
his
first
contact
with
the
client
has
done
has
been
to
conhm
in
the
worker
a
sense
of
his
own
essential
solidity
and
stability.
He
has
been
made
to
feel
good.
That
is
why
those
recognised
emotions
of
&dquo;compassion&dquo;
and
&dquo;anger&dquo;
are
so
fundamentally
trivial.
They
are
the
currency
of
a
discourse
which
seeks
to
avoid
the
fact
that
the
first
func-
tion
of
the
client’s
helplessness
is
to
confirm
the
worker’s
existential
being
in
the
world.
The
worker
feeds
off
the
client’s
helplessness
to
con-
firm
his
sense
of
the
propriety
of
his
own
role.
The
contrast
between
the
client’s
disintegrating
world
and
his
own
stability
reinforces
the
worker’s
sense
of the
rightness
of
his
own
life
style
as
a
professional
helper.
As
the
client
unfolds
his
sorry
tale
of
an
impossible
life,
the
worker
will
inevitably
be
drawn
into
some
reflection
upon
his
own
life,
and
he
will
be
able
to
tell
himself
that
it
is
only
because
of
the
solidity
and
stability
of
his
life
that
he
can
play a
helping
role
at
all.
That
is
to
say
it
is
only
the
difference
between
them
that
guarantees
the
worker’s
effec-
tiveness.
There
is
the
possibility
of
real
complacency
here.
&dquo;Thank
you
Lord,
that I
am
not
as
this
man
is,&dquo;
he
may
be
able
to
say
to
himself.
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