8.
RECYCLING THE HELPING PROCESS

This chapter addresses recycling the helping process to facilitate more extensive exploration, more accurate understanding, and more effective acting.

Read this case study. Based on your learnings about effective helping skills, review each helper response, and see if you can determine why each helper response is an effective one.

Case Study #5—Skilled Helping

HELPEE INVOLVING/HELPER ATTENDING TYPE OF RESPONSE
Floyd: “Man, I don’t see how this stuff is gonna get us anywhere! We’ve tried working together. We just can’t get there from here.”  
Helper: “It’s pretty frustrating to try working these things through without any one’s help. If you’re free the next hour, I’d like to get together with you in my office.” Informing
Tom: “It’s O.K. with me, I guess.”  
Helper: “What about you, Floyd? I’d like to spend a little time getting to know both of you better. Then I’ll be able to be more helpful.” Encouraging
Floyd: “What about a cup of coffee instead?”  
Helper: “Coffee’s fine. I can learn as much right here as in my office.” Attending Contextually
Floyd: “What do you want to learn about us?”  
Tom: “Yeah, I know you’ve been checkin’ us out for quite a while.”
Helper: “So you’ve been using your observation skills, too. You’ve noticed that I’ve really been paying attention to you.” Attending Personally
Tom: “Uh huh. What have you been— you know—learning from us?”  
Helper: “Well, I see two young guys who care enough about each other to stay in there fighting with each other. One’s maybe more worn out than he should be and the other one’s kind of edgy.” Observing
Floyd: “You’re really been using your eyes to see us, huh?”  
Helper: (Pause) “And my ears to hear, too.” Listening
HELPEE EXPLORING/
HELPER RESPONDING
Floyd: “The thing that really hassles me is the way you act like everything’s cool and I’m just supposed to relax and keep smiling!”  
Helper: “You’re saying it really gets to you when white folks seem to want you to lay back and accept things.” Responding to Content
Tom: “Man, we’re all in this thing together! What’s so special about you?”  
Helper: “You don’t see why Floyd has to make a special case out of himself.” Responding to Content
Floyd: “You don’t see it, huh Tom? Well maybe if you woke up black one morning a lot of things’d come clearer to you!”  
Helper: “You feel angry.” Responding to Feeling
Floyd: “Yeah, right! I mean, no white person can know what it’s like to be black.”  
Helper: “You feel furious when someone who isn’t black tries to tell you how to act.” Responding to Meaning
Tom: “You got a lot of nerve to come on like that to me, man!”  
Helper: “It makes you angry when Floyd doesn’t seem to appreciate the way you act with him.” Responding to Meaning
Floyd: “Listen, you get treated like an individual. But me—either I get turned down flat, or else everyone wants to get alongside of my blackness with out ever checking out who I really am on the inside.”  
Helper: “It burns you up that people never seem to get past your skin to what’s underneath.” Responding to Meaning
Floyd: “Damn straight! I could be a genius or a flat-out fool and it still wouldn’t matter as much as the fact that I’m black!”  
Helper: “It drives you wild because people just see how you look without ever caring what you do or how you feel.” Responding to Meaning
Tom: “Listen, you’re doing the same thing when you lump me in with every other white!”  
Helper: “You feel angry and frustrated because Floyd doesn’t see the ways you try to relate to him as an individual.” Responding to Meaning
Floyd: “It’s not the same thing, man. It’s not like being black.”  
HELPEE UNDERSTANDING/
HELPER PERSONALIZING
Floyd: “They don’t know who I am and they really aren’t open to finding out.”  
Helper: “It really disrespects you be cause you’re not seen as a real person. Personalizing Meaning
Tom: “I’m trying—I really am, but for him I’m just another ‘whitey.’”  
Helper: “You’re frustrated because you’re just another white.” Personalizing Meaning
Floyd: “Listen! It’s a burden—like having to run 10 miles just to warm up for a 100-yard dash. Like—well, take writing, for one. I tried to get on the board at the Literary Magazine. But once they found out I wasn’t into writing heavy race-type stuff, they weren’t interested.”  
Helper: “It’s infuriating because you can’t find a way to get people to treat you like an individual in your own right.” Personalizing Problems
Tom: “I feel the same way, man. If I could just convince you I really do see you as a person and not just a black.”  
Helper: “Tom, you feel disappointed because you can’t get Floyd to see you as a real person—you’re just another white guy to Floyd.” Personalizing Problems
Floyd: “If I could just get through to people.”  
Helper: “You feel helpless because you can’t get other people—especially Tom—to see you the way you really are.” Personalizing Feelings
Tom: “In a way I’m in the same boat. Maybe I don’t feel it as strongly as if I were black, but it seems like the same thing to me.”  
Helper: “You feel cheated because you can’t get the real you across to Floyd.” Personalizing Feelings
Floyd: “I’ve got a lot to offer. I mean really, I’m into a lot of good things I’d like to share. Like—well, like my writing.”  
Helper: “Floyd, you feel miserable because you can’t get other people to see what you have to offer and you want to very badly.” Personalizing Goals
Tom: “Listen, Floyd, there’s nothing I’d like more than for you and me to get beyond this lame race stuff. I’d like for you to trust me.”  
Helper: “And Tom, you feel pretty low because you can’t get Floyd to understand you and you really want to get him to see beyond your whiteness.” Personalizing Goals
HELPEE ACTING/
HELPER INITIATING
Helper: “So Floyd, you want other people to see you as an individual. And Tom, you want Floyd to see you as an individual. How could you each tell if you were reaching those goals?” Defining the Goals
Floyd: “A good indication for me would be if I could get on the board of the Literary Magazine without having to be the ‘racial reporter.’”  
Tom: “I’d just like to get rid of all my behaviors that Floyd feels are racist, so we can get beyond the color of our skins.”  
Helper: “O.K. Those sound like pretty realistic goals. Let’s work on Floyd’s program first. What might a first step be?” Initiating First Step
Floyd: “Well, I could make out a list of things I’d like to do on the magazine.”  
Helper: “That’s great! We call those values. If those are your values, what would the magazine’s values be?” Initiating Intermediate Steps
Floyd: “That would be what the magazine would want a writer to do.”  
Helper: “Good! We call those requirements. So what do we do next?” Initiating Intermediate Steps
Floyd: “Well, obviously we’ve got to match up my values and their requirements—sort of like matching up columns A and B.”  
Helper: “So where they match, you …” Initiating Final Steps
Floyd: “I’ve got to show them what I can do for them—It’s sort of like advertising yourself.”  
Helper: “That’s nice and clean for you. Getting on the writing staff of the magazine is your goal. Your first step is values. Your intermediary steps are requirements and matching. Your final step is promoting or advertising yourself.” Summarizing Steps
Floyd: “I can do that!” `
Helper: You’re confident in your program. It’s sort of like testing yourself out.” Personalizing Meaning
Floyd: “At least I’ll find out if the problem is in them or in me.”  
Tom: “Or somewhere in between.”  
Helper: “That’s where you think it might be with you and Floyd—somewhere in between you.’’  
Tom: “Well, if I get the drift of your program, I might operate that same way: Personalizing Meaning
 

1.  Set a goal of getting rid of racist attitudes and behaviors.

  
 

2.  Do the first step of getting Floyd to make a list of my behaviors that he experi ences as racist.

  
 

3.  Do the intermediary steps of making a list of what I can handle and what I can’t.

  
 

4.  Get help from someone else for what I can’t handle.”

 Initiating Steps
Floyd: “You mean I won’t have to hear the term “you people” anymore?”  
Helper: “You really have it together now. That’s a program that comes from the heart—out of your real motivation to change, Tom.” Personalizing Meaning
Floyd: “I got to give you that, man!”  
Helper: “You’re both pretty excited about the possibilities.” Personalizing Feelings
Tom: “And eager to get started!”  
Floyd: “Maybe we won’t have to have a revolution every generation.”  
Helper: “You’re feeling hopeful because you’re beginning to see how you can get there from here!” Personalizing Feelings

Recycling, as defined by Webster’s, means to bring back, to use again, to reuse.

In recycling intrapersonal processing, we recycle the phases of learning; exploring where we are; understanding where we want or need to be; and acting to get from where we are to where we want or need to be. We recycle our intrapersonal processing to develop more effective responses. This is how we learn and grow.

With the feedback that we receive from the environment for our previous actions, we also recycle our interpersonal processing, our helping skills: responding to facilitate exploring more extensively; personalizing to facilitate understanding more accurately; and initiating to facilitate acting more effectively. We may use these helping skills with ourselves as well as with others. They will serve to facilitate our growth as well as the growth of those we help.

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RECYCLING OUR INTERPERSONAL AND INTRAPERSONAL PROCESSES

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