The Art of Helping Others to Understand

Reflection by Inger Pauline Landsem

Dr. Inger Pauline Landsem is Associate Professor in Nursing and Health Science at the Arctic University of Norway. She is an NBO and NBAS Trainer and is the author of many research papers and a book for parents, En Bedre Start - for deg og din baby.

As a nurse for 40 years – caring for sick children and their families for most of them - words from the famous Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard have been especially important for me. Kierkegaard wrote this in 1855, the same year as he died. He was only 42 years old. This quote is taken from “Views of my authorship” (Synspunktet for min Forfatter-Virksomhed, Copenhagen, Gyldendal,1855, p.96-07). Although Kierkegaard may have been referring to belief in God when he wrote this, a Scandinavian philosopher argues that it is a quotation that can guide and inspire health care workers. Anyway – the quotation is so important for me.

The Art of Helping Others to Understand

By Søren Kierkegaard

If One Is Truly to Succeed in Leading a Person to a Specific Place, One Must First and Foremost Take Care to Find Him Where He is and Begin There.

This is the secret in the entire art of helping.

Anyone who cannot do this is himself under a delusion if he thinks he is able to help someone else. In order truly to help someone else, I must understand more than he–but certainly first and foremost understand what he understands.

If I do not do that, then my greater understanding does not help him at all. If I nevertheless want to assert my greater understanding, then it is because I am vain or proud, then basically instead of benefiting him I really want to be admired by him.

But all true helping begins with a humbling.

The helper must first humble himself under the person he wants to help and thereby understand that to help is not to dominate but to serve, that to help is a not to be the most dominating but the most patient, that to help is a willingness for the time being to put up with being in the wrong and not understanding what the other understands.