Caring is too much

I care about you.

That could feel very positive; someone has your best interests at heart, likely thinks good of you, has your back. Nice. It might not if my caring for you is transactional in any way, but let's leave that for a moment and assume it is just plain, old fashioned caring.

That's quite a hard thing to do though. My caring for you might not be transactional at all, but that doesn't mean you don't think it actually is, either because you know it is or your expectation is that it will be at some point. Which means we need to think about what I mean by transactional things.

Transactional Things

We have transactions all the time. When we buy something, that is a transaction, it is understood that we will exchange something of ours, usually money, for something that someone else has that we want. I really want a copy of the Ghost Hounds' album (and who wouldn't, have a listen to their tune Bad News) and I understand that to get it I need to part with some cash. Transactions are not always about money. We have all probably been in relationships that felt transactional. Let me give you an example. I have an ex who is absolutely lovely, fun to be around, smart, beautiful. Yet she's an ex. She's an ex because it started to feel that her interest in a relationship waxed and waned, it waxed whenever I was prepared to pay for trips and hotels and meals and went out of my way to make things convenient for her. It waned if she might have to make an effort or contribute or travel. So, I started to feel that it wasn't about me, but rather, what I was able to provide and decided to extract myself. Maybe it isn't true that no one wants to feel that they are not loved for who they are but for what they have, but I don't. Yes, I realise that limits the pool, but we all have out boundaries.

In my opinion my sense that our relationship was transactional in an uncomfortable way was based on evidence, not because I have a long history of experiencing relationships as transactional (it occurs to me that at some level all relationships, whether professional or personal, friendships or intimate, have a degree of transaction about them, but hopefully we can see the difference between the benign and the malign). I don't think my parents loved and cared about me in return for anything and I don't have a sense that any of my early friendships or connections were transactional in a malign way. I choose what level of transaction I am prepared to accept now, so, to misquote from The Pretender, I decide.

Malign Transactions

Would I consider my ex's transactions as "malign"? Not hugely as I am an adult and don't think I am particularly vulnerable in the normal run of things. I might consider them benign, but for me unacceptable. By malign I am really thinking about the damaging transactions that we would often refer to as grooming. If I care about you on the understanding that I get something in return, even you as an adult, that seems to me to have the potential to be malign. If I care about a child on the understanding that I get something in return I would consider that definitively malign. Malign transactions don't have to be illegal, but they often will be.

So why should we care about this at all?

We do, I assume, care about our clients. We want them to do well, be well. I also assume that any sense of transaction is benign. If not then you're perhaps in the wrong job. You are definitely in the wrong job. What if our clients have either only experience of malign transactions, or enough experience of malign transactions, that for them all caring transactions are interpreted as malign?

You show you care in sessions...you tell them that you hold them in mind...you show that you care by continuing to turn up even though they reject you by refusing your support, not turning up, saying that they don't want a session today. You are positive in CPAs (because you are honestly representing your views of them).

Could that care be the thing that is driving them away because they have the view that there will be a price to pay, maybe not today, but someday, and their experience tells them what that is likely to be? Something that makes them scared. Anything that we do that is construed as positive is a potential threat, and threats might well be seen as a threat. Everything is a threat. So, all that caring, all that empathy, all that time, intended to develop rapport and trust so you can support the person in making progress is the problem, it's making them scared, it's too much.

Imagine what that might be like, that there really may be nothing you can do that doesn't feel scary to the other person. Imagine how that might be represented in the person's behaviour, whether in the community or within a service. People react to fear in many ways, some become passive, some aggressive, some withdraw, some get into a cycle of approach and avoidance. Do we ever wonder if the trigger for these behaviours might be because of something that we are doing, something that we are doing because we are trying to help?

Can we care too much? Maybe we can, but what do we do?

I think the problem is that we cannot rely on providing more and more evidence that we don't want anything in return because that won't deal with the other person's expectations that at some point we will require that bill to be paid. So we have to find a way to address the issue, and, of course, this might not be the issue at all, and that brings a whole other level of complexity. But if it was easy I suppose it wouldn't be bothering me as much as it does.

Perhaps that means that the first thing is to find out if it is a reaction to care, or something else, and as is often the case this will come from gathering information. You might not be able to get it from your client directly - remember, they are scared of you - so it might be looking at their files, enquiring about their behaviour from other professionals, to determine if there is a pattern of rejecting care. You might even discover that in their past there are some strong hints that they have been involved in transactional relationships. Actually, that isn't the first thing, the first thing is to have the idea that maybe it is something to do with care. You can then refute the hypothesis, but to have the hypothesis is the first step. You have to at least entertain the possibility that it is you.

If it isn't about transactions then great, you do whatever you do based on what it is. But if it is, then what?

Can we make sure that there can be no sense of transactions? For example, can we legitimately suggest to a client that we don't turn up every week at 2.30pm because we care, but because we have nothing else to do and so just happen to be about? Can we tell people (as they often tell us) that we're just doing it because it is our job? Can we make processes so explicit that they are seen to be processes, without there being any semblance of "care"? Even if we can, is this ethical? If we are ethically bound to do no harm and by caring we are doing harm, I would argue that by not showing care we are doing less harm, and that is more ethical.

This may all be a bit hypothetical, but for me it isn't as I am working with someone whose engagement is sporadic, who does seem to rage against staff when they show interest and offer help. So I am working things out as I go along, trying not to care about someone I care about.