Page:The Art of Helping People Out of Trouble (1924).pdf/132

 done by well-intentioned people who in a first interview with a stranger give him advice which rests upon nothing but the impression they have gotten of him in the course of this initial conversation.

The atmosphere of impersonality which the social worker cast about the interview was another factor in her success. By approaching Donato objectively, by not evaluating what he told her or commenting upon it until she spoke the critical sentence in which she compared his present beggary with his happier past, she prevented the rising of beclouding emotions. The impartial and unbiased way in which she addressed him took him in a sense outside of himself and enabled him to see Donato as he was.

This attitude of impersonality is exceedingly important. Usually, as with Donato, the person in trouble has passed through that trying stage when relatives and neighbors take sides for and against him, blaming or condoning, chiding or sympathizing, until his feelings have become oversensitized to any discussion of himself. The objectivity of a stranger is like the application of the antiseptic solution that cleans the infected wound.