Helping Quotes

“Help in the broadest sense is, in fact, one of the most important currencies that flow between members of society because help is one of the main ways of expressing love and other caring emotions that humans express.”
― Edgar H. Schein, Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help

“If a client insists on getting a recommendation from you, always give him at least two alternatives so that he still has to make choice.”
― Edgar H. Schein, Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help

“Minimize inappropriate encouragement.”
― Edgar H. Schein, Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help

“When you are giving feedback, try to be descriptive and minimize judgment.”
― Edgar H. Schein, Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help

“Share your helping problem. More often than I care to admit I have found that when I was supposed to be helping someone, I suddenly did not know what to do next. When this happens, the best thing to do is to say to the client, “At this point I am stuck—I don’t know what to do next to be helpful.”
― Edgar H. Schein, Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help

“In building the helping relationship, encouragement—via positive reinforcement—certainly seems appropriate. But if it is not sensitively handled, such encouragement can quickly become patronizing and insulting. My”
― Edgar H. Schein, Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help

“We know that negative reinforcement or punishment works well for behavior that should be eliminated. And we know from feedback theory that the best kind of feedback is descriptive because the client can then make the evaluation. These are valid guidelines but they don’t solve some of the subtle issues that can arise in the relationship.”
― Edgar H. Schein, Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help

“The point is that no matter what you do or don’t do, you are sending signals; you are intervening in the situation and therefore need to be mindful of that reality. Unless you are invisible you cannot help but communicate, so your choice of communication should be based on what kind of intervention you intend.”
― Edgar H. Schein, Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help

“Everything You Say or Do Is an Intervention that Determines the Future of the Relationship”
― Edgar H. Schein, Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help

“Remember that the person requesting your help may feel uncomfortable, so make sure to ask what the client really wants and how you can best help.”
― Edgar H. Schein, Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help

“When our true intentions are something other than providing help, such as getting a job done or beating someone in a game, we are most prone to falling into the traps described throughout this book.”
― Edgar H. Schein, Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help

“Check out your own emotions and intentions before offering, giving, or receiving help.”
― Edgar H. Schein, Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help

“Though helping is a common social process, it is not the only social process. Our relationships with others have many other functions. In order to offer, give, and receive help effectively, we also need the ability to shift from whatever else we were doing and adopt a readiness to help or be helped. It is part of our social training to be prepared to help and to offer help when the ongoing situation suddenly makes helping an imperative or at least an option. But this impulse to help or seek help can run counter to what else is going on.”
― Edgar H. Schein, Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help