ABSTRACT

Humane helping is made much harder by virtue of the fact that human beings are not easy. They are not easy in many senses. A given person may be suffering and may seek out a helping professional whom he hires to help relieve his emotional distress. Unfortunately for both the sufferer and that humane helper, he may nevertheless have powerful reasons for not cooperating with the person he has just hired. In Darley and Batson's Good Samaritan experiment, seminary students on the way to deliver a lecture on the importance of being a Good Samaritan could not be bothered to stop and help a person in distress. The current thrust of mental health services provision in the direction of 'diagnosing and treating mental disorders' and 'medicating patients' is rooted in large measure in this reality, that helpers must try to help individuals who are not easy and who are not helping much.