ABSTRACT

Nearly all trainees in case work or psychotherapy can tolerate receptivity for only so long. Sooner, rather than later, they break in with “This is all well and good, but what do I do?” At that point, I tell them what I was told in my time. “In order to do, one must first understand. If you fully understand, the question of what to do is easy.” Of course that is not completely true, and they know it, and I know it. The jump from analysis of what is wrong to deductions about how to repair it does not happen automatically. Besides, the learner can understand only so much at any one sitting before he feels the urge to try it out on somebody. Perhaps it is as well that this is true of those destined to be practitioners rather than simply knowers in our fields. If their defenses were so organized as to permit endless immobility and analysis, it might not be safe for their clients and patients. Art is long, and science is eternal but, as Lord Keynes reminded us, “In the long run, we shall all be dead.”