ABSTRACT
You might imagine that the above were words of encouragement or support offered by my colleague; in fact they were spoken by Tom, one of the young people present in the unit during that shift. Twenty years later I still remember how they made me feel. Of course it wasn’t just the words. It was the tone of his voice and the look on his face which, together with my already growing sense of being left alone and without support, made me feel so helpless. The idea that I should think about what Tom said to me or that it might provide some clues about how he was feeling never crossed my mind. In other words all the thoughts and emotions that were so troubling to me could have been used for the very purpose for which we were there, namely assessment! My difficulty was that in that moment I was not able to reflect on how Tom’s comment might tell me something about him or in what ways my feeling of helplessness could be used to give some different meaning to the whole experience and thereby provide some learning for both of us. I can’t really
remember my reaction or what I said or did but I do remember the feeling of absolute despair that the situation engendered.
