Under my coat is a weary heart, but a kind one – one that would do nobody any harm.
From a farewell letter written by Francis “Two-Guns” Crowley during a police stand-off

Look down at me and you see a fool; look up at me and you see a god; look straight at me and you see yourself
Charles Manson

For a long time now I have been aware of people’s (obviously including me) tendency to criticize, pass judgment (and many times condemn others). Where I come from, a usual way to start a casual conversation is by harmlessly –and many time even unwarily– begin criticizing somebody1, a practice that personally did not like and avoided as often as I could.

As such, I have tried to learn not to criticize, condemn or complain about nobody. Until now, I thought I had been fairly successful in doing it. However, I have noticed that the idea of unconditional acceptance (despite the fact that I fully agree with it) puzzles me. I find myself thinking, “that is very nice and certainly I want to do it; but, can I?” Such question evidences that I have not been as successful as I thought. Apparently deep inside me, there are many prejudices that silently (otherwise I would spot them) crawl and shape my opinion of every person I meet.

I was raised as a Roman Catholic, and as such, the idea of unconditional acceptance is not new. “Agape” love is how it is called, the kind of love Jesus offered everyone, including his enemies. I was always intrigued by it and thought it almost impossible to accomplish, unless you were the son of god or a saint such as Francis of Assisi. Buddhism has a similar notion, the “Mettā”, “maitrī” or unconditional loving-kindness. Even if we could argue that the therapist is not required to love but only to accept the client, the division would be very thin; and by it, I do not believe we would be escaping from what seems to me a condition very hard to comply.

One way to approch this is by understanding that one can accept the person while disapproving the action. Just as with children, even when they do “wrong” we keep in mind that they are only children and as such, they are not evil, just do not know better. In other words, the fact that one censures the behavior; does not mean that one condemns the child.

Again, I want to use a religious simile that may clarify (to me) this point. It has been suggested that the most remarkable feature of Jesus (godship aside) was the fact that he knew that, as a human being, he was not better than the rest of us. I have noticed that holy/wise people everywhere share this feature.

That is why I began this with quotes from two serial killers. It seems to me that, as long as I am able to keep in mind constantly that I am just like my client (perhaps maybe luckier), I ought to be able to stop myself from judging and instead unconditionally accept him/her.

The concept can be taken even beyond, to the mystical realm of “oneness”. If I know (and I believe this, but I am not spiritually evolve enough to practice it all time) that neither my client nor I are our “personae”, but parts of the whole (just as two drops of water in the sea), what is there to be judged? I can (or should be able at any rate) see through the illusion of separateness and acknowledge that we are one and the same, there is nothing to like or dislike in my client. Paraphrasing Manson, when I see my client, I see me.

I could leave things there, and work on these concepts (and I will); still, it seems to me that there is an almost oxymoron element between the unconditional acceptance ideal and the helping endeavor of a therapist. Maybe that is the point I am missing2.

As stated above, one is supposed to accept, the person unconditionally, not forgetting that they are human just as we are, and appreciating their humanness beyond their specific actions, feelings or situation. Then, do our best to build the therapeutic relation in order to help our clients. So far so good. Then again, in order to help them, I have to diagnose them (that is, evaluate them). Isn’t it there an underlying assumption that, somehow, the therapist is better (saner, more centered, mature, evolved…) than the client? Is not the diagnosis a type of judgment? (a loving and emphatic one, but a judgment, nonetheless)

How am I to reconcile these? At this point, I do not know. In the meanwhile, I will keep in mind that clients are neither better nor worse than me, just humans after all. To do so, it might be helpful to end this paper with Francis “Two-Guns” Crowley’s last words: “…send my love to my mother”

Wouldn’t I have said the same?

  1. By harmlessly I mean that such conversations usually do not have an ill will, but are only an easy way to begin talking. By unwarily, I mean that, precisely for the aforementioned reason, when asked, they would not even consider it criticism at all. ↩︎
  2. Or maybe not, and I just have to work in my prejudices. ↩︎