Learning and Growing from Unpredictable Encounters

Abstract

This chapter blends together the power of humanistic framework for evidence-based approaches illustrated through clinical stories. These vignettes illustrate the change process and the impact of dealing with uncertainty about a “good outcome” in clinical encounters that practitioners struggle with. This chapter offers ideas and practices on how to stay connected with a perspective of “playing my part” to prevent burnout and keep the focus on growing with both the science and humanistic elements of the therapeutic work.

“Always be drunk. That’s it--that’s all that matters. So you won’t feel the horrible burden of Time which breaks your shoulder and bends you to the ground, you need to get drunk without end.

But with what? With wine, poetry or virtue--it’s your choice. But get drunk. And if sometime--on the steps of a palace, on the green grass of a gulley, in the somber solitude of your room--you wake up, the drunkenness already diminished or gone; then ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, all that runs away, all that groans, all that rolls, all that sings, all that talks--ask them what time it is; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will answer you: ‘It’s time to get drunk! So you won’t be martyred slaves of Time: get drunk, get drunk without end. With wine, poetry, or virtue--it’s your choice.’”

—Charles Baudelaire: “Enivrez-vous” (“Get Drunk”) from Le Spleen de Paris