a Department of Psychology , University of Johannesburg , Johannesburg , South Africa.
b Department of Rehabilitation and Health Sciences , University of Cape Town , Cape Town , South Africa.
Disabil Rehabil. 2019 Aug;41(16):1890-1897. doi: 10.1080/09638288.2018.1450454. Epub 2018 Mar 16.
Scholars agree that effective rehabilitation relies on a bedrock of reciprocity, relational trust, and authenticity. It is therefore essential for practitioners to develop insight into the complex dynamics within helping relationships. This study aims to provide an in-depth understanding of visually impaired students' experience of informal helping relationships. Ten visually impaired students at a South African university participated in one of two semi-structured focus group interviews (six and four in each group, respectively) wherein we explored their experience of informal helping relationships. Interpretive phenomenological analysis was used to make sense of the data. Help, according to the participants, can militate against visibility and complete acceptance, and has the potential to cause helpers to feel entrapped. By contrast, some students found that help offered benefits to relationships by boosting the helper's self-esteem and affording disabled students the opportunity to make friends. Decisions whether to accept help were mediated more by relationship factors than by the need for help. These findings are important for rehabilitation professionals, as deep relationship can come into being during the course of a rehabilitation process. Although this study was conducted in an informal setting, the relational dynamics that we explore are also applicable to clinical relationships between disabled persons and rehabilitation professionals. Implications for rehabilitation In this paper, we provide an overview of the intricacies involved in care and helping relationships; In order for rehabilitation to be successful, these relationships should ideally be real, trusting, and authentic; Yet, authenticity and spontaneity often get lost in helping relationships, as help-recipients may deny help when they need it, and accept help when perfectly able to cope without it. These decisions are mediated more by relationship factors than by the need for help; In their daily practice, it is essential for health professionals to be mindful of these relational intricacies within care relationships; We recommend that professionals remain motivated to continuously reflect on their own actions and on the emotional investment they might have in their role as a helper; Our last recommendation is for rehabilitation professionals to spend energy on exploring, through open and transparent discussions with their disabled patients, the relational dynamics in their relationship.
学者们一致认为，有效的康复依赖于相互性、关系信任和真实性的基础。因此，从业者必须深入了解帮助关系中的复杂动态。本研究旨在深入了解南非一所大学的视障学生非正式帮助关系的体验。十名视障学生参加了两个半结构化焦点小组访谈中的一个（每组分别有六名和四名学生），我们在访谈中探讨了他们的非正式帮助关系体验。采用解释现象学分析来理解数据。根据参与者的说法，帮助可能会妨碍可见度和完全接受，并有使帮助者感到被困住的潜力。相比之下，一些学生发现，帮助通过提升帮助者的自尊心并为残疾学生提供交朋友的机会，为关系带来好处。是否接受帮助的决定更多地受到关系因素的影响，而不是帮助的需求。这些发现对视障人士康复专业人员很重要，因为在康复过程中可能会建立深厚的关系。尽管这项研究是在非正式环境中进行的，但我们探索的关系动态也适用于残疾人和康复专业人员之间的临床关系。康复建议在本文中，我们概述了照顾和帮助关系中涉及的复杂性；为了使康复成功，这些关系应该是真实、信任和真实的；然而，真实性和自发性往往在帮助关系中丢失，因为帮助接受者可能在需要帮助时拒绝帮助，而在完全有能力应对而不需要帮助时接受帮助。这些决定更多地受到关系因素的影响，而不是帮助的需求；在日常实践中，卫生专业人员必须注意照顾关系中的这些关系复杂性；我们建议专业人员保持动力，不断反思自己的行为以及他们在帮助者角色中的情感投入；我们的最后一个建议是，康复专业人员通过与残疾患者进行开放和透明的讨论，投入精力探索他们关系中的关系动态。
