"Spectator" Conference for Personal Problems
The Work of the Conference
[The SPECTATOR Conference offers to readers a service of advice on personal problems in which they would like impartial help. The Editor has appointed a committee ; it consists of two medical psychologists (one man and one woman), the chief pathologist of a London hospital, the head mistress of a large elementary school, and a priest of the Church of England. Its members are themselves engaged in the practical work of life ; and one way or another they have met and are meeting a great variety of problems in their own experience. They do not wish to be regarded as authorities ; but they give their good will and their knowledge to all questions which are referred to them. Readers' inquiries, which are dealt with in strict confidence, to be addressed to the Conference on Personal Problems, cio The SPECTATOR, 13 York Street, Covent Garden, W.C.2] ALREADY we feel that we have accomplished much good work. Our way is cheered by many letters of thanks. Sometimes a new point of view breaking in has helped to set a reader on a new course of action, and the feeling that his difficulties have been sympathetically understood has given him the courage to face them with ultimate hope of success. The members of the Conference are as human as the readers who write to them ; and if we had not been assured that many of our readers were helping us with their own good will, and accomplishing miracles on their own behalf, we should be easily discouraged. We have received, however, enough signs that our advice has been helpful to keep us cheerful ; and enough blank silence on the part of other readers to ensure humility. Among the replies we have received this week was one from a reader faced with a particularly difficult situation.
" I wish to thank you most sincerely for the extremely pains- taking reply you have sent me regarding the problem of my son. I shall work on the lines you suggest as I feel they offer the most likely prospect of success. My wife also wishes to thank you and your committee for your most helpful advice."
Of course we expect that our advice will often seem to be disagreeable. If it suggests a radical change of behaviour it will meet with " resistance." Men's habits are very strong in them ; and unless they are driven to their wits' ends they burke at the prospect of change. May we ask our readers to take account of this factor and make allowances for it before- hand ; not to be put off by their preliminary resistance but to go on considering how much there may be of value in what we advise ?
Sometimes a letter of reply, even if it tells us that we have not understood the problem, can be as cheering as a letter which flatters us more. There may, for example, be an entire difference in tone in the answer to our advice. A reader then shows that many of the unessential difficulties have been dropped. He tells us that we have misunderstood him, that he is far better able to look after his own affairs than we seem to realize, and that a good deal of what we say is off the point. Perhaps these are the most hopeful of all responses. At least we are permitted to feel that our corres- pondent has consolidated his own opinions and is prepared to tackle his own affairs. It is hard to make clear what an immense difference may take place between two letters ; how one may be full of confusion, melancholy, and the sense of being overwhelmed, and the next may be sharp, clear, and self-reliant,
We wish to appeal,- however, for still greater colla- boration from our readers.- The Conference is designed as a real integral part of the paper ; and we feel that we have not yet been able to make it an intimate concern of all the readers. It has far more possibilities than it has yet fulfilled. If any readers would like to write to us and make suggestions or criticisms, tell us what they think is lacking, or propose means of increasing its value, they will be greatly aiding us. The most important obstacle we feel we are encountering is not one for which any blame can be attached. It comes really from the newness of conception underlying the Conference. We suspect that the sort of situation we can be most usefully consulted on is not completely understood.
Many readers feel that their problems are too silly or too small to bother other people with ; especially such sn august body as the Conference. They do not even like to think themselves that such trivial and unexpected things really represent problems to them. They would perhaps rather be troubled by bigger catastrophes. May we say that anything which really does cause worry, no matter how small it may seem, is in fact as big as the largest world-sorrow ? The fact that we are doubtful, concerned, or confused is the one fact that matters. - Behind the apparent triviality is a real need for help. In addition to this, it is when problems are apparently small and irrational that they can be best solved.
It is very difficult to ask for advice, and not feel that we shall be despised for knowing no better. It is the foremost conviction of our Conference that the most difficult problems are the most common, trivial, and ordinary. It would give us a far greater chance of helpfulness if we could be consulted on difficulties before they have grown to critical stages. Just as a doctor, in the beginning, when he sets up in practice, gets all the cases that no one else has been able to make anything of, so, too, we have been faced by problems which call for patience and long endurance before they can be solved at all.
A man, let us say, writes and tells us that he has been separated from his wife for three years. He is still desperate. He still wishes his marriage to be a success. He has done everything that has occurred to him to alleviate the situation and he has done everything wrong. He has persecuted his wife with his attentions. He has made it a moral obligation for her to come back to him. He has set himself all the while in opposition. Whether he knows it or not, he hates his wife and she hates him. He is still unable, however, to bear the prospect of failure. The whole circumstances make his position almost hopeless. Step by step, for a long period of years, he has made the whole state of affairs intolerable and prevented it from reaching any sort of solution. And then, in such gloomy and impossible circumstances, he writes to ask us for our help.
He has alienated his wife and all his wife's relatives. He has made it almost a point of honour with her that she should reach no compromise. If he changed his behaviour she would still not trust him. She has known him too well. In these circumstances what can we advise ? We can take it on our conscience and show him how we think the situation might be altered if he acted with another principle ; if he gave his love to his wife in a less unpalatable form ; if he really con- sidered her interests and her own profound desire to find the best mode of living for herself. But, short of a miracle, even with this advice, it would be a long time before his circumstances improved. He might have to wait for years. He might never succeed, and his only consolation would be that he had taken the way in which he might have succeeded, if success had been possible.
Here we are faced with a situation in which catastrophe has already occurred. Can we help wishing that he had asked for advice as soon as he began to feel the stress and tension ? Yet then he was not thoroughly awake to the fact that he was in difficulties. He dreamed that, if he waited, everything would come right of its own accord. ' -
We meet many of these seemingly hopeless situations. We give all our good will towards suggesting how they can be alleviated or cured. But we shall not be confident that we are really fulfilling our part in the Spectator until the readers have sufficient confidence to consult us on their casual and current difficulties. It will greatly help us if readers give us concrete particulars about themselves and their circumstances. For example, we are told : " I am shy and difficult when I am in company. What should I do ? " If our correspondent had told us under what circumstances her embarrassments were worst, and even given us definite instances, with places and people, we should have had more material for judgment.
ALAN PORTER.
[We received a letter from Mrs. Margaret MacGregor which gave us no address. If she will write to us again the answer well be sent on. Next week the Conference will deal with the problem of Unluippy Marriages.]
Previous page
