Bright metal on sullen ground

THIS ESSAY'S TITLE COMES FROM Shakespeare's Henry V. In that classic work, Hal, the young king-to-be, asserts that he has been consciously cultivating an unsavory reputation because it will become the ground against which his future persona as king will be judged. After his coronation as king, he asserts, he will act in a more reputable and responsible way and his behavior and performance then will be judged so much more positively against the baseness of his previous actions. The new king would look as a man reborn, surprising and miraculous "bright metal," arising from the "sullen ground" of his previous behavior.

That narrative ploy has become a cultural cliche in the media's (and indeed in our own literature's) depiction of the ways that individuals arise from adverse circumstances to healthy and productive states. Look at how "they" are now compared to how they were then is the subtext of such offerings and the only question is the means that brought about their salvation. The often unstated and erroneous assumption is that they are in their circumstances by choice. The individuals involved in such schemas do the requisite divulging of their past failings to put their present circumstances into perspective. But, unlike Hal, none get to be king for all their trouble and most don't get noticed. Horatio Alger and Hal, the king-to-be, have many heirs in the repetitive narrative schemas that depict the rise from rags to riches. Such dramatic ploys are to be found in varying guises such as religious experiences (testimonials about being "reborn") to the familiar anecdotes of success stories used to characterize successful clients and their climb out of humble beginnings. Indeed one peculiarly American myth is the person who "makes it" after rising from humble circumstances through hard work, faith, persistence, and the vaporous promise of capitalism. Trouble is, there're only so many positions at the top of the heap and a lot of folks who are better off to begin with have a head start compared to the folks at the bottom, even considering pluck and bright-eyed obeisance to the American dream.

Pluck and effort will help people surmount problems and become "bright metal," but so will a more supportive and humane social and economic environment. So also will the efforts of those in society who care enough to seek and recognize that bright metal hidden in the sullen ground of others' lives.

We in the social and human services have our variously scripted "success story" formulae. We often think and characterize events in narrative cliches; such cliches are comprehensible, shared, and like genes or memes, are readily spliced into our stories and representations of people. The unexamined use of such cliches, though, may limit our seeing-we may observe things to find the particulars needed to plump out a cliche (objectifying) and yet not see those things that do not readily fit a handy prescripted story line. Let me suggest another way to adapt Shakespeare's metaphor of "bright metal on sullen ground" into a humanizing and hope-evoking learned professional behavior.

I suggest that we need to revisit the art of both finding and appreciating "bright metal in sullen ground." That is, to see beyond the ready diagnosis or problem or descriptive characterization to find some possibility that can be built upon. To some extent I favor a strengths perspective here in addition to a return to the fine art of cultivating a casework relationship, but I believe, more than that. Learning to discern latent strengths, married to possibility and promise, offers up the possibility of helping alternate futures come into comprehension. It caters to that uncynical view that people have within them the foundation for building an alternate narrative of their life. We need to fine-tune our ability to find the thread of a story line that could branch off and evolve in some better and unanticipated direction, if nurtured. In metaphorical terms, ours is the need to learn to see through the "sullen ground" to find the "bright metal." We need to see beyond those facts that either support or refute cliche'd and routinized thinking about clients to those bits of bright metal in them upon which an alternate narrative can be grounded. We need to temper our objectivity with subjectively fueled insights-to remember how to see with a child's eye, to remember that being professional isn't necessarily inclusive of aloofness and distance. It helps to have it be ok that clients deeply matter to us and that such mattering isn't dismissed as a shortcoming.

One of the epiphanies that some social workers must have (if they are to learn the art of practice) is a moment when they realize that people respond to someone truly seeing them-seeing them in a way that is more than the routinized and objectified way that they are usually apprehended by others. Sometimes that seeing is evidenced by word, sometimes by expressions and nods of the head, and sometimes vouchsafed by touch. Clients (and all of us) know when someone has deeply noticed and heard us. We also need to learn to notice the hidden possibilities in people and give such noticing significance. There is a spiritual element to such moments in developing practice relationships-those moments when someone sees promise in another and that such promise has taken the relationship to a place where people really "count" to one another. We need to cultivate those moments when we have truly seen another, been seen, and found that mattering and caring embellish professional knowledge and skills. The marriage of head and heart and circumstances in our profession is a source of both strength and occasional trepidation in the improvisational nature of our work. Applying and employing the components of that apprehensional skill-building relationship is an avenue to great practice. Adding the ability and desire to search for bright metal in common ground reintegrates that siren call that brought many of us into the helping professions-the desire to make a difference, to do something that matters, and to be enmeshed in meaningful work. That desire is part of our own bright metal and can be built upon if we are noble and brave enough to look for it.

William E. Powell, Editor

-William E. Powell, Editor

Copyright Families in Society Jul-Sep 2003
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