Think of the times you received bad news about a friend. For example, you may have heard that your good friend from college was diagnosed with an illness, or your best friend from elementary school lost her husband. Likewise, you may have been told that a work colleague is suffering from severe depression, or a new friend is experiencing a tough financial crisis. While the gravity of the news and the relationship you have with the person affected differ, you will probably experience some degree of feeling sad, angry or even guilty when confronting each of these situations.
After having an emotional response, you may quickly turn to thinking about how to help the friend. In fact, often the first thing out of our mouths when we hear bad news is to ask what we can do to assist the person who is ailing. Most of us have a natural desire to help others, and helping can make us feel more empowered when confronting a situation that we may have little power over.
While the desire to help may be strong, it is often hard to know how to help. We may question what help to give, when to offer the help and how much to persist if our offer of help is not initially accepted. We may feel we are navigating a difficult tightrope of trying to offer support, without offending or invading the privacy of the friend.
At the same time, we need to keep in check our own emotions as we offer help to the affected one and manage our feelings of potential rejection or vulnerability if our help is not accepted. Indeed, offering help to those in need is a balancing act. We need to balance our desire to help against the affected person’s willingness to accept the help, while keeping our own emotions in line.
While it is often difficult to achieve the right balance when offering help, the ability to help a friend in need can pay dividends to the affected person. In addition, through the act of helping we can achieve a sense of purpose and control. Indeed, the research shows that helping others is closely linked to personal happiness and better physical and emotional health (click here or click here).
While each situation will be different, some general guidelines for offering help to friends in need can be a useful guide. Considering these tips as you offer help to others will support you in making a difference.
» Be patient. Realize that it takes time for people to heal. Even though you may want to speed up their recovery, it will progress on their timetable, not yours. If a friend isn’t ready for help at one point, check back in with her after some time to see if she may now be ready.
» Listen. Focus on really listening to your friend. Try to hear what they are saying without putting any of your own judgments on their words or message.
» Avoid giving advice, unless you are directly asked for it. While it is often tempting to try to “fix” the problem, giving unsolicited advice can feel overwhelming, patronizing or insensitive to your friend.
» Be present. Be mindful of being present for your friend. Focus on the present of being with them and not the past or the future.
» Know your friend. Remember to be sensitive to who your friend is when you offer help. If your friend has always been an introvert, inviting her out to a party to “cheer” her up would not likely be helpful for your friend. However, inviting your friend, who loves to go for walks, out for a walk, might be a very supportive gesture.
» Take the friend’s lead. Be sensitive to your friend’s needs and wants. Look to them for cues about how to help. For example, if your friend complains about feeling overwhelmed with daily chores, your offer to prepare a meal for her family, could be very helpful.
» Do not personalize the friend’s response. If your friends reject your offers of help, do not personalize this. Your friend may be progressing through a grieving process and may be rejecting all offers of help. Likewise, realize that irritability or anger on the part of your friend is probably not directed at you, but rather is being expressed at you because you are a safe target.
» Offer empathy, only if you can. If you can show that you understand your friend’s feeling because you experienced a similar situation, do so. If you have not had a similar experience, do not try to offer empathy, as this will be received as patronizing or insensitive. For example, telling a friend with a serious disease that you know what it feel like because you just got over the flu, will not be received as an empathetic gesture. However, sharing with a friend that you can relate to their diagnosis as you too had a serious diagnosis 10 years ago would likely be seen as empathetic and helpful.
» Provide sympathy. Sympathy is the ability to express sadness for someone. Being able to tell someone that you don’t know what he is experiencing, yet feel very badly for him can be an important message to send.
» Be aware of your own emotions. Be certain to check in with your own feelings as you offer help to a friend in need. Seeing someone we care for experience a difficult time can trigger our own emotions. Be aware that you may not only feel sad for your friend but could also feel angry and guilty.
— Winifred Lender, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist in private practice in Santa Barbara and can be contacted at drwinifredlender@gmail.com. She is the author of A Practical Guide to Parenting in the Digital Age: How to Nurture Safe, Balanced and Connected Children and Teens available at Chaucer’s and Amazon. Dr. Lender completed her undergraduate work at Cornell University and received her master’s and doctorate degrees at the University of Pennsylvania. She completed a fellowship at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia/The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and is a past president of the Santa Barbara County Psychological Association. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are her own.