A worker must be open (within a safe and boundaried construct) to consider (through an empathic visualization) that their client was once a child (as they were) with hopes and aspirations. We must accept the universalism of experience, of the human condition, and of the ever-present and pervasive notion of self; not only as a construct, but also as a force that drives the personality to action, inaction, reaction, and disintegration.

To be able to be engaged with a client and to accept that this person is, as I am (and as I was), a mind that is aware of its own existence (and that attempts to make sense of existence) is to truly be present. This reduction of barriers enables and invokes openness which can lead to a ‘quiet’ realization of what lies between the client and the practitioner – an often unspoken (and sometimes quite horrifying) understanding that we share the same space and time as each other, the same innate needs, and that we are able to connect despite our differences, and despite of who we might be or what we might have done.