Page:The Art of Helping People Out of Trouble (1924).pdf/231

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with them she had been a teacher of Spanish. For the first time during the conversation she showed enthusiasm. Evidently this was an occupation in which she had found self-expression. It developed that she had been an able teacher but that she was not the sort of person to work coöperatively with other people in an organization. She had been obliged to leave several schools and had thought that teaching was closed to her. The social worker found some private pupils for the woman. The experiment was successful. At the end of a year the teacher's clients had increased in number, and she was a more stable person than she had ever been.

Sometimes it is impossible, perhaps even unnecessary, to arrange for a change in an individual's employment. The task is rather to help him to see that what he is doing is important and that he is doing it well. Every craftsman no matter how sure he may be of his art is dependent upon the appraisal of his work by those whom he regards ascompetent critics. It is not unusual for a person to have a feeling of failure changed to one of achievement when what he thought to be unsuccessful is received with appreciation. The admiration which a social worker expressed for