Middleman says looking with planned emptiness requires “living comfortably with partial answers…welcoming the doubting…accepting uncertainty.” (page 25).

How “comfortable” are you with this? Think about this in terms of your practice as a group leader, but ALSO in terms of you as an individual. In your day to day living, experiences, history. Try to be as specific as possible.

24 INNER SKILLS

Unlike cognition which is fallible and idiosyncratic, perception is
automatic and fixed. It is a sensory operation and is affected mainly
by physiological capacities. That is, one notices more or less accu-
rately according to the acuity of one’s sense receptors.

If perception is automatic, then how can one learn perception
skills? What can be taught and thus learned is to attend consciously,
skeptically to matters of perception, not to trust one’s senses so to
speak! What can be learned is to question the validity of what one
notices and to report without value-based embellishments the behav-
ior that one observes. One can learn to work on remaining continually
attentive to what is happening in the present moment, to avoid auto-
matic habituation to sights and noises j u s t because they are common-
place happenings. One can work against tuning-out! And what m u s t
be laboriously learned is to separate actual occurence from previous
experiences or expectations.

We shall describe four skills which can contribute to disciplined
looking: looking with planned emptiness, looking at the old as if new,
jigsaw puzzeling: leaving blanks for the story to unfold, and looking
from diverse angles.

L o o k i n g w i t h P l a n n e d E m p t i n e s s

To look with planned emptiness is deliberately to cultivate an area in
one’s mind that is reserved for the unknown, that is ready to accom-
modate the new, perhaps alien, idea and experience it, rather than
rationalize it away or avoid it. By keeping and taking pride in the
empty cell in the perception structure, it becomes impossible for one
“not to see it” because one has no conceptual category for it (no red
ace of spades). It is as prizing and valuing the holes in the swiss
cheese, as recognizing that these very holes are a mark of the ripening
of the total c h u n k that adds quality and subtlety to its essence.

In the past ideas lived longer than people. And once established,
ideas would change only slowly and over several generations. Today
technology and science have speeded up the rate of change so that
people live longer than ideas and they m u s t change their ideas within
their lifetimes. A cultivated area of emptiness is one route toward

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PERCEPTION SKILLS 25

being open to restructure or even discard ideas, rather than only

building on the old ones.
Looking with planned emptiness implies recognizing the limits of

one’s knowledge, living comfortably with partial answers, and wel-
coming the doubting as well as the doing. It involves accepting uncer-
tainty rather than dogma, allowing for intuitive and tacit knowings,
and relishing inquiry. This means staying open, even in one’s area of
expertise, to the vast realms that may be unimaginable. “Why not?”
becomes as important as “why?”

For social work practice, a key use of “planned emptiness” is not to
let other workers’ assessment of a client or situation precondition
one’s expectation of what will happen in this relationship! It is in-
volved in the delicate maneuver of picking up someone else’s case
with a truly open mind.

Often, planned emptiness directs one to regard another’s written
assessments with skepticism and to adopt a “do-it-yourself” mentality
so as to keep others’ biases out “of your picture”! Consider this sup-
posedly factual account describing Janet, a “short, stocky black woman
who h a s been living at a state institution for the retarded for about
twenty years”:

In a smaller group situation, she appears to be very happy, well-
adjusted, and self-satisfied. However, with a closer analysis of Ja-
net’s behavior, her need for affection becomes apparent. She con-
stantly hugs and kisses anyone who will let her. Her need to be
wanted is obvious. She would rather help another person in the
group than do her own work. She would rather scrub the sink or
mop the floors than work on a project. If she feels that she has done
something wrong, she cries to such an extent that it is hard to stop
her. All of these needs point up Janet’s one basic need for self-
actualization.

Here is an instance where eager, novice workers must learn to ignore
certain evaluations and conclusions. They m u s t learn to regard the
written record of service as fallible, as not etched in concrete! And
mainly, they need to become able to separate descriptions of behavior
from value-based evaluations of it. In the above excerpt one must not
believe that “Janet’s one basic need (is) for self-actualization.”

26

^
‘ ‘ I

INNER.SKILLS

-In the following instance the social worker exhibits looking with
planned emptiness.

While working on the Renal Dialysis Unit at University Hospital, I
was making rounds with the physician when one patient in my case
load called me back to her chair. She said she had read my memo to
the ward concerning a new group forming “to recognize individual
birthdays and have a fund for extending our expression of sympathy
when a dialysis patient dies.” Mrs. Kent said she wanted to know if
I could have used another word in place of “dies” in that sentence.
As she talked she kept apologizing for approaching me about the
word. I was caught off guard but I said nothing for a few moments
and nodded as she talked. I wondered what the word “dies” might
mean to her and pulled a chair over to sit near her. I sensed she
wanted conversation at this time, because most of the time she
pretends to be asleep. I sat there quietly. She want on to say she
didn’t mind the word “die,” but some of the other patients might
find it hard to deal with.

In another instance, the social worker was on week-end duty in a
de-tox program for substance abusers. Some of the residents talked
h e r into sending out for pizzas. They promised this was allowed in the
house rules.

I was new at this residence and had no reason to doubt what the
residents said they could do on weekends. When they approached
me with their boredom, I thought for a moment and then said, “Why
not!” It was only several days later that I discovered the regular staff
did not believe them when they said I (not they) had ordered the
pizzas. I had been open to their request and trusted them. When I
was reached after returning to the city, they were relieved when I
clarified that I did, indeed, order the pizzas. I did not think they
were out to con me and they fulfilled my trust.

L o o k i n g a t t h e O l d A s If N e w

To look at the old as if new involves a playful attitude, one that can
imagine and pretend. It is an optimistic stance. T h e seemingly impos-

PERCEPTION SKILLS 27

sible might j u s t be possible. There are no “n’er-do-wells” nor total
failures in one’s case load, no matter how dismal their plight may
seem to be at first glance.

In the words of Gordon, one needs to “sustain a childlike willing-
ness to suspend adult disbelief. . . . To make the familiar strange is to
distort, invert, or transpose the everyday ways of looking and respond-
ing which render the world a secure and familiar place. . . . It is the
conscious attempt to achieve a new look at the same old world, people,
ideas, feelings, and things.” 1 0

The social worker who looks at the old as if new strives to cultivate
naivete, an “out of focus” look at some aspect of the known world, a
willingness to tolerate ambiguity, and a readiness to take risks. This
cultivated childlike honesty and openness involves telling the Em-
porer he is naked no matter the others’ appreciation of his new clothes.
It also involves looking with a “what if?” and “supposing? . . . ” as
m u c h as with a “why.”

The following instance shows a social worker willing to look at the

old as if new:

I wanted to start a support group for chronic mentally ill adults and
proposed this idea at a staff meeting of the Outpatient Services
Department. I was not prepared for the response that greeted this
proposal. There were all kinds of reasons offered for not starting.
For example: it was hard enough to keep up with our mandated
services; mentally ill adults need more structure than that type of
group; we are not reimbursed for such groups; and they wouldn’t
come just for vague “support.” I was silent. I imagined there were
some in our caseloads who were capable of increased independence
and consistency if given the chance. I was surprised at the doom
and gloom emphasis in the discussion. Was this burnout on the part
of staff? I could see that my plan would not be supported by the
others. I made a comment that seemed to surprise, “I’d like to give
this a try and am willing to take this on in an after-hours assign-
ment. I’d like to try with about eight persons and would appreciate
any referrals made out of your case loads that you think might be
able to be in such a group.” Silence . . . and nods of assent.

MT