Rejoinder: A Response to Mike Baizerman's Conversation

A. Freeman Montreal

I find that the practice of child and youth care is extremely com- plex, and your reference to jazz improvisation struck a chord for me. The child care worker is in the position of constantly changing his style, approach, and posture to be in harmony with the youth with whom he is interacting at the moment: The utilization of self in the current context. Fortunately this was one of those times when things worked out. Often, too often, they don't, and the youth and worker are like two musicians playing different songs on out-of-tune instruments.

One thing that I th ink shows through in the article more than I had realized until I read your response is the fear the Preacher felt. It is a scary world out there and the Preacher, like all of us, uses his own defenses to get him through it. And his struggle with those de- fenses appears in some of the areas you have highlighted, like his reference to enter ing the world of "dark and despair," and to leading him out of it. It seems obvious, in retrospect, that the world of dark and despair was inside the Preacher and that his reference to leading Jacob out of it was a reference to his own desire to get out of it safely himself.

I discussed this with the Preacher and he said that if he could re- create the experience it would have ended like this:

We left the cafe toge ther and headed down the street . Into the land where I fear even the angels cast no shadows. If he can lead us into it, maybe toge ther we can find a way out. I b rea the a shor t p r aye r for both of us and secure myse l f in the wa rmth of my beliefs.

He says that then the story would have been more congruent with his experience. But he also says he didn't realize it until we talked, which leads me to the final comment I want to make from your re- sponse.

Child & Youth Care Forum, 22(3), June 1993 �9 I993 Human Sciences Press, Inc. 247

248 Child and Youth Care Forum

I agree that one's position is always precarious; it's just that one doesn't always know that it is. Somehow, when one gets caught up in the moment, one often gets out of touch with the experience itself, except as an experience. In the intensity of the moment one some- times forgets to monitor oneself. So even though the Preacher was trying to at tend to what he was experiencing at the time, there was a part of his experience that he had blocked from his awareness. It's an important point for me because we often think we know what's going on and don't realize until afterwards that we were deluding outselves. And this can hur t children.

In working with young people, unlike in jazz improvisation, you often don't get a second chance.