Different Paths to Self-Understanding
On Social Work, Human Limits, and the Courage to Remain
There is a question that has followed me throughout my life.
It has not grown quieter with time.
It has grown deeper.
It returns in unexpected moments—sometimes gently, almost unnoticed, and sometimes with a force that leaves no room for avoidance:
What shall I do?
At first glance, it appears to be a simple question. Practical. Manageable.
But in certain moments, it becomes something else entirely.
It becomes a question about how to live.
About how to meet another human being.
About what it means to act—when no action feels sufficient.
This question did not come to me through theory.
It came to me through people.
In these moments, we encounter something we cannot escape:
Ourselves.
When Experience Breaks Certainty
After many years working in social services, I believed I understood my role.
I had knowledge. Training. Experience.
I knew the frameworks, the methods, the language of the profession.
And often, it worked.
But what stayed with me were not the situations where everything went well.
It was the others.
The moments when I did not reach through.
When suffering remained unchanged.
When I went home with a quiet but persistent unease:
You should have done something differently.
But what?
There is a point in every profession—and perhaps in every life—where knowledge no longer carries us forward.
Where competence meets its limit.
Where we are left, not with answers, but with ourselves.
It was here that my work began.
Beyond Method
In fields like social work, there is a natural desire for clarity.
We want methods that work.
Approaches that can be taught.
Solutions that can be repeated.
And yet, something essential resists this.
Because the human being does not appear as a problem to be solved.
The human being appears as a presence.
Unpredictable. Contradictory. Vulnerable.
No method can fully contain this.
This is why I turned to philosophy—not as an abstract discipline, but as a way of thinking that dares to remain with what does not resolve.
In Søren Kierkegaard, I encountered a language for despair—not as failure, but as a condition of being human.
In Martin Heidegger, I found a way to think about existence not as a concept, but as something lived.
In Hans-Georg Gadamer, I came to understand that meaning does not belong to us—it emerges between us.
None of them offered solutions.
But they offered something more valuable:
A way to remain.
The Movement of Becoming
We often think of growth as progress—moving forward, improving, advancing.
But what if growth is not a straight line?
What if it is a movement—back and forth, between clarity and confusion, between insight and uncertainty?
This is how I came to understand formation.
Not as a goal.
But as a lifelong movement.
Here, Plato’s allegory of the cave became more than a philosophical story—it became an image of lived experience.
We begin in what we take to be reality.
We are confronted with something that unsettles us.
We struggle toward a different understanding.
And then—we return.
Not as the same person.
But not fully changed either.
Because the world we return to has not changed with us.
This return is perhaps the most difficult part.
It is also where responsibility begins.
A Door, A Room, A Turning Point
I still remember one of my first encounters as a young social worker.
I stood outside a door, about to enter a situation I did not fully understand.
Before the door opened, a thought crossed my mind:
What am I doing here?
Inside, I met a group of young people living in a reality completely foreign to me.
They spent most of their days watching violent films. Hour after hour. Day after day.
I reacted physically.
Discomfort. Restlessness. A sense of disorientation.
I wanted to withdraw.
But I stayed.
Not because I had a plan.
But because leaving felt like a failure.
So I remained—day after day, with no clear direction, no clear method, no clear outcome.
And something unexpected happened.
Not immediately. Not dramatically.
But gradually.
A shift.
A moment came when one of them said:
We could make films ourselves.
What followed was not a transformation imposed from the outside.
It was something that emerged.
From within the group. From within the relationship.
From presence.
This experience changed me.
Not because I succeeded.
But because I learned something fundamental:
The most important thing we offer another human being is not expertise.
It is presence.
Compassion Without Illusion
We often speak of compassion as a virtue.
But compassion without clarity can become something else—pity, distance, even avoidance.
True compassion requires something more.
It requires proximity.
To be near enough to see the other as they are.
Not as we wish them to be.
Here, the work of Jane Addams became a quiet guide.
She did not stand outside the lives she sought to change.
She entered them.
She lived among those she worked with.
And in doing so, she revealed something essential:
That justice and compassion are not opposites.
They belong together.
The Courage to Stay
We often admire courage in action.
But there is another kind of courage.
Less visible. Less celebrated.
The courage to remain.
To stay when nothing is clear.
To listen when no answer is available.
To resist the temptation to simplify what is complex.
Socrates embodied this.
He did not offer certainty.
He offered questions.
And in doing so, he exposed something we often try to avoid:
That we do not know.
To live with this—not as a weakness, but as a condition—is a form of courage.
The Necessary Detour
We tend to seek the positive path.
The one that leads forward, upward, toward clarity and resolution.
But the path to self-understanding often takes another route.
Through doubt.
Through guilt.
Through anxiety.
Not as obstacles.
But as passages.
This is what I have come to call the negative detour.
It is not a path we choose.
But it is often the path we must walk.
In these moments, we encounter something we cannot escape:
Ourselves.
Not as we present ourselves to the world.
But as we are—uncertain, vulnerable, unfinished.
And perhaps it is here, more than anywhere else, that something begins.
When Something New Emerges
In social work, we often speak of empowerment.
But empowerment cannot be given like an object.
It cannot be transferred from one person to another.
It must emerge.
In relationships where there is time.
Where there is respect.
Where there is space for something new to take shape.
I have seen this happen.
Quietly.
Almost unnoticed.
And yet, when it does, it changes everything.
Living Without Final Answers
Looking back, I do not see my work as a collection of answers.
I see it as an attempt to remain faithful to a question.
To keep open a space where something real can occur.
Where the question can still be asked:
What shall I do?
Perhaps this is what it means to take life seriously.
Not to resolve it.
But to engage with it.
Fully.
Final Reflection
We do not live our lives as finished answers.
We live them as unfolding questions.
We search for certainty, believing it will guide us forward.
But certainty is rarely what carries us.
It is something quieter.
A willingness to remain.
To listen.
To stay present in what does not resolve.
And then, slowly—almost imperceptibly—
a direction appears.
Not as a conclusion.
But as a movement.
A step.
A path.
And perhaps, in the end,
that is all we are ever given.
References
Addams, J. (1910). Twenty Years at Hull-House. New York: Macmillan.
Benhabib, S. (1986). Critique, Norm, and Utopia. New York: Columbia University Press.
Gadamer, H.-G. (2004). Truth and Method (2nd rev. ed.). London: Continuum.
Heidegger, M. (1998). Pathmarks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kierkegaard, S. (1980). The Sickness unto Death. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Pettersen, K. T. (2000). Paths to Self-Understanding: Some Foundational Problems in Social Work (Master’s thesis). Oslo University College / NTNU.
In these moments, we encounter something we cannot escape:
Ourselves.
Thr text here is mind and written with focus on my Master´s thesis (2000) on the same theme Paths to Self-Understanding. I have written this text in conversation with Open AI/ChatGPT which also created the illustration.
