Ties that bind, and double-bind: visual impairment, help, and the shaping of relationships

Purpose: Scholars agree that effective rehabilitation relies on a bedrock of reciprocity, relational trust, and authenticity. It is therefore essential for practitioners to develop insight into the complex dynamics within helping relationships. This study aims to provide an in-depth understanding of visually impaired students' experience of informal helping relationships. Methods: Ten visually impaired students at a South African university participated in one of two semi-structured focus group interviews (six and four in each group, respectively) wherein we explored their experience of informal helping relationships. Interpretive phenomenological analysis was used to make sense of the data. Results: Help, according to the participants, can militate against visibility and complete acceptance, and has the potential to cause helpers to feel entrapped. By contrast, some students found that help offered benefits to relationships by boosting the helper's self-esteem and affording disabled students the opportunity to make friends. Conclusion: Decisions whether to accept help were mediated more by relationship factors than by the need for help. These findings are important for rehabilitation professionals, as deep relationship can come into being during the course of a rehabilitation process. Although this study was conducted in an informal setting, the relational dynamics that we explore are also applicable to clinical relationships between disabled persons and rehabilitation professionals. Implications for rehabilitation In this paper, we provide an overview of the intricacies involved in care and helping relationships; In order for rehabilitation to be successful, these relationships should ideally be real, trusting, and authentic; Yet, authenticity and spontaneity often get lost in helping relationships, as help-recipients may deny help when they need it, and accept help when perfectly able to cope without it. These decisions are mediated more by relationship factors than by the need for help; In their daily practice, it is essential for health professionals to be mindful of these relational intricacies within care relationships; We recommend that professionals remain motivated to continuously reflect on their own actions and on the emotional investment they might have in their role as a helper; Our last recommendation is for rehabilitation professionals to spend energy on exploring, through open and transparent discussions with their disabled patients, the relational dynamics in their relationship.