Helping Theory with a Focus on Autonomy

How can an outside party ("helper") assist those who are undertaking autonomous activities (the "doers") without overriding or undercutting their autonomy?

• Help must start from the present situation of the doers.
• Helpers must see the situation through the eyes of the doers.
• Help cannot be imposed on the doers, as that directly violates their autonomy.
• Nor can doers receive help as a benevolent gift, as that creates dependency.
• Doers must be in the driver's seat.

"One major application of helping theory is to the problems of knowledge-based notion of development assistance. The standard approach is that the helper, a knowledge-based development agency, has the 'answers' and disseminates them to the doers. This corresponds to the standard teacher-centered pedagogy. The alternative under helping theory is the learner-centered approach. The teacher plays the role of midwife, catalyst, and facilitator, building learning capacity in the learner-doers so that they can learn from any source, including their own experience."

"On the...autonomy-respecting path [learner-centered approach], the helper helps the doers to help themselves by supplying not 'motivation' but perhaps resources to enable the doers to do what they were already own-motived to do. On the knowledge side, the autonomy-respecting helper supplies not answers but helps build learning capacity (e.g., by enabling access to unbiased information and to hearing all sides of an argument) to enable the doers to learn from whatever source in a self-directed learning process."