My wife and I recently had the chance to take a vacation by ourselves while our youngest son was away with his cousins on an extended trip of his own. Before we left, I loaded up my phone with podcasts to help pass the hours driving we’d have between Pittsburgh, PA and Logan, Ohio. One podcast we listened to on the trip struck a chord with us, an episode of Hidden Brain titled “A Secret Source of Connection.” I initially had loaded it because I thought it might be about marital or relationship advice. The episode resounded though with my own experience of working with others who are reluctant to ask for help, even though they themselves are more than willing to help others.

The episode featured discussion of research studies which found, in general, that people asking for help often negatively misjudged how people would react to their asking for help. In one study, a participant had to ask a passer-by to take a photo of them using a Polaroid camera – one that you couldn’t just easily take a “selfie” with. Participants were asked to rate how the helper would rate their experience, and almost invariably participants felt that the helper would be annoyed, bothered, or think negatively of them, or at least not enjoy the experience. When the helpers were asked to rate their experience though, they often expressed that the experience was enjoyable and fun, and that they felt better for doing it afterward.

Cognitive scientists labeled this the “prosociality paradox”: we are culturally and psychologically wired to benefit from helping others, yet we are often reluctant to ask for help, and often reluctant to offer it.

Another part of this paradox involves understanding why people are reluctant to help in situations where they can. In one study, researchers found that potential helpers downplayed their ability to help, feeling that their actions would be viewed negatively or that they weren’t really competent to help in the first place. Those being helped, however, looked at the intent of the helper more than the relative outcome of their actions.

[Helpers] evaluate the success of their acts of kindness using a lens of competence. This is why they ask themselves, “Am I doing the right thing? Am I saying the right thing?” Recipients focus less on whether the gift is perfect. They care more about the warmth that comes with an act of kindness. Yet potential helpers may be reluctant to help because they fear offending someone or even making things worse. They may feel that their help won’t make much of a difference. Worse, they may feel that they aren’t competent to help another when competence itself is less important than empathy.

As we were listening, both my wife and I immediately brought to mind the parable of the Good Samaritan in the gospels. It’s such a profound story because it touches a core component of our humanity: connection. The parable is designed to shock the listener not only at the religious and cultural levels (Jewish vs Samaritan) but at the most basic level of human connection, helping someone who plainly needs it. While it isn’t specifically spelled out in the parable, interpreters and exegetes often point to the reasons why those who passed by the beaten man in the story didn’t do so. They often point to the internal processes that prevent the Pharisee and the Scribe from helping one of their own: it would have made them unclean, it would have opened them up to robbery, it would have slowed them on their journey. The Samaritan though acts in a way that is distinctly selfless, throwing decorum to the wind in order to help someone sacrificially.

These studies on our reluctance to ask for help as well as to offer it also brought to mind a number of situations I commonly see in my job. Many of my patients are quite reluctant to ask for help, even when there are people in their lives who are there specifically to be their helpers. Sometimes my patients will express being a burden to others, or worry that caregivers will be upset at them when they ask for help (which is unfortunately is a real concern at times). One patient I visited after I got back from vacation expressed this very sentiment. She is almost blind, and requires supplemental oxygen at a fairly high rate at all times. When I visit, she is almost invariably tangled in her oxygen tubing, exhausted, and depressed. She, like many others, has been a helper all her life. Now that she needs help, she finds it very difficult to ask for it. She worries that staff will be bothered or think poorly of her, and often feels that she is taking help from someone else who needs it more than she does.

While I have often encouraged and reinforced her asking for help, it was interesting to do so in the context of this research. It allowed me to move from offering platitudes (‘you were a helper, now it’s your turn”) to a much broader discussion about why people don’t ask for help. It allowed her to normalize and understand her own experience a bit more, and also helped her understand and appreciate the experience of others, particularly her caregivers.

These studies also impact us as professionals and our own experiences asking for help. Before leaving for vacation, I ran myself ragged managing not only my own caseload but the caseload of another chaplain who was off for medical reasons. While I coordinated visits for this chaplain, asking others to chip in (which of course they readily did), I didn’t ask for any help myself. My manager asked if I needed help on more than one occasion and I reiterated that I had everything under control. I needed to show myself to be competent and a leader in the middle of a difficult season, which meant not receiving help when it was offered. When I came back, I talked with a social worker I work closely with, who said that the week I had been away had been very difficult, with many deaths and family issues to attend to. When I mentioned this to my manager, she said that help had been offered to her and, just as with me, declined. We both sorely needed help, but for one reason or another didn’t want to receive it.

The research presented also helped to enlighten me about some of the times I felt I wanted to help but didn’t. In some cases, I was genuinely worried about offending someone’s religious or cultural beliefs, and therefore held back in some ways that could possibly have been helpful. This is a significant concern for chaplains, as cultural and religious awareness is such an important consideration in what we do. This concern can lead to paralysis though when we fear saying or doing the wrong thing. However, in retrospect, so many of these situations could have been alleviated by simply addressing the elephant in the room: “I’d like to help you, but I’m not sure how. How can I best help you?”

The podcast discussion also reflected times where I discounted what I do as being less important or less significant than other disciplines. This, I believe, is a common malady among chaplains. I even heard a chaplain joke once that “you don’t get to be a chaplain without first having a massive inferiority complex!” Part of this is of course related to the subjective and relational nature of our job. It can be very hard to see the difference we’re making in our patients’ lives in a concrete way. Nurses can give medication to improve symptoms or dress wounds to heal them. Aides can tidy a filthy room, dress a patient well, or clean them when others may be unable to do so. Even social workers can help get living wills clarified or make arrangements for an emergency respite for someone. All of these things have concrete, visible benefits that can be seen as markers of success. Chaplains though live in a more nebulous world, where it may be hard to see the benefit of what we do on a day-to-day basis. Research in clinical chaplaincy has made great progress in providing data-driven evidence regarding spiritual care. Chaplains though still worry about the impact of their support, especially in comparison to their peers.

Listening to the podcast and discussing it with my wife did bring back to mind the importance of what I do. It made me more attentive to the inner voices I have that can minimize what I do and call into question my skills and competence. It also encouraged me to be attentive to the anxieties I have about receiving help in my job as well as outside of it. It was a great reminder to, as always, trust the process, lean in to those difficult feelings I have, and to recognize that I am just as worthy of love – and help – as others.