It feels good to see goodness in another person. And it feels good when the goodness in us is seen. Acknowledging this gives strength to the goodness.

Dale Carnegie, the interpersonal skills author, once stated, nothing else so inspires and heartens people as words of appreciation. You and I may soon forget the words of encouragement and appreciation that we utter now, but the person to whom we have spoken them may treasure them and repeat them to themselves over a lifetime. Carnegie encourages us to focus on personal strengths and to back up our statements with evidence. Evidence gives our statements credibility and believability, so people know your observations about them are sincere.

I chose the field of social work for this very reason. At the heart of social work is the strengths perspective and its philosophy that looking for peoples strengths means you will find them. When applied beyond the field of social work, it is also referred to as the strength-based approach. Dennis Saleebey, one of the academics credited with codifying this practice, stated that individuals have vast, often untapped and frequently unappreciated reservoirs of physical, emotional, cognitive, interpersonal, social, and spiritual energies, resources and competencies. In other words, each of us is much more than our problems. We have all kinds of strengths and abilities, which help us to survive the challenges we meet. Another important principle of the strengths perspective is that people have the capacity to learn, grow and change.

As a clinical social worker, I provide mental health treatment for patients and their families. Recently, I was working with a young patient who was suicidal and struggling to get her father to listen to her feelings. The father was, by his own admission, bottled up and initially barely able to speak to me about his daughter. One day, he telephoned and proceeded to yell at me for a long time. I used the strength perspective to listen to him yelling at me. I remembered that for him this was a good sign. He was calling me. Instead of focusing on the fact that he was yelling, I was focusing on the fact that he had called. He was finally engaging in his daughters treatment even though he was telling me all of the reasons why he was not able to listen to her. When he was done, he felt better, and I praised him for the fact that he clearly wanted to help his daughter but that listening to her feelings was uncomfortable for him. I praised him for calling me.

Hundreds of studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of praise in promoting positive behaviors, both in academic performance and work performance. Praise also has been demonstrated to reinforce positive behaviors in nonpraised adjacent individuals (in other words, hearing someone else get praised also feels good) through vicarious reinforcement. In order for praise to effect positive change, it must specify the particulars and must be delivered sincerely and credibly. In this way, praise tends to promote health of body and mind. Science demonstrates it is quite possible that by empowering people throughout their lives we actually immunize them against mental-health disorders such as depression.

There is a Turkish proverb that says, No matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back. A road that is always before us leads to empowerment through choosing the positive in ourselves and in others. The father who yelled on the telephone at me ultimately came in for a family meeting, listened to his daughter, and praised her for being brave enough to tell him how she felt. It seems to be a law of nature that our thoughts and feelings are encouraged and strengthened when we say them out loud. When we articulate the goodness in ourselves and others, we feel connected, hopeful and happy.

Robin Barstow is a child and adolescent clinical social worker at Spring Harbor Hospital in Westbrook.

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Nothing is more empowering than when others see the goodness in us - Bangor Daily News