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38 = USING INTERPRETATIVE PHENOMENOLOGICAL ANALYSIS for the clients too. Experiences in the course of a prior addiction career can be useful in the helping relationship. In turn, helping relationships have a therapeutic effect on the helpers. “I work for someone, and at the same time I work on myself with someone? The Skilled Helper Skills that characterize helping and helpers belong to this topic: the ability to ask, reflect, listen, pay attention, be present or be a safe point. Helpers’ work on their own self-awareness contributes to an improvement in their qualification as helpers. Several participants, however, also considered it important to attain formal qualification, because they felt their experiences were not enough for helping. “T felt that my own experiences were not enough for a conversation like that, so I was unable to be there 100 % in the helping process because I missed that background. So I decided to enroll (into a study program)”. The Experience of Helping Participants explained that helping has two parts: the helper and the client. Being a helper means strengths and assets because clients listen to helpers; it also means acceptance, challenge and giving belief and hope. The other meaning is all about the client: how can the helper be present for the client? The helping experience was often referred to as a situation between two people, where the helper exerts an effect on the client primarily with his/her presence, from the “outside”. The helper does not rule or save: the client is capable of changing. Giving was described as an important part of helping, sometimes in meaning of giving back: giving back something that they got from the community during their recovery. “Charging up’, however, was important to be able to give. “Tt is definitely not the role of some kind ofa savior, it is definitely not about taking the responsibility over.” “Tam just a safe point for them, a mirror. Not always a clean mirror, sometimes a dirty mirror, and I wait for them to go to the water. I am not leading them to the water, but I am there for them, touching their shoulders on the way”
