Kyle MacDonald: My friend struggles to see the good in their life, how can I help them?

Offering some understanding is one way to help someone who is unhappy in their life. Photo / Getty Images

Q My friend is miserable. Unhappy in their job, single and they don’t want to be, doesn’t like where they live, yet every time I talk with them about changing things they just get annoyed. Nothing changes, even though they can see they’re miserable. How can I help them?

A One of the things that makes my job easy sometimes, is that other people’s problems are always easier than our own. But of course, we also don’t really know how to solve other people’s problems, we only know what we would do if we were in their position, which is different than what might be helpful for them.

It’s one of the things that makes advice so limited, we can never really see the world from another person’s point of view. We can try, by listening, empathising and really taking the time to understand.

But ultimately, we are not them, so we can never truly know what makes change for them hard, what impediments are in their mind, or what challenges they may perceive. There are also some understandable reasons why we can experience advice or change-oriented responses as something unhelpful - even though I don’t doubt for one minute your good intentions, or your desire to help.

To move too quickly to advise can be felt by the other person like we’re saying they don’t know what to do, or that their feelings about what is happening matter less than taking action. But often when we talk to people about what upsets us, what we’re actually wanting is validation, a sense that what we’re feeling is understandable, and that the other person has heard us.

In its most extreme form (and I’m not suggesting you’re doing this, just exaggerating to make the point) it’s like saying to someone who is depressed that they should cheer up, or that it’s not that bad.

Of course, there does come a time for action, and for making changes. But it’s also possible that changes don’t need to be made, that the “problem” as it were is emotional, not practical.

So, what we can do is listen and validate the feelings, including in all likelihood feelings of powerlessness or hopelessness that make change feel impossible. It can be quite a challenge to keep doing this, particularly in the face of a strong (understandable) urge to say “just do something!” - but it’s likely to be much more helpful.

This is not to suggest that you need to be their therapist, or that you’re not able to share your view. Conversations about what might need to change can be very helpful, but we need to start with the feelings first. It’s important we get clear about what the problems actually are before we set about solving them, and it’s possible your friend’s problem is one of struggling to feel the good in things - what we might think of as an “inside them” problem - as opposed to their life being bad - more of an “outside problem”.

Of course, only they can decide which it is. But if the problem is “in them”, then that is most certainly a problem for therapy. Supporting them to talk to someone then becomes the most useful support you could offer.