If some comes to you for help and you’re bored

From the introduction of Holding and Interpretation: Fragment of an Analysis.

The book is by Winnicott, and the introduction is by Masud R. Khan.

Some six months before Dr. Winnicott’s death in January 1971. A group of young Anglican priests invited him to come talk to them. He accepted, and in a casual exchange of conversation they told him that what they needed guidance about was how to differentiate between a person who seeks their help because he is sick and needs psychiatric treatment, and one who is capable of helping himself through talking with them. Telling this story to me, Winnicott said that he had been taken aback by the awesome simplicity of their question. He had paused a long while, thought and then replied:

'If a person comes and talks to you and, listening to him, you feel he is boring you, then he is sick, and needs psychiatric treatment. But if he sustains your interest, no matter how grave his distress or conflict, then you can help him alright.'

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The introduction goes on to say how a person might unconsciously make themselves into someone whom others find boring as either a way of attacking them or as a way of defending themselves from the voice or the gaze/ (Khan is not a Lacanian, and he does not use the terms like "the voice" or "the gaze." That is me interpreting Khan's words through my Lacanian perspective.

I find this to be really interesting, and I want to think more about it.