I  heard this read on the radio the other day: "The holes in your life are permanent, you have to learn to grow around them." (Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train). 
This certainly has been my own experience and it speaks to my role as a social worker, providing real-life support for real-life scenarios rather than individualistic psychotherapy. The certainty, that what I call regressive therapy was not for me, came from deep within. Eventually, through a spell of psychodrama workshops, it came to the fore and gave itself a name - my trust in life; and later - my spirituality. Writers about therapeutic work such diverse  as Winnicott, Brandon (Zen in the art of Helping), Viktor Frankl and  E.Erickson offered real-life support.  And they show that people in crisis can even be helped by pointing out and even enhancing the paradox they are living. That will resonate, and possibly help to move... One quite desperate client said to me years ago: "I trust you because you are not afraid." But then, later, went on to say, there is one thing I can't talk about, not even to you...(so ashamed).." Him I could not help further in the end, but show that the possible way out was there, and was as he said himself 'for real'... I hope he is well. He touched my heart. 

I clearly remember a rock bottom moment in my life, during a skiing holiday some thirty years ago. Walking back to my digs, I suddenly felt how easy it would be to drop out of my life - disappear, into homelessness, giving up... and then another part of me came to the fore: "But I won't do that."
 In all my personal crises, I needed space more than anything else. 
Professionally, I have no experience working with someone acutely experiencing psychotic symptoms.  However, I do remember during my first time working in a Community Mental Health Team, a trainee Mental Health Professional and a more experienced one were compaing notes on clients when being sectioned on occasion saying "I would have been alright if left alone" - both mocking the statement. Again, I have no experience to decide. 
However, Eleanor Longden ended her TED talk a couple of years ago with the words "The Inner Light never goes out". (In personal communication she stated that comment was for her a figure of speech - i.e. she was not relating to any spiritual tradition. She talks about coming back from the experience of being acutely psychotic. 
What I can comment on is the belief that keeping a person safe has to be done in aid of assisting them to be themselves again - more a process than an outcome, of course. What I have seen in Mental Health wards was in my view, I regret to say, the opposite - the denying of the person's experience and rights to help themselves 
Years ago, I was working in the community with a young man suffering from acute alcoholism, drinking his life away. He was kept safe partly by the Care Agency who came into his house everyday as he needed assistance with his personal cure due to Cerebral Palsy. When that agency called a crisis meeting, I used that to point out the situation as drastic as it was (and perhaps a little bit more) - to tell my client when the agency staff had left, he knew in his heart what he needed to do.. to save his life. And he did. 

When I completed my undergraduate studies at a Teacher Training College and my postgraduate Studies in Community Education/Social Work at Tubingen University in Germany, over 30 years ago the common professional uderstanding was that psychologist Carl Rogers had got it right: He developed the therapeutic approach named Person-Centred Counselling. At the heart of it was and is the assumption that the person/client in their heart always already know the solution to their issues and/or what they want to do. Of course, this knowing and wanting is not independent of the individual history, social context, experiences and preferences. For me personally, the tension between radical social thinking on one side and sensitive empathy in one-to-one work explain why I worked in other aspects of Health and Social Care for many years before I eventually became a social worker in the UK in 2007, where I had by then lived for over 10 years. There is no greater job satisfaction for me than puzzling over a complex difficulty a client finds themselves in and tweaking their and my own understanding of their situation deeply and eventually finding and working towards a solution - their own goals: The more complex the situation, the more deely rooted the solution has to be. That means, considerable work can at times be needed to work out what needs to be left behind, too!
However, the value of starting with what the deepest desire and highest goal for a person remains important, because the sense of meaning will in the process be needed to provide the pull, the motivation to leave behind what obstructs.
When I learned about Marsha Forest's deep intuitive approach of Circles of Support it was in the context of working with students with complex learning difficulties who were takin part in a pilot project of inclusion in a mainstream Further Education College. A challenge indeed! It was complicated by the fact that the parents had been self-selecting for places. - Now, that may sound like a contradiction - isn't self-selection person-centred? It is and - it is not that easy. Parents' motives were  mixed up with wanting the best for their youngsters, exhaustion from having them at home, anger for not having had that opportunity earlier... Students interests were mixed in there. Where, I think we got close to the spirit of Marsha Forest's intention was when we, as worker at the College, gathered evidence about what activities or environments seemed to be enjoyable for individual students (most of them did not use language) - the hussle and bussle of a woodwork class, the soft atmorsphere of beauty therapy, the get-up and do of catering. Those were the results of longish discussions as a team and some trial-and-error in facilitating students attending classes (where tutors were accomodating). That is where I learned humility before the other person as a professional and - re-learned dreaming for myself. Much of the latter has yet to get beyond the stage of abstract images, in my early sixties...

A few days ago, I  attended my second MRI scan. The first I had in 1997 in Germany. This one was in a Teaching Hospital in England, where I have lived now for over 10 years. Where I love the language and the humour, among other things.

In my professional dealings, as an advocate, with the NHS, and in my experience as a patient, humour has not always come easy for me though.

I clearly remember the radio show with one English comedian, at some point while living in rural North Wales from 2000 to 2006:

"Why do the Germans have effective public services? - because they don't have a sense of humour: When something goes wrong they give the Public servants hell." And he concluded drily: "You can't have it both - a sense of humour AND effective public services." Ouch.

But what is it, really, that gets my goat? Why do I even feel wary of  certain NHS professionals?

One answer came to me today, as I was pushed into the scanner, lying flat on my back, on the stretcher.  I clearly remembered the sense of warmth, care and humour of the three experienced professionals that had been present during my first scan. I had felt connected with them and grateful.

In the contemplative quiet lying in the scanner today, I realised why I had been right to be wary of some professionals, and at least one of them was in attendance today: I am sure there will be a behavioural toick-box sheet to be found somewhere, confirming that he did all the right things as he guided me into the scanning area. I felt he did not respect my space. To this I responded with subtle body language. That in turn made him speak loudly as if I must be deaf. Something was missing: His mind was closed to my being present, his mind and heart were closed. That can be caused by fear - and some of that may have been re-enforced by my assertion that I did not wish for him, the much younger man, to use my first name, an instinctive response the personal coldness I sensed. Being closed in this way can also be caused by focussing on overly behaviouristically oriented training.

I remember Odon von Horvath's novel 'Youth without God' where the sensitive teacher reflects - not about religion - but about the coldness in one student's eyes, which contributes to his decision in a complicated situation to follow his conscience against those without scruples.

Lying alone in the scanner, the human connection the young man refused to engage in, returns to me, as it were, is with me. As trust and hope, - also for my response the next time I meet Cold Eyes to be the most present I can be?

- my contribution to a discussion organised by the Guardian newspaper/online early in July 2015 about pros and cons of the HRA for the UK:

(The ECHR) came into being as a tool of democracy and social justice in agreement of European states to secure democratic control. As a German citizen, born in 1954, I grew up with its importance, even in matters of social policy: To make sure to aim for a just and equal society. Living and working in the UK for the last 2o years, I have found the social divide and the gap between rich and poor to be much deeper and steeper on these Isles. While the 'rights for criminals too' from a German perspective seems particularly important, it is regrettable that the media in the UK have fuelled a hysteria around this and neglected to publicise the opportunities and necessities to employ the ECHR for everyday issues of dignity and integrity of personhood. In my recent experience as a whistleblower in NHS Mental Health Services these tools need to be strengthened in the UK - both for the benefit of patients and those who highlight critical issues, and for, dare I say it, Professional Development for Judges. The HRA already weakened the right of a person when taking infringements to Court (compared to the ECHR). Weakening the link to the ECHR further (thorugh a mere national Bill) can in my view only be detrimental for what is left of social cohesion in the UK.

PS I should also have mentioned that it should be a criminal offence to breach someone's human rights: A couple of weeks ago, the case of a young care-leaver was in the media who did not receive (adequate) support and ended up killing himself in a YOI - all that justice could give him was an inquest, 4 years later, confirming the failings of services. That might change, if criminal charges could be brought against those managing neglectful services.