A Selfless Art

Some years ago, I began to imagine my role in co-creation work as similar to that of a mountain guide. Even on the same paths, the same peaks and passes, each journey is unique, defined by the season, the weather and, above all, the walkers, perhaps strangers to one another at the outset but bound together by shared challenges and achievements at the end. The guide cannot foresee any of this, any more than they can walk the route for you, but they know the way, they know the safe places to rest, the tricky places and spectacular views, the hope and discouragement. They have a map in their head and the feel of the ground in their muscles. Their task is to help you experience the journey and bring you safely to its destination. 

That metaphor still speaks to me, but it has been joined by another, with other resonances and perhaps even closer to my experience. It comes from my recent experience of illness and bereavement, and the reading I’ve been drawn to in a search for understanding. I have been especially struck by how some clinicians have written about their work with people in distress or facing the end of life. They frequently describe their role as one of accompaniment. Here, for instance, is the French psychologist, Marie de Hennezel: 

Et puisque nous sommes dans la définition, citons Le Petit Robert : accompagner, c’est « se joindre à quelqu’un pour aller où il va, en même temps que lui ». Il ne s’agit donc pas de conduire l’autre, de savoir ce qui est bon pour lui. L’accompagnement est une position de non-maîtrise, de non-savoir, c’est un être avec qui laisse l’autre libre de vivre ce qui lui arrive, et qui s’appuie sur l’empathie.

And since we’re on the subject of definitions, let’s quote Le Petit Robert: to accompany is ‘to join someone in going where they are going, at the same time as them’. It is therefore not a question of leading the other person, or of knowing what is best for them. Accompaniment is a position of non-control, of not knowing; it is a way of being with someone that leaves them free to experience whatever happens to them, and which is based on empathy.

Marie de Hennezel, 2025, Dictionnaire amoureux de la Solitude, Plon

This seems exactly right: a position ‘of non-control, of not knowing’, simply – and how much weight does that word carry here – ‘a way of being with someone that leaves them free to experience whatever happens to them.’  There is indeed nothing simple about it.

De Hennezel is a specialist in palliative care and that unavoidably implies an acceptance of what will happen. I don’t think my role in co-creation can be quite so restrained. Whether directly or indirectly, I have usually invited people to come on a journey with many possible outcomes and consequences, not all of which are good, and that gives me some responsibility in what happens. But I must not seek to exercise any control that would undermine another person’s dignity and autonomy. There is a subtle, but essential balance to be kept in being with them for whatever time we have together, on whatever expedition we make.