There are times when you can help a person the most by not helping that person at all.  Sounds contradictory?  Let me illustrate.  There's a word which is wafted about quite freely:  codependency.  It's one of those buzzwords among people who are trying to overcome some of the problems they grew up with.

            "A good way to understand codependency," says Rich Buhler in his book New Choices, New Boundaries, "is to picture the twenty-six-year-old in the high chair.  When we carry responsibility for another person, which that person ought to be carrying personally.  We are involved in a smothering, binding, unhealthy relationship with that person, which prevents him or her from carrying the responsibility to deal with life."