A great excerpt from a counseling book I'm reading, from a section titled "Don't Try to Do Good":

"The object of helping others though counseling or other similar work is to assist them in marshaling their own strengths so that they can confront and deal with their lives effectively. This requires understanding and other skills, but it does not need the overkill of doing good through imposing decisions and strategies on others. One element that every good relationship requires - whether in love or counseling - is the kind of self-restraint that acknowledges and respects the potential of the other to begin to put order into the confusion of his or her life. We can give others our time, our understanding, and our honest selves, but what we do beyond that may be quite harmful if it proceeds from our need to do good.

"It is an enormous gift to make ourselves present in a responsive and understanding way in the lives of others without trampling all over them. As psychologist Carl Rogers once noted, it takes a lot of discipline to do what we can for others and then, literally, let them be. The real good that we accomplish flows from those relationships in which we have come to terms with our own needs to redesign the lives and plans of others. Self-conscious do-gooding may be one of the signs that we should inspect our own emotional lives more carefully and face honestly any need we may have which could interfere with helping others to take care of their own lives. The people we help will be freer and so will we."

(The article isn't credited. :P)