Wow! I can’t tell you how wrong this is. It is never important to understand someone to help them. Part of my training as a therapist was to sit with people and have them talk about their problems without talking about them. One of the biggest lies most therapists tell themselves is that they have to understand. Not true at all.
You never know exactly what is going to facilitate change in another person. What is important is that the person understands. Not the therapist. When I ask questions of a client, the questions are not for my understanding though I may frame it that way. They are to walk the client through their own understanding.
We had a saying in my program. "If you think you know what is going on with a client, go lie down and take a nap until the feeling goes away.’ i.e. Don’t make assumptions.
You can most certainly help a person without ever knowing what is going on with them. People are learning machines. They learn from books, books don’t know what is going on with them. They learn from lectures. Lecturers don’t know what is going on with them. They learn from soup can labels. Soup can labels don’t know what is going on with them. The learn by observing others. Others don’t know what is going on with them. You can help others and be completely in the dark as to what is going on with them. That is just a fact.