Tag Archives: self

Unique!?

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Recently, when teaching the first year BA students where Iwork I’d gone off topic….. this never comes as a surprise. And I asked the students, “What is the unique contribution that social work makes to the professional world?” Now, it’s not the first time I’ve asked this question, and the answer I get is usually the same one. Silence. And I’m left thinking, well, if we don’t know what our unique contribution is then no wonder the general public, and possibly other professionals, are at a loss as to what we do!?

If you ask solicitors what they do they will tell you. They give people legal advice. They represent people in court. Ask nurses. They administer medication, they bandage things. Ask doctors. They diagnose conditions and offer treatments. Ask mechanics. They fix your car. These are all things unique to those professions. So what is the unique social work contribution…. because there will be one. But, when asked, it’s hard to put your finger on it. Don’t you think? And maybe it’s good that it’s hard to put your finger on.

So what do we do? Well, we communicate? Yes, indeed, as do all other professionals. We solve problems. As do other professionals. We offer advice. We offer support. We offer guidance. We offer knowledge. We offer ourselves. ……..and that, for me, is where it is….. that’s it…. that’s the thing. Don’t you think?

But still, I think it’s more than that. I don’t think our unique contribution is what we do. I think it’s how we do it. Because good social workers do all the things they need to do from a position of ‘offering themselves’. This is why the job is draining. This is why looking after self is so important. Because social workers routinely give of themselves in a way that other professionals don’t routinely do. It’s the core component of our way of professional ‘being’. It’s our unique contribution. And that is why, when stuck behind a desk doing the paperwork, rather than being sat in front of people, social workers become…. well you insert your own word… disillusioned, stressed, disenfranchised, demotivated. The big question is how do we put social workers in front of people rather than behind a desk more… because only then can they make their unique contribution.

Where’s your ‘self’?

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I am, it seems, mildly obsessed with the idea of ‘self’. I just think who we are is so important. Often our public selves and private selves lack the connection that I feel is so important to well-being. When you are at odds with yourself, that is, you have to present yourself in a way that doesn’t match how you are, or how you are feeling, then you hit problems. We have to be authentic.

I’m reading ‘Ice’ by Anna Kavan and while my interpretation of what I’m reading doesn’t match what I’ve read about the novel (isn’t that the point of art to put your own interpretation on it?) I feel what I’m struck by resonates with the narrative undercurrent. The man in the novel is searching for a woman who keeps alluding him. It feels like the author is talking about searching and, for me, it feels more specifically searching for oneself. Our identity, our self, I feel, often alludes us. We are often frustrated when trying to find who we are. Just as we feel we are grasping who we are we somehow escape ourselves.

Cicero (Philosopher in the Stoic tradition 107-44 BCE) suggests that people’s sense of self, their sense of who they are, is created by being free to choose – autonomous, and therefore making their own decisions. He also suggested that the human community is the bond between people. The people we are connected to somehow helps us construct our sense of self. How people perceive us and how they interact with us gives us a sense of who we are. This seems to show that how we are constructed has an internal and external dimension. Indeed, I’d suggest I am not the man I was 20 years ago, 5 years ago, a year ago, or even yesterday. We are constantly being reformed and shaped.

In reflecting on my own ‘self’ I started by thinking that I am more consolidated in my sense of who I am at this point in my life – my public and private selves occupy a very similar space. I am not much different at work than at home for example. This gives me a feeling of settledness. An authenticity. I don’t think though this is because of chronological age. “I am older therefore I understand myself better.” I think it is simply that I do understand myself better. I could have arrived at this point at age 24, or 42, or now, or indeed never. Sadly I fear that ‘never’ may be the reality for many people. They never discover who they are, they never discover their ‘self’.

The reality is that the discovery of self is a multifaceted journey. Not only is it a spiritual one – a discovery of your inner-self, but also a discovery of your physical self, your emotional self, and your mental self (which I think is different to your spiritual self). Your ‘self’ is constructed from all of these things. You only discover who you are from testing yourself in all of these areas to a point where you can conclude ‘that is me’.

For me, discovering your ‘self’ is often about discovering both your talents and limitations. We are all good at some things and we are all limited in certain areas. Knowing what these things are and knowing where your ‘lines in the sand’ are is the secret to an understanding of self. Such knowledge comes from self reflection.

Self reflection should lead us to understand our strengths and limitations in terms of our physical self, emotional self and mental self. Such knowledge leads to us knowing where to expend our energies, what our talents are if you like – Where we can make our contribution. Doing things well builds our self esteem – this is good for our wellbeing. As Cicero points out our internal self is important – our sense of autonomy, of being in control. He also notes the importance of how we connect in building our ‘self’. Making a contribution individually and collectively builds our sense of who we are. We need to engage with an internal process and connect externally.

My advice with regard to reflection is to spend time in quiet. Meditate. Record what you are thinking in a journal. Every so often read over what you have written and think about your journey. Think about who you are. Enquire upon your ‘self’ Don’t let ‘you’ allude ‘you’. Knowing oneself I feel leads to peace.

Just who am I!?

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Humanistic and existentialist thinking might lead us to conclude that our sense of self is constructed from, among other things, being autonomous, being free thinking and being part of a community. More here!

But just what is ‘self’ and why does it matter to us as social workers?

I wonder what your idea of your own ‘self’ is? Given you’re reading this blog you may define yourself as ‘social worker’ or ‘professional’. And obviously that will only be part of the story. You may also be a father, mother, son, or daughter, friend. Some of those words I’d also use to define myself. So, what makes me different to you and how do I know that I am different to you?

Psychologist Ulric Neisser (in an article in Being Human: The Inside Story of What It Means to be One of Us, New Scientist, The Collection, Volume 2 Issue 3, Reed Business Information Ltd., England (2015) gives us a multifaceted description of self.

You have an ecological self. You understand that you have a place because you have a point of view. How others respond to your point of view shapes something about you. Do others acknowledge your point of view? Does this validate who you are? How do you feel when someone criticizes your point of view? You also have a sense of your physical being and that there are rules about access to your body by others. There are acceptable things and unacceptable things defined by culture, the life experiences you have had, and by the age you are. When we think about supporting adults with disabilities these lines often become blurred due to the nature of the support that needs to be offered. The line between acceptable and unacceptable intimacy around personal care sit in a different place and in delivering such care concerns around lack of dignity need to explored.

You know your image in a mirror and the sound of your voice. You understand that others are physically different to you. You understand that they have a role, a purpose and that they also can make decisions to interact with you or not. This is your interpersonal self. You understand you can, and do, use your body language to try and influence the action of others. You generate ideas about how it might be for others born out of your own experiences. But caution! You can never know – not really – what it’s like for the other person. Similar experiences are not the same experiences. Avoid, “I know how you feel”!

Your existence is temporal, lasting only for a period of time. Fleeting, in terms of the ‘big picture’, you might say! But you are not just what you are now – you are what you have been. What you are going to be, or want to be, shapes you. The awareness of your potential future, or your aspirations, have great bearing on who you are in the here and now. So, consider then how this must be for people who, because of lack of opportunity, lack of support, disability, or lack of social status have their sense of self eroded by feeling their options for the future may be limited in some way. This ‘temporal self’ links to your conceptual self. You have an idea of who you are based on your life story, your personal goals, motivation and values. So in practice, when, for example, we think about making best interest decisions under the Mental Capacity Act it’s essential that we have not just an understanding of the risks associated with the decision, or the pertinent facts that relate to the situation, but also an understanding of the person’s values that have, and are being, shaped by their story. What would have been ‘driving’ them if they had been making this decision for themselves? This must be factored in so that when making a decision for someone lacking capacity we maintain them at the heart of the decision and don’t draw conclusions from our own value base, or as a consequence of risks that may well be professionally or organisationally constructed.

So, existentialism underpins humanist ideas of self, about being free and autonomous but with responsibility. There is also a shared journey between us as social workers and the people we work with. There are some tensions created by the fact we work within often very inflexible, risk averse frameworks.

Reflective practice definitely has its place here in our existentialist view of the world. Developing insight, through reflection is required so we understand what we are doing and most importantly why. Are we working to the service users agenda, our own, or our agencies? At best, in reality, it may be a combination. At worst the service users voice may be silent or misheard. Theory, research and practice wisdom, as well as knowledge from service users all have their place here.

Our work needs to be holistic, incorporating all the elements and taking a ‘big picture’ view so we capture an understanding of the essence of the person – where they have been, where they are at, and crucially where they want to go. As social workers we can’t just deal with situations from an objective viewpoint but have to understand the subjective dimension. We can only discover that by exploring the person’s sense of who they are and what they value before any decisions are made.

Cicero, self, and Social Work

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Just what does the Roman philosopher, politician and orator Cicero have to do with social work in 2017!? What can the musings of someone from 107 – 44 BCE tell us about life in the 21st century? Well, Cicero’s philosophical writings on the nature of the person and existence have contributed to humanism and this in turn has contributed to ideas around person centered intervention! So there you go! Read on!

What exactly did Cicero have to say? He suggested that people’s sense of self, their sense of who they are, was created by being autonomous, and therefore making their own decisions, and by being free thinking, and therefore able to make their own mistakes! He said people were possessed of rights that define responsibility. This tells us that to be valued, and see themselves as valued, people need to be active participants in society defined by their rights and, as a consequence of those rights, they must take, as far as they can, responsibility for their actions (maybe we can explore this in relation to the Mental Capacity Act at some point…)

Cicero also suggested that the human community is the bond between people. People need to be connected to other people because our sense of self is not only defined by our inner dialogue but also by how people perceive us and we can see how people perceive us through how they interact with, and react to, us. These interactions give us definition and status.

But what are the two things that have often been denied to people who come to social work for some form of intervention? Yes! They are denied the right to make their own decisions and the ability to be part of the broader society. This could be for many reasons. The views of professionals and the misuse of power they hold taking decision making away from people. Or it could be the lack of access to information, knowledge and physical spaces that comes with having a disability. These things erode the ability of people to develop a positive view of ‘self’, denied autonomy, denied freedom, and denied access…. No wonder people kick against ‘the system’!

As social workers we can run the risk of ‘doing to’ people rather than ‘doing with’ especially when time is tight and the demands on us great. We must see people as individuals and part of a community in order to see the full picture and encourage individuals to make their own decisions and take risks. Maybe this needs risk to be redefined in our organisations to include the positive aspects of risk taking more strongly.

The threads from Cicero’s thinking are picked up in existential philosophy which emphasises the existence of the individual person as a free agent determining their own development through acts of will stressing their position as a self-determining agent. People form their ‘essence’ in the course of life resulting from their personal choices. Who you are results from the decisions you make.

There are some assumptions here though. This assumes people are allowed to make their own choices. At best often people are given choices from a very narrow range of options or people are not made aware of all the options that are available. Our job as social workers is to ensure people are fully informed so that they can fully engage. Sometimes people need support, as they are not psychologically in a position to make decisions, even when all of the facts are available. Some people may feel constrained by society’s view of them. Undervalued therefore not worthy of being permitted to make decisions. Disempowered by ‘the system’. This certainly was a theme in the House of Lords Select Committee report into the Mental Capacity Act

Social work clearly has a role here.

We need to support people to make their own decisions so they can own them and develop a sense of who they are and where they ‘fit’. We need to let people take responsibility for their own risks and the consequences when things go wrong without the fear of being held accountable for the capacitated decisions people make (this is a one for the managers and politicians to grapple with though as it often those people who are restricting good social work). Freedom to make your own decisions is both liberating and at times a heavy burden so that means working with people to acknowledge and accept risk and to go with it.

For many ‘existence’ is characterised by powerlessness and helplessness – decision making taken from them. This needs to change if we are to provide truly person centred social work. People need to shape their own lives with support so they can be true to the individual version of themselves they are and want to be. We are shaped by our experiences. We have to give people the opportunity to ‘experience’ so they develop into the best version of themselves that they want to be. Just in the same way we all do.

There is a tension here between the authority and duty that comes with the social work role and being involved in the, what is often, non directive work that is required to help people find their own way with support.  There is a need for people to be given real choice and control so that can move forward in the direction they want to.  What social work needs to do then is support people to engage as citizens, to give people back some power, to support people to grow and develop, maybe to provide opportunities for fulfilment, help people make their own decisions – promote choice. Most of this is not done in the services that are ultimately provided but in the foundation building face to face work we engage in. How we ‘social work’ in the time we are with people is what’s important. Much more important than what we then write about them or provide to them. Personalisation is in the face to face interactions we have and not necessarily just in the flexibility of services.