Four home visits were made by social workers in the first few days after Roberta and Amy went home from hospital, after which in Months 7 and 8 the pattern settled into weekly home visits, which were either announced, ie Roberta knew when they were happening, or unannounced, when she didnt. I am going to argue that politics is about a network of forces that create a varying distribution of power and examine the effects this has on subjectivity and social relationships. Social Work If I may be permitted to nail my colors to the mast: I want to argue that without critical practice and political criticism, you cannot have good social work practice. Sadly, however, as mentioned above, people often relinquish their power to others, including their therapists, which is often a productive focus of therapy, but not in a psychoanalytic sense. The home visit in child protection social work: Emotion as resource and risk for professional judgement and practice, Isnt it funny the children that are further away we dont think about as much?: Using GPS to explore the mobilities and geographies of social work and child protection practice, Researching social work practice close up: Using ethnographic and mobile methods to understand encounters between social workers, children and families, How children become invisible in child protection work: Evidence from day-to-day social work practice, How social workers reflect in action and when and why they dont: The possibilities and limits to reflective practice in social work, From snapshots of practice to a movie: Researching long-term social work and Child protection by getting as close as possible to practice and organisational life, The nature and culture of social work with children and families in long-term casework: Findings from a qualitative longitudinal study, Difficult conversations on the frontline: Observations of home visits to talk about neglect, If I feel like this, how does the child feel? But many clients who live in poverty, lack education and high verbal abilities and feel threatened by the presence of a social worker, may go along with anything that is suggested however much they dislike it, or may show frustration and then anger, i.e. Knowing general causes, backgrounds and connections enable me to grasp and assess the client's problem situation, as well as his strengths, resources and limitations. For obvious reasons, it does not usually apply to minors. 2023 National Association of Social Workers. Turney (Citation2012) argues that recognition, respect and a degree of reciprocity are key elements of an ethically grounded relationship-based practice with involuntary clients. A case study method was adopted by bringing together all the data on each case and this provided 30 very detailed case studies of long-term social work practice. Challenging perspectives: Reflexivity as a critical approach to She disputes that she has harmed her children. By demanding help that is due to him, a client also possesses and exercises power. Civil servants obey Prime Ministers, not because of anything the Prime Minister will do to them but because of the constitutional powers vested in her or him - the legitimate 'potential' power s/he has been afforded. Service user: Regressive or liberatory terminology? Social workers at times raised their voices, argued with and talked over the parents. She sort of laughs dismissively when she looks at things. There had been significant concern for the two children aged 4 and 5 from early in their lives due to their fathers drug abuse and violence towards their mother. On the one hand they feel obliged to treat clients in a disengaged and technical way, in order to establish that their interest is purely professional when discussing personal and sensitive issues such as sexuality. A senior probation officer recently told me that he had put into interviewing rooms (which had suffered badly from vandalism) quality furniture and decorations and that in six months there had been no damage done. As a Register a free Taylor & Francis Online account today to boost your research and gain these benefits: Psychotherapeutic Approaches in Health, Welfare and the Community, Hostile relationships in social work practice: anxiety, hate and conflict in long-term work with involuntary service users, a Department of Social Work and Social Care, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK, b Department of Social Work, Education & Community Wellbeing, C115, Coach Lane Campus, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, c B6 Law and Social Sciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK, d Department of Sociology, Lancaster University, Lancaster UK, e School of Counselling, Human Services and Social Work, Te Kura Tauwhiro Tangata, Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand. Self-disclosure. The question of whether power and social work are not a contradiction in terms may seem justified at first glance. earthquakes, is at root a human capacity and a form of power. Practice Matters - NLCSW Fifty-four staff supervisions were observed and 54 interviews took place with families, some of which involved up to three interviews with the same families over the course of the year. Power is rarely discussed; it is pushed away. Trying to sustain these torturous hostile relationships is incredibly emotionally demanding. Furthermore, both definitions assume that at least two subjects belong to the power relationship; the one who possesses power and his counterpart, on whom power is exercised. The decision was that it was highly unlikely that she would be allowed to keep her baby and Roberta stormed out before the end of the meeting. This is extremely difficult for professionals to do when they are constantly under attack by service users and rage and hate are projected into them. The study of the use of language in social settings (sociolinguistics) and its relation to power is one aspect of social work practice which has not been properly examined in the research and literature. Children in residential homes had been badly mistreated by social workers who used crude behavioral methods, namely tight negative reinforcement regimes, to control them and make them behave 'properly'. Equally, if a social worker meeting with other professionals says "I've been a professional for 15 years and I know I am right"; while colleagues may reluctantly give way to the speaker, making it appear that the exercise of power has been successful, they will probably be offended by the confrontational style and be unwilling to accede to further demands by that social worker. Power operates as a dynamic force that leaves no area of life untouched, influencing individuals, families, communities, and institutions. Evenings and weekends: Fifteen months of fieldwork were spent with social workers, the first three months of which were used to identify a sample of 30 cases that were then shadowed for as long as they were open for up to a year (Ferguson et al., Citation2019). Social workers have had roles in perpetuating these harmful social systems, and this history cannot be ignored. Exploring communication between social workers, children and young people. Anxious surveillance infused with persecutory anxiety is clearly not an effective way to deal with the primitive fears such work and relationships bring up. Notions such as respectful uncertainty (Laming, Citation2009) have been coined to try and capture the delicate balance of trust and doubt that social workers need to achieve. P!ZgKRZ>f?"P0G. anal dilation techniques, that all other considerations fell by the way. That is, it resides and is exercised through our relationship to other social workers and officials, to institutions, e.g. The dynamics of how hostile relationships occurred and their implications will now be drawn together on two levels: practice experience and the organisational, and we will focus further on the Dixon case in particular for what it reveals about the impact of trying to sustain hostile relationships over time. As Fairclough explains, this kind of power is the "policing of conventions, they way they are enforced, both in the negative sense of what sanctions are taken against those who infringe them and in the positive sense of what affirmations there are for those who abide by them" (1989, p.61). But yeah its a hard balance between, and then youre just avoiding it and lets move on and thats not intelligent, thats just kind of colluding with shutting that sort of discussion down and that emotion down. The task here must be to find ways out of one's own powerlessness so as not to be at its mercy, to learn to accept it as one's own limits, and to show the client ways to overcome his powerlessness. Senior manager supervisor: I was thinking wed spoken about it earlier in the week and she had got upset then and Id heard the story, you know. Practice Matters - NLCSW The approach to participant observation that was adopted enabled attention to be given to the senses, emotions and lived experience of face to face practice and organisational life over time (Ferguson, Citation2016; Pink, Citation2015). It is the place where influencing judgements are held. The power social workers have to intervene into peoples lives must be understood in terms of the lack of social power and status service users typically have. The nature and depth of organisational defences employed was particularly evident after Roberta exploded and attacked Olivia. Power This example points to power that is expressed by knowledge bases, techniques and education which is an important condition of professional identity, authority and practice. Meeting emotional needs and enabling critical thinking is more likely to happen if the reflective, analytical aspects of supervisory practice (clinical supervision) is provided separately from administrative supervision in which managers address performance and audit issues and targets. The capacity to effect changes, bar nature's capacity, e.g. In the 12months there were 68 face to face encounters between social care and the family. People often have sex when they're tired, meaning the sex is more likely to be short, perfunctory, goal-oriented, and mechanical. Sex differences in marriage and single life: Still debating after 50 years. The research was funded the Economic and Social Research Council and ethically approved by the participating social work agencies and universities. Mensch, J.R. (1996) After Modernity, State University of New York Press, Albany, NY. In a closer examination of the literature, however, power in the context of social work turned out to be a controversial, even problematic topic: There is a lot of talk about power in general - but more silence about power in social work. In the case of a relationship that constantly feels like it needs fixing,true satisfaction will always feel just out of reach. At the beginning of this paper, I would like to present four basic theses that I developed during the theoretical discussion of the topic and that are reflected throughout the paper. So, bringing it full circle, don't believe for a minute that your therapist has more power in the relationship than you. Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine. WebSocial workers often grapple with difficult professional and systemic power dynamics with both service users and the other professionals they encounter in multi-agency working. This mother internalised the anxious surveillance by social care, experiencing it as persecutory anxiety, which in turn made her even more defensive and anxious about their involvement and her capabilities as a mother. Amy is in a car seat under the sink in the gap where a dishwasher or washing machine usually goes. Wicked uses of power were legitimated through recording and acceptance of certain types of judgement about people. This was averted in part by Roberta agreeing to the intensive family support service working with her. Principal social worker) or recognition in terms of respect, expertise, experience and so forth that s/he commands. A 2018 survey of over 1,000 current or past intensive care unit patients showed that very few patients or family members are voicing their concerns during care encounters. Power in the social work field is often seen as something negative. Once again, suspended self-preservation was regarded as the safest course, but it only really works as a healthy long-term strategy if the attention to the emotional impact of the work that is being postponed is provided as soon as possible. Despite her overt hostility to social care, Roberta consented to being part of the research. Human beings exist as this open-ness in an inauthentic or authentic way (see the translation by Joan Stambaugh, 1996). Professionals are liable to retaliate and throw some bombs of their own into relationships and are involved in a struggle not to be hateful and punitive towards the service user. In the nurse-patient relationship, nurses hold a position of power by virtue of having: professional knowledge and skills that patients rely on for their well - High royalties for the sales Professionals towering over Roberta merely emphasised their dominance and power precisely that which she most feared. A phenomenology of power and subjectivity as informed by writers such as Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Gadamer in contemporary social and cultural theory, may influence critical social work in a constructive way. social workers negotiating with other workers or professionals, the use of disciplinary strategies is not so evident. Thus I will consider, for example, the political aspects of the case conference, writing of reports and assessment procedures all of which construct 'political' regimes and are elements of the process of power. ET, Member Services: Fairclough (1989) focuses on two aspects of the power/discourse relationship; power in discourse and power behind discourse. A bad object is created into whom unbearable feelings are projected and a good object becomes the recipient of positive evaluations, respectful loving feelings and is idealised. Its absence arose from how fear and anxiety cause the self to become defended, which stops reflection in action and how this is compounded by the absence of help with critical reflection afterwards in supervision (Ferguson, Citation2018). Following the work of Klein (Citation1946) there is evidence of psychological splitting occurring here, which is a defence mechanism for dealing with intense anxiety and other unbearable feelings. This splitting into love and hate was also evident in Robertas narratives when interviewed for the research as she expressed her complete admiration for the independent social worker and her intense dislike of the statutory social workers, Olivia in particular. Because Robertas two children were not in her care, it was treated as an Unborn referral and not urgent. Olivia still seems nervous, she talks quietly. This little speech is not likely to achieve a warm or co-operative relationship with a parent. There is nothing surprising about families who do not want social work involvement using such tactics to keep them at a distance or drive them out. After this meeting the professionals feared that Roberta would act out her anger on her daughter. Social workers have an ethical duty to dismantle racism, both personally and professionally, and to demonstrate what it means to be antiracist. Mood is either an expansion or contraction of one's scope for action in relation to others. The consequences for parents and children could be huge. A better way to explain this might be to characterize power in relation to discourse. client and social worker, fail to understand the importance of a broader social context to the creation of a relationship of power. The counselors choice to withhold or share information can have ethical implications for the client and potentially cause the client harm (Barnett, 2011). Workers so often having to stand contributed to an atmosphere that felt like they had not properly settled into the visit. 2.2 Power in social work Such assessments can legitimately only take place in "social work space", they cannot take place in a bar or restaurant. - Every paper finds readers. Against this view we can say that a person may act or refrain from acting because s/he anticipates what others could or would do if s/he did or omitted to do a certain action. When a dominant culture member disregards the clients own beliefs and perspectives, the power imbalance can become exploitative. Therefore, therapists should acknowledge and explore the power dynamics within each client-therapist relationship. For example, therapists need to learn about the peoples cultures they will be counselling. The mission of social work is to enhance human well-being and help meet the basic needs of all people, with particular attention to those who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty. Heres where we begin: Support Community Self-Determination We can work to liberate the clients and communities we serve from the very structures that may be holding them back. The presence of the object has an aura of insistence of its own reality. For example, therapists need to learn about the peoples cultures they will be counselling. One must remember that for an exercise of power to be such, does not require that it is successful in its ultimate aims. The former is part of everyday practice and must not simply be consigned to the classroom or dismissed as mere intellectualizing. The Cleveland Inquiry (1987) showed a child abuse scandal in the UK in which one of the professionals involved, the pediatrician, had failed to make a sufficiently comprehensive assessment because she was so committed to one method of diagnosis of child sexual abuse, i.e. We might call the first potential power and the second actual power. 2.3.3 Abuse of power in social work, 3. This leads to another point which is that the recording process acts as a 'structural' repository of power. How to Address The Power Imbalance in Counselling? All these ways of performing, or engaging in social practices, are the result of training which has made us socially disciplined. The Dreadful Physical Symptoms of Dementia, 2 Ways Empathy Determines the Type of Partner We Choose, To Be Happy for the Rest of Your Life, Seek These Goals, Why Men Often Feel Insecure in Their Intimate Relationships, Why Getting Along with a Mother-in-Law Is So Difficult, 7 Signs That You'd Be Better Off Ending a Relationship. Now we can begin to recognize that social workers enter into an elaborate field of power relations and use many different types of power to achieve their ends. Developing Winnicotts work, Kahr (Citation2020) uses the metaphor of hostile clients throwing bombs into encounters with professionals, causing psychological shrapnel that workers and clients have to find ways to survive. Already here, in my opinion, the helper is called upon to be aware of his power and the imbalance. Roberta questions the history of drug use [even though she did agree earlier that she had a history of drug use]. Due to this, nine social care visits occurred in the first half of Month 10 alone, mostly by Susan. Power and social work (not) a contradiction She did not want colleagues to see her crying and this avoidance of showing the impact of traumatic experience was compounded by her senior manager not enabling her to express her emotions, so that the managerial goals of improving staff performance in compliance with targets and audits could be achieved. Some 30 of these were done by social workers and their managers. It is the latter kind of work and hostile relationship that is the focus of this paper, which has two aims: to draw on case-studies of long-term casework with involuntary clients to show what it looks like, feels like and involves for both social workers and service users; and secondly, to add to the literature on relationship-based practice by developing the concept of a hostile relationship. There is in fact a settee and other chair but they are covered in stuff, so Olivia and Susan remain on their feet and stand for the entirety of the visit. We have certainly made mistakes, but we are also a group of professionals committed to helping, lifting up, and advocating for oppressed and marginalized groups of people and fighting injustice in society. Copyright 2015 Clifford N. Lazarus, Ph.D. Eight minutes into the visit and everyone has moved into the sitting room where Roberta sat on a stool. "Thus, 'power' is immediately equated with 'abuse of power', with a condition that must be overcome as quickly as possible" (Stiels - Glenn 1996, p. 16). It was nine weeks after the first home visit when the next face-to-face contact with Roberta occurred, at a multi-agency Core Group meeting. We use cookies to improve your website experience. Twenty-one of her encounters with social care were observed by the researchers (12 social worker home visits, two family support worker home visits, three child protection case conferences, two inter-agency Core Groups and two court sessions). Do Therapists Really Have More "Power" Than Their Clients The reality is, however, that while a therapist might have more specific training, particular knowledge, and certain skills, the client has most of the actual power. I'm sure the reader can think of other examples. Interestingly, some people take comfort in the perception that their therapists have some special mental might or psychological power like a benevolent parent has over a child. Both approaches emphasize unanimously that through power the behavior of other persons can be influenced independently of their will. Starting from the observation that power can firstly be exchanged with each other, secondly instrumentalized and thirdly structuralized, he leads over to the consideration that social work is thus constantly confronted with the questions of superior power, of power distribution and power control (cf. Susan has a powerful tone of helpfulness in her voice, really encouraging Roberta to accept help and conveying the genuineness of the offer. It is precisely their recognition of our potential power that causes them to do or not to do something. Get the help you need from a therapist near youa FREE service from Psychology Today. It applies equally to one's relationship with a medical doctor, plumber, hairdresser, lawyer, and friend. But in the vast majority of therapeutic relationships, which should rest on a solid foundation of mutual trust and respect, a level playing field of shared power exists. It seemed like their anxious state of mind was such that unconsciously they colluded in their own distancing, because they did not want to be there. (In brief, "transference" is the displacement and redirection of feelings usually arising in childhood, and most often held for one's parents, onto one's therapist). Many adults in therapy bestow great power onto their therapists. The awkwardness of these encounters was painfully obvious; contempt and hate filled the air. This is an example of power in discourse. getting someone to do an action or fulfil a task they would not otherwise have done; or mental change, i.e. Roberta tries to get more information from the social worker about Susan but is given a vague reply that this new social worker will be coming to visit for a while. The dynamics of sexual intimacy after conflicts. And while this is true, having less money than your neighbors doesn't make you any less of a person than they are, nor them any better than you. Nothing changed and by the end of the research the children had been removed. If the latter occurs, it may be taken by the social worker as a refusal to work for change, and the person or the family may be adjudged 'difficult'. With this in mind, towards the end of the paper some suggestions are made about what a critical social work might look like, if it does not merely wish to contain what people say and route them towards a definite end point, but instead, energetically open up a new space of subjectivity which more closely conveys an appreciation of life as a whole, whilst making our habitual relations of power vibrate until they disjoin.