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- Title
The self in social work.
- Authors
Barnard, Adam
- Abstract
Social work has a long and significant history in the use of the 'self'. The first part of this paper is a contextualising discussion around recent reforms to social work. The second part is a historical examination of the conceptualisation of the self in the contemporary era. This discussion is intimately wedded to notions of identity, 'social'and conceptions of the self. This discussion will review the major philosophical understandings of self, before examining the 'self in social work. Recently social workers have developed the term 'use of self' to indicate important aspects of the professional relationship and how this term is defined rests on how one conceptualises 'self'. The final part of the paper will examine how social workers describe and involve the self that they bring to their therapeutic and non-therapeutic work. Participants in case-study, narrative accounts describe the self that they bring to their work as individualistic although at the same time stress the relational, positioned, relationship-based self. This examination carries the concept of the self from the notion of self as separate and constant to the self as a process in interaction.
- Subjects
SOCIAL services; SELF-perception; PROFESSIONAL relationships; PROFESSIONAL practice; THERAPEUTICS; PHYSIOLOGICAL stress; CASE studies
- Publication
Social Work & Social Sciences Review, 2011, Vol 15, Issue 3, p101
- ISSN
0953-5225
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1921/095352212X655348