Within our society individuals and families face complex issues and therefore Social workers work closely with them to support them through difficult times and improve outcomes in their lives. The support varies from safeguarding individuals who may be vulnerable from things such as harm or abuse or supporting people to be autonomous (British association of social workers, 2016). The use of methods and theories is vital in social work as stated by Oko (2008: 6) they allow us to structure and organise the way we think as individuals. In addition, they have an impact on how we make sense of what takes place within practice. Furthermore, Howe (2009: 3) suggested that theoretically knowledgeable social workers remain steady in the midst of confusion, curious about the unexplained, caring in the face of distress, and compassionate in the presence of need (Howe, 2009: 3).
The purpose of this essay is to explore the application and importance of methods and theories within social work practices using the case study provided. This will be done using two different methods which will be compared incorporating the case study provided. The two methods that will be explored within this essay are Cognitive Behavioural Therapy [CBT] and a Person-Centred Approach. It will also include information about social work within historical, social-political and philosophical context. The definition of a paradigm will be identified in this essay and its relationship to the chosen methods. Finally, the strengths and weaknesses of the models chosen will be critically analysed using anti oppressive and anti-discriminatory practice to gain better understanding. It is necessary here to clarify exactly what is meant by “theory” and “method”. According to, Teater (2010) both terms are” interdependent and interrelated”. Theory is defined as what you think about a situation and what you speculate might occur based on that situation, and a method is known to be about thoughts or speculations about a situation. It is important to look at history in relation to social work, as it assists us to comprehend the development of the wide range of theories that exist in social work practise and to gain better understanding of the origins of our profession. Howe (2009) states that Social work has been there forever, but began to be recognised as a practice in the 19th century. When looking at the historical roots of social work, it shows that its work is driven by charity and help for the poor. Within Social work today, it is essential to note that the use of legislations is central to social work practice and that they demonstrate the importance of professional responsibilities that impose explicit duties and responsibilities such as Children Act 1989, NHS and Community Care Act 1990, Human Rights Act 1998, plays a big role on our practice. Before looking at the methods that can be related to Jane’s case study, it is important to define the term paradigm. It is defined to be a model or pattern that brings together our observations and makes sense of them (Thompson, 2015). Over the years, the paradigms used within social work practice were psychoanalytic and were closely connected to the medical model. They later shifted to ecological systems framework which were adopted (Marlow, 2010).
In accordance with, Gray & Webb (2012) Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a therapy that involves talking, it can aid individuals to be able to manage their problems by changing the way they reason and act. CBT is based on the idea that individual’s thoughts, feelings and actions work together. It aims to change irrational thoughts to rational thoughts. In relation to Jane, CBT can be used to change the way she thinks about drinking too much alcohol. Another way CBT can help Jane is to address her aggressive behaviour. CBT could try and intervene by addressing the way she thinks about her hostile and drinking behaviour by possibly changing those views into something positive and she stops or minimise her drinking. There are several strengths of CBT. It can be applaudable within social work practice as Cognitive behavioral therapies are said to be instructive as clients are provided with the skills and equipment to help them support themselves, this gives them confidence that they will continue well. CBT also has an advantage towards service users is that it offers tools that they can use in real-life situations even though it’s a brief intervention. Whilst CBT can be found relatively beneficial to service users within social work practice, there are some criticism of the therapy to be considered. As unlike some other therapies like psychodynamic, CBT focuses on present problems, instead of issues from the past. This can be criticised at it doesn’t get to the root cause of the problem (Teater, 2014). In Jane’s case, it would on focus on the alcohol misuse problem and ignores that there could be other factors involved such as her partner walking out and have not heard from him since.
CBT requires for Jane to be willing and committed to participate within the therapy, for it to be effective (Dorfman,2004. As this process aims to change the maladaptive behaviour. This can be difficult especially within social work practice variety of the individuals they work with are involuntary service users or they do not see anything wrong with their behaviour, considering that Jane’s neighbor referred her story to social services anonymously. Therefore, suggesting that she might be reluctant to the therapy. Another limitation is that the therapy is effective short term, therefore meaning that the service user could relapse back to the maladaptive behavior (Dorfman, 200). In addition, to the case study it only focuses on Jane alone, it does not relate to Jordanna or Josh, therefore does not solve the problems that the family is currently facing (Teater, 2014). Whilst dealing with this case, referring to the case study Jane’s case study. it states that her local social services are experiencing significant budget cut and reductions in staff, thus caseloads are high. Consequently, social workers are likely to idealise (Trevithick, 2011), for instance they could idealise that Jordanna is going to school, therefore there is no further work needed on that. Another one could also be Josh wears expensive clothes, and idealise that he is just being a teenager, they will not question where he is getting the money from. Within practice it is likely to idealise, the term is defined as upholding a positive image of someone or situation and disregarding their weakness (Humphrey, 2010). To avoid idealisation social workers could draw on early intervention for the family, this would manage the influence of idealisation.
CBT fits in within paradigm of functionalism (Howe,2010: 47). Functionalist are known as the fixers. The functionalist’s view on social work suggests that social workers play a big role in assisting individuals to resume back to their normal place within society, when an individual has gone “astray” (Cunningham, Cunningham, & Tomlinson, 2008). For instance, Cunningham, Cunningham,& Tomlinson( 2008) would say that assuming that Jane’s parenting has fallen short of what society views as “good enough parenting” as her daughter, Jordanna has been found wandering on the streets by her neighbour. It is said that social worker’s role would be to assist Jane to perfume her parenting role effectively; that her children is experiencing faulty socialisation, therefore should be taught the norms and values of what society views to be acceptable. It is evident that this perspective is open to criticism, as it puts all the blame on the individuals requires them to fully change so that they can be a fully functioning individual within society. The problem with this approach is that it fails to take into account other factors, such as the system playing a role in culpable (Cunningham, Cunningham, & Tomlinson, 2008). Relating to Jane’s drinking problem, the functionalist would say that she has been deviant as it is preventing her from participating within society. This is because she is unable to achieve her social roles of a mother, worker and many other. A functionalist perspective would propose that Jane be taken care of, so that she can be back to normality within society. Consequently, Jane is required to be provided with effective intervention, that will hopefully assist her with her drinking problem, and her back on track with taking care of her children. When providing Cognitive behavioural therapy it is vital that the practitioner views the service user as they are as a person instead of a person with a problem. They must aim to find a solution to their problem rather than labeling the service user.
Payne (2005) proposed that discrimination is defined as treating groups and individuals with certain characteristics less than their value. Within social work practice It is essential to display anti discriminatory practice skills such as listening actively and understand what the service user means or saying, a non-judgement attitude towards the service user ensures anti discriminatory practice (Okitikpi and Aymer, 2010). This might not be easy to achieve with CBT as the client’s thoughts are labelled as being irrational, assumptions are already made about individuals ‘s behaviours and their feelings are impacted by the way they think about current events. Considering that discrimination is all about unfair treatment towards certain groups because of their differences, we can take a further step in making sense that oppression is the result of the unfair treatment. In simple terms, oppression is the consequences of discrimination. So, in some ways we can say that oppression can be reduced by tackling discrimination (Thompson, 2012).
Carl Rogers (1961) developed person centred approach. It is informed by counselling theory. This means that it is based on the individual taking responsibility for their own life. Roger (1961) stated that everyone can fulfil their potential. There are core conditions to the person centred approached, these are known as unconditional positive regard (or acceptance) empathic understanding, congruence. Within social work practice, person centred approach is referred to as a service user social worker relationship (Murphy, Duggan, & Joseph, 2012). In relevance to Jane, the Social worker working with her must congruent and display what they are feeling inside. This will show Jane that she is being understood, a positive regard should also be expressed towards, as during the process it is important that the Social worker working with Jane shows good listening skills and take some time to allow her to reflect on the content of her story. For example, in one conversation with the social worker when she visited her at her house, Jane stated that “I don’t know what to do” and that she was “frightened that should would lose her children” so it would be appropriate to provide her with unconditional positive regard such as reassuring her that she is not alone and that there is help available to help her get back on track. There are clear strengthens of this approach, however, the restrictions are worth considering before applying the approach in social work practice.
Person centred approach can be used with other theories and methods such as motivational interviewing which has similar principles that person centred approach has. However, Kondrat (2014) proposed that the approach is focuses too much on the person, this can be seen as a bad thing as it can cause things such as oppression and discrimination.
Strength of the approach is that is provides a therapeutic relationship for clients or service users. The can be useful in helping individuals to overcome any issues that they might have or are experiencing such as depression, anxiety, personality disorders, eating disorders but in this case it is about Jane’s alcohol problem This can benefit her significantly as it could enhance her self-esteem, and enable her to see that she can continue to her normal role within society and take care of her children properly. Another strength that can be looked at related to person centred approach, is that it can be generalised to all ages of the population with a range of personal issues. Therefore, Jane can use this this approach with her family in order for her to solve any issues that she might be experiencing between her and her children. This type of therapy is beneficial towards individuals as it encourages anti oppressive and anti- discriminatory practice. This is because it gives people the autonomy over the content that they share and pace of sessions, without having to worry that their therapist or social worker will be evaluating or judging them in any way (Daru, MBACP, Psy, & Dip, 2016). The weakness of this approach look into.
The humanist perception is closely linked with the work of Carl Rogers. It fits in with the raisers of consciousness paradigm. This paradigm emphasis on non-judgemental acceptance and unconditional positive regard as core conditions of therapy play an influential role of good practice (Wilson et al., 2011). The humanist perspectives is about free will and the individual in search for personal development and meaning. This paradigm is reliant on trying to understand the way and individual views and experiences the world in the here and no. It focuses on allowing the individual to take charge of their life and making a change in their behaviour independently. To link to the case study considering that this approach highlights individuals to self-help. Therefore, in Jane’s case this would focus on her strengths, the good things that she is doing as a mother such as Jordanna attends school, her house is clean and warm. This could also be good family therapy, especially for families who are going through difficulty within divorce and substance abuse just like Jane’s situation. It allows the family to be open about their relationship together and encourages them to strengthen the relationship. Moreover, it ensures that Jane concentrates on the here and now and encourages her not to let her past affect her future, so instead of her allowing her partner affect her, she will focus on taking care of herself and her family. Furthermore, this could give Jane the confidence and courage to accept that she is struggling and needs help. The humanist approach has been criticised to be for people who are coping reasonably well rather than people with autism for example, as this would be an unrealistic way (Parrish, 2014). It is important to note that another limitation of the humanist approach, is that it is too simplistic as the human behavior is more complex than just looking at the here and now, also individual difference can be associated. As people are different as their way of coping and resilience will defer (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman 2012).
A fundamental social work perspective which is informed by humanistic and social justice values and considers individual’s experiences and opinions about oppressed persons. It is associated with the understanding of power, oppression and inequality affect personal and structural relations (Darlymple & Burke,2006). Anti-oppressive practice can be about providing an empowering approach to help individuals to overcome any obstacles they may be experiencing and encourage them to take control of their lives. Anti-oppressive practice challenges social workers to recognize the cultural and structural context of their practice. In Jane’s case it understating this allows us go above and beyond helping families like her by intervening to support and provide advocacy services for and her family regarding her drinking problem (Healy, 2014)
A final point to make is about “Ghost Fathers” this is the idea that because Jane’s partner is not in their lives anymore, Social Workers tend to ignore getting the Father involved. They are seen as ghost fathers, instead the mother is central and is blamed. Social services for example, tends to focus their attention on the mothers, fathers are not just discounted, they are often not seen at all, even when they are present. In most cases, they are labelled. In jane’s case, she would be labeled to be a bad mother, who is not capable of taking care of her children because of her drinking problem (Sedoff, 2010). Sedoff (2010) conducted research into this, he found that child protection cases or where the social service is involved fathers are treated as being invisible. It was shown that little contact the with fathers. This is said to be because fathers are seen as asset to the children. In almost 50% of cases, fathers were seen as irrelevant to both mothers and children.
In general, it can be concluded that theories and methods are central to social work practice. They are the foundation that assist social workers to provide good practice and avoid discrimination and being oppressive practice towards service users. In addition, it can be said that oppression and discrimination can affect any one. Despite the importance and the big impact theories and methods have in social work practice, there is conflicting evidence that suggest that they can have a negative and positive influence towards individuals, however in most cases the positives outweigh the negatives and have good outcomes for service users. Understanding theories and methods ensures that social workers do not accordingly perceive service users for their problems. By implementing anti oppressive and anti-discriminatory practice within practice enables social workers to make informed decisions and to be able to support the service user effectively and provide them with appropriate help and advice. The use of anti-oppressive and anti-discriminatory practice within social work practice can minimise the perceived assumptions, stereotypes and prevent self-fulling prophecy and idealisation from occurring within individuals and social workers. In a nut shell, the use of theories and methods helps SW to understand human behaviour.
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