power imbalance between social worker and client

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. 800-742-4089, Political Action for Candidate Election (PACE). for some children a classroom may be an intimidating place in which to answer a teachers question. In light of recent theoretical discussions of power we may well need to radically rethink our conceptions of subjectivity and individuality within social work. This often results in the perception of a power differential in the relationship such that the therapist is seen as having more psychological strength, control, and leverage than they do. Postmodern feminist social work theories reject the notion of egalitarian power relations as a fantasy that does not engage with the power dynamics that always exist between social workers and clients, a point also made in earlier work ( Wise, 1990 ). 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. 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. When interviewed after the supervision, Olivia said she was hesitant about accessing her distressed feelings and reluctant to show vulnerability because she feared judgement. More minimally, one's knowing that one is exercising power, i.e. but "It says here ?." In a staff supervision session a few weeks after this visit, Olivia and the social worker, Susan, agreed that Roberta was preventing the pre-birth assessment by refusing to cooperate. I also indicate in the last section of the article that the politics of social work is caught up in our definitions and constitution of subjectivity and what counts as valid subjective experience. WebAdditionally, power differentials between the counselor and their client can influence the therapeutic relationship. Power then is not just personal but also structural. They were alarmed by her aggression, mental health problems and history of alleged violence and concerned that Roberta may hit the (as yet unborn) baby: Im really concerned about this baby, really concerned Im really worried about this baby [I] can imagine her hitting the baby that cries. Olivia said she was more worried about the administrative staff seeing her upset than social work colleagues and it being seen as a weakness. Power has been described according to: (a) who has formal authority to make decisions and who controls the resources; and (b) who has less tangible aspects of symbolic power or the ability to control ideas and meaning [ 17 ]. And it never was. When we feel threatened we will often make changes to our behavior and strategies of life to resist that threat and preserve things as they are. 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. Within five minutes the social worker tells Roberta to be careful to hold the babys head so that it doesnt flop and Roberta responds angrily that she knows how to care for a baby. The fact that members of the helping professions, but first and foremost clients, can feel powerless, helpless, is a recognized and accepted feeling. We might call the first potential power and the second actual power. Within the literature on relationship-based practice (Ruch et al., Citation2018) there is recognition of the complexity of working with strong feelings and dealing with aggression and hostility (Cook, Citation2020; Smith, Citation2018). Angela continues to have her feet up, snuggling into the sofa. The sequence of procedures which constitute a risk assessment are highly routinized, following a standard procedure. 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. It is possible that Roberta was showing a capacity to respond to the empathetic approach of the independent social worker, whose report did indeed give limited attention to the risks represented by her. Washington, DC 20002. Examples of each of these dimensions are easily found in social work practice. by poverty, by living in an unfurnished house and so forth. But because of the child protection concerns, neither families nor social workers can walk away, and somehow a relationship based on hostility has to be sustained. 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. The requirement of an open-ness for social work is a political one in the sense that we must consider what to do about the configurations of power and subjectivity as they emerge within the social world. inappropriate resistance. As has been shown, on most occasions interactions between social care and families went on in the home. Whilst Robertas behaviour was frightening, if one function of supervision is for managers to support workers emotionally and in being critically reflective about parent-child relationships (Davys & Beddoe, Citation2010) it didnt happen. Negative qualities of workers identified by parents were being judgmental, cold and uncaring, poor listeners, critical, and insincere. Many of the social workers in the team had worked closely together for several years and the researcher established that it was extremely rare for one of them to openly cry in the office. Through empathetic, strengths oriented practice and skilful use of relationship-based practice, some of these parents were helped to transform ambivalence and hostility into a capacity for cooperation, care and love and they and their children thrived together (for extended examples, see Ferguson, Warwick,Disney, et al., Citation2020). With Roberta Dixon, for instance, some critical thinking and use of good authority by practitioners could have resulted in clear the air conversations and firm but respectful requests to clear seats to enable them to sit down and an overall much more open, negotiated approach (Ferguson, Citation2011, chapter 12). Roberta is cooking. In Being and Time,Heidegger explained that human existence constitutes the open-ness where beings can be revealed. In Schlter's book "Sozialphilosophie fr helfende Berufe" (Social Philosophy for the Helping Professions), power is understood in a broader sense as a capacity for realization, and social work and power are brought into a direct relationship. We had no way of knowing at the outset how long the 30 cases (15 at each site) we sampled would be open for and in the event 12 were shadowed for the full 12months, one for eleven and 22 were shadowed for at least eight months. getting someone to do an action or fulfil a task they would not otherwise have done; or mental change, i.e. This echoes Smith et al.s (Citation2012, p. 1474) finding that while managerial regimes often advocate a sensitive focus on service users needs, in reality they act against its meaningful realisation by eroding the social work relationship in favour of bureaucratic, procedural systems. Can clients in court-mandated practice grant This leads to another point which is that the recording process acts as a 'structural' repository of power. The research on which this paper is based was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council [Grant Number ES/N012453/2]. In their encounters with families, social care staff brought with them a highly pressurised organisational space which made maintaining a capacity to think analytically about what was occurring in their relationships with service users very challenging, especially at unconscious levels. (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). 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. It is argued that, in most But this is not enough: if we can change human behavior and interaction we may also change how humans relate to both their human and physical environments. So, and she, I felt, chose, and it seemed OK to come to the supervision and she didnt want in that setting to be upset and so I sort of thought, well maybe thats OK, I dont want to press her on that. The nature and depth of organisational defences employed was particularly evident after Roberta exploded and attacked Olivia. The teams where the casework with involuntary clients occurred that we have featured in this paper were not uncaring. Questions from social workers must relate strictly to the social problem at issue, whether or not the child is at risk from sexual abuse, preventing, for instance, the sort of topical development we would find elsewhere in discussions about people's sexual activities and preferences. Realistically, you are just two people with different skill sets working collaboratively to achieve therapeutic goals. Thus the client is the therapist's employer and technically his or her "boss," is not limited by HIPAA and privacy regulations, and can terminate therapy at any time for any reason. WebPower is an inescapable aspect of all social relationships, and inherently is neither good nor evil. A lot has been written about power, there are theories of power and concepts of power or to speak with the words of Theodor Fontane "that is a wide field". It is vital to understand the mutuality of this dislike. The social worker, who had known them for over two years, was so used to the family pretending not to be in that she no longer waited for them to answer but would knock and immediately walk into the house. Well, no, youre not because youre just causing problems and making everything a lot worse and worrying people and stressing people out rather than actually doing anything to help anyone. skills, methods and training in several forms of disciplines such as sociology, social administration, social policy, psychology and law; (2) Law and legal powers pertaining to social workers, e.g. On one occasion when parked outside Roberta Dixons home the team manager Olivia spoke of how exhausted she felt having the day before responded to 180 emails and covered home visits for social workers who were on sick leave. We also extracted data from social work case files about the total work that was done over the year (Leigh et al., Citation2020). But in the 12months of casework we observed where hostile relationships persisted professionals and parents remained deeply mutually suspicious of one another. The emotional impact of hostile relationships paralysed workers and organisations, restricting their minds and actions, confining them in highly constricted spaces where they and parents effectively enacted pathological relationships, taunting and punishing one another. Power and social work (not) a contradiction We regularly observed a culture of attentiveness and mutual support amongst staff and relationships were collegial. The persistent stigmatising of the poor and of black and minority ethnic communities make them into marginalised others who provoke fear and contempt (Tyler, 2020 ). However, what is mostly absent from the literature is attention to what involuntary relationships look and feel like in practice and how they are actually conducted in real time. 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. The Relational social work method supports the practical development of participation, collaboration, and reciprocity. In this context, power is more unspecific than other relationships of influence such as authority, force, domination, power, persuasion, or coercion" (Brockhaus Enzyklopdie, 1990, p. 672). As Thompson (2000) highlights, to assess the The production of the 'normal', normalization, is, as we can now see, a complex social and historical meeting of exercises of power, via commands, orders, warnings, recommendations, approvals, and exemplary actions especially from those to whom one is expected to defer, e.g. 72 0 obj <>stream 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. Many social workers struggle with feelings of power and powerlessness, as do the clients they are seeking to assist ( Bundy-Fazioli, 2004; Pitcher, 2008 ). Bar-On (2002) advocated for the social work profession to master the discourse of power and use it effectively (p. 998). The findings show how hostile relationships were enacted through conflict and resistance especially on home visits and how anxiety and other intense feelings were often avoided by individuals and organisations. The same cannot be said of social work however, which urgently needs to face the harsh realities of hostile relationships, the risks of abuses of power they contain, and the enormously difficult feelings they bring up for service users, social workers and their effects on the emotional life of whole organisational systems. This yet again demonstrates what Francis Bacon, the 16th century English statesman and philosopher meant when he observed that 'knowledge is power'. Rebecca in particular seems really angry with Angela and Ron, she doesnt hold back as she notes Rons presence and the complete lack of engagement with the Child Protection Plan. For obvious reasons, it does not usually apply to minors. The capacity to effect changes, bar nature's capacity, e.g. Involuntary clients and hostile relationships have a very powerful presence in statutory social work. Reviewed by Ekua Hagan. 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. This little speech is not likely to achieve a warm or co-operative relationship with a parent. We can work to liberate the clients and communities we serve from the very structures that may be holding them back. In fact she does not actually properly meet the baby at all in the sense of going up to her and attuning to her by, for instance, looking into her eyes, making noises. This use of the notion of disguised compliance was highly problematic because it placed the service user in a lose-lose position where they could never prove their sincerity or worthiness as a parent (Leigh et al., Citation2019). members, to create and maintain professional standards for social | Soon after, Roberta rang the office twice to tell the team manager (Olivia) she was angry with her, and the researcher could hear her shouting a barrage of abuse at Olivia and demanding a complaint form. WebThe dynamics of power in counselling and psychotherapy refer to the fact that helping professionals naturally have more power and influence over the people they assist. In less formally unequal situations, e.g. We must build upon the good social workers have done in the fight for civil rights, health care access, child protection, the War on Poverty and marriage equality by working more intentionally to elevate Black, Brown, and Indigenous lives in the communities we serve. It is vital that But research published in the BMJ Quality & Safety indicates that these power imbalances arent going away. Of course there are clients who are skilled in dealing with social workers and are very good at 'working the system'. PostedDecember 24, 2015 There are also constraints on the people who can take part; there is a restricted set of legitimate actors who can take part. WebAll these aspects can lead to an imbalance of power within the helping relationship, between social worker and client, at least initially (cf. In particular, power is found in the person of the social worker himself. 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. 2023 National Association of Social Workers. One student stated: Working in partnership with the client, the social worker can rely on his or her professional power to influence the organization/agency in the best interest of the client. Professional power can be used to connect the client to support structures and networks outside of the client's current resources. As time passed, Roberta became more cooperative with professionals and was seen in a very positive light by the independent social worker. Roberta showed her feelings as soon as the two social workers arrived and were parking up, by standing on the doorstep and then forcefully slamming the door to her house. The latter two powers are drawn on by the social worker in interactions dependent upon whether the other person is prepared to show (3) or (4). Is It True That Single Women and Married Men Do Best? Over time, social work theorists have developed sophisticated processes to address the power imbalances and instances of exploitation and discrimination that may arise in relationships with clients. There are numerous contested terms (client, service user, consumer) used to describe the people with whom social workers work. We cannot maximize this mission and fully actualize our core professional values without advocating to reform, dismantle, or even abolish the racist and oppressive systems we may work within and beside. 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. From the outset the child protection social workers internalised a view of this mother as a bad object, which was the lens though which they made sense of her. In forcefully challenging the parents, the social worker did not disguise her annoyance with the lack of progress and ongoing risk to the children and she just about maintains her composure in the face of the fathers behaviour. Freuds work and psychoanalytic theory as developed by Klein (Salzberger-Wittenberg, Citation1970), Winnicott (Citation1949) and Bion (Citation1962), argues that professionals capacities to think clearly about and relate to the service user (referred to as transference) is particularly influenced by the level of anxiety the professional experiences and what the service user projects into them (referred to as counter-transference). To give a fairly obvious example, Hitler and the Nazi Party portrayed the Jewish people as vermin who were destroying German life and culture. Workers so often having to stand contributed to an atmosphere that felt like they had not properly settled into the visit. To remove a child from someone you have got to say that this child is at significant harm, the child is not at significant harm and she hasnt been throughout this whole process, and they thought it was appropriate to lie [When SWs visited] they were like standing up in the middle of the room and you know sort of like this whole squaring off with me sort of thing. An analysis of the rational technologies deployed under the Holocaust regime indicates a twisted Kantian logic whereby good means do not show up as good ends. Leaders of all major social work organizations came together on Aug. 14 in a national town hall to report on their efforts to advance anti-racism within social work practice, education, regulation and research. 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. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC BY license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The National Association of Social Workers (NASW), in Washington, DC, is the largest membership organization of professional social workers. Another example of power behind discourse might be the assessment procedures of children who are considered at risk of sexual abuse. 3. While the national conversation remains focused on ending police brutality, racism persists in many other institutions. One must remember that for an exercise of power to be such, does not require that it is successful in its ultimate aims. Still, the relationship is not neutral but can be infused with Thus, many people may have more wealth than you do but that doesn't mean they have more worth than you do. They protect one another from the painful realities of the work even whilst deeply immersed in enduring it feeling it yet not showing it. 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. Mood, for instance, without being the object of any intended act of consciousness, can underlie and guide specific forms of client experience. Minson (1980) suggests that the constitution of subjects, such as clients and consumers takes place through the operation of specific relations of power which are best understood as the construction of personal categories. 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. The practitioners tried to relate to the children in the home and saw them at school, but the parents soon blocked that too. 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. To the worker she seemed to be merely an appendage to her mother. She practiced what Ferguson (Citation2018) has called suspended self-preservation, where social workers consciously suppress reflection on and acknowledgement of the depths of their feelings to help them get through the work they have to do and protect themselves and colleagues from their suffering. So, we seek legal advice before if shes not working. 2.3 Dealing with power Having shown some general features of social workers and involuntary clients experiences, the paper will now develop these insights by exploring in-depth how hostile relationships developed and were sustained over time. Information about yourself and your personal life should not be disclosed to clients. 7 ways to rebuild your faith in humanity. 4. Assuming the existence of power in social work, and indeed its justification, this thesis will deal primarily with asking why. Powerlessness always means the absence of one's own power. The social work team manager was deeply immersed in the case and had been on the end of Robertas rage from the start. This frequent misperception of the imbalance of power in therapy most likely arises from the dogma of Freudian and psychoanalytic psychotherapy wherein "transference" is given a great deal of emphasis. The atmosphere of the visit was extremely tense, as typified in this scene: Olivia mentions the assessment document and goes through the different columns of the assessment and acknowledges it was filled in without having met Roberta. The question of whether power and social work are not a contradiction in terms may seem justified at first glance. Simple ways to not sweat the minor irritants. In dealing with power, we must also consider its counterpart, powerlessness. 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). the social service department, to language skills, technical vocabulary, skills of persuasion and so forth, to language in the form of assessment reports and the recording process, to legal powers, to social work knowledge, and, most profoundly, to the culture of power and our willingness to enter into the restless spirit of this addictive yet corrupting culture. In the case of a relationship that constantly feels like it needs fixing,true satisfaction will always feel just out of reach. Olivia has responded so well to the photos, smiling and saying how lovely they are, how nice the children look. This richly textured fabric is society. S/he's got the clients cards marked. 3.2 Facing powerlessness, 4. 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. Strengths-based practice models such as Signs of Safety include techniques for advancing such work (Edwards & Turnell, Citation1999; Turnell & Essex, Citation2006). Social work practitioners and managers walk a very delicate line between acknowledging how emotionally demanding and sometimes deeply distressing the work is and not showing that distress and the effects it has on them. Get the help you need from a therapist near youa FREE service from Psychology Today. After the birth of the baby social work visits lasted between 18 and 33minutes, which given the high level of concern was short. After defining and explaining the terms, the second chapter deals with possible causes, reasons, their consequences and the problem of the abuse of power. The subject is placed center stage in social work. The social worker and manager both used this supervision to offload anxiety and fears about Roberta, which served to cement her identity as dangerous. This is what I am basically being told by them and this is a meeting about my child and I cant even voice my opinion or even factual information or correct them on information that is wrong, all I can do is basically sit there and get upset . Men have long been silent and stoic about their inner lives, but theres every reason for them to open up emotionallyand their partners are helping. In her final research interview at the end of the research fieldwork (month 12) Roberta still had custody of her daughter but expressed how she regarded the attempt to remove her as a persecutory, punitive response. This paper has presented what the research shows about the nature of hostile relationships in social work and how enormously difficult it is for all concerned to begin, develop and sustain them over time. Social workers in this situation are not involved in normalization but in influencing, persuading and convincing their colleagues of the validity of their judgement or opinion. Schlter 1995, p. 116). This regular form is indicative of 'the way of doing X' being socially authorized and having a set of rules for the proper performance of X. All of the experiences so far have been very bad and they keep coming round and saying, well, we are here to help. Despite its great influence client and social worker, fail to understand the importance of a broader social context to the creation of a relationship of power. This lack of attention to the emotional dynamics and effects of the casework contributed to social workers relationship with the child remaining detached. Ongoing self-reflection, conversations with colleagues, education, professional training and advocacy are the best ways to ensure we all live the anti-racist principles required of our profession. 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. 48 0 obj <>/Filter/FlateDecode/ID[<34084BC7F182434D9F460EA11BD66545><6F245B4E13675940B38B739BDB8C44F8>]/Index[29 44]/Info 28 0 R/Length 97/Prev 225288/Root 30 0 R/Size 73/Type/XRef/W[1 3 1]>>stream It is crucial to recognise however the role the service user played in placing the professionals either in an upright, standing position, gazing down at her, or crouching or sat on the floor with her gazing down at them. This type of reflexivity is also applicable to clientsocial worker relationships. This will be done by focussing on one case-study, which makes possible the kind of in-depth analysis necessary to show how the casework was done, the dynamics of hostile relationships and the ebbs and flows of the social worker service user encounters and organisational life over the course of the year.

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