Counseling Approaches for Social Workers - Assignment Example

Counseling Approaches for Social Workers People nowadays are faced with all sorts of troubles. Living life each day has become a challenge for manypeople that they somehow fail to see the bright side of it. Fortunately, there are people who can help them. Aside from family and friends who can provide advice and consolation, some professionals are trained to give counsel such as psychologists and social workers. The social worker wears many hats in the implementation of his/her job. Van Nijnatten (2006) says, “The aim of social work is to enhance citizens’ ability to take care of themselves and to promote their participation in the social process. This can vary from helping one client to get a secure income, or organizing material security to providing information and organizing a social network. It can also mean that the social worker, reviewing her clients’ affairs, comes to the conclusion that there is something structurally amiss at the workplace and that something must fundamentally change in the company’s organization if systematic absenteeism is to be further prevented. The aim is always to help clients to help themselves, to develop new prospects for the future or to simply accept a reality that is difficult to alter.” (p. 141) In order for a social worker to be successful in her career, her broad knowledge of various organizational and networking systems that provide support and services to their clients must be matched with her own vast understanding of how a person’s mind and emotions operate especially in times of crisis. Most of the time, counseling sessions are conducted with her client, or members of her client’s family. Here, the social worker’s communication skills are put to the test. “In conversations with the professional, clients speak out about their pains and sorrows, and about their hope and beliefs.” (Van Nijnatten, 2006, p.133) It becomes an avenue where both the social worker and the client brainstorm on ways to express these emotions so they construct new meanings and new perspectives. Coming from an objective frame of mind, the social worker helps the client distance himself to the concern at hand and explains that such overwhelming emotions that the client is undergoing are normal and can cite cases of others who have survived through the same. Then ways to resolve the problem are discussed. In my current studies in Social Work, I realized that various clinical approaches have been developed by renowned psychologists and the social worker has a plethora of choices to use in a particular casework. One is the Task-Centered Model. In this model, the client is expected to carry out some tasks related to his or her problems. Such tasks are to be reported and processed in the counseling session with the social worker with the aim to effect changes. “Contextual change is essentially defined and limited by the nature of the target problem. It is not just any change that would help the client. Practitioners move from the target outward by degrees, giving priority to contextual change most directly relevant to the problem at hand.” (Turner, 1996). The practitioner helps and guides the client in the exploration of the problem and coming up with staggered tasks to eventually make the client understand the problem and arrive at solutions for it himself. Cognitive Theory views human nature as full of innate potentials and flaws. Clients suffering from psychological problems are assumed to focus more on their flaws that pull them down than on their potentials that may spur them up to success. The focus of Cognitive Theory is more on thinking and acting more than just expressing feelings, which was more of the concentration of other kinds of therapies. It deals with the client’s present and not his past, although it acknowledges that his irrational thinking might have come from past negative experiences. The duration of the therapy process is usually short, as it immediately cuts to the core and does away with useless preliminaries. The therapist uses a variety of therapeutic strategies depending on what he decides will work on his particular client. He also delegates responsibility to his client by expecting him to do homework outside the therapy sessions. Homework is aimed at positive behavior that brings about emotional and attitudinal change. Client-centered therapy stems from the theories of Carl Rogers, a noted psychologist who espoused humanistic views in therapy. His non-directive approaches to the therapeutic process raised a lot of eyebrows when it was introduced because it seemed to have thrown scientific techniques out the window and instead focused on the inherent needs of the client as a human being instead of a mere subject of therapy. This approach has great respect for a client’s subjective views and potential for self-actualization. It offers a fresh and hopeful perspective on its views on human nature. The main ingredient to successful therapy is a warm and caring therapist imbued with attributes such as congruence, unconditional positive regard and accurate empathic understanding. Such qualities are hard to come by in therapists nowadays. Being a sensitive and tactful listener who exudes total acceptance of the client is a necessary requirement for a client-centered practitioner. The ability of a therapist to accurately empathize with a client’s subjective experiences on an interpersonal, cognitive and affective level is essential in fully unlocking the client’s perceptions, feelings and motivations for his behavior. The therapist’s enormous capacity to understand and accept the client no matter what communicates to the client that he is a worthy person. However, the therapist must caution against being swayed by emotions of his clients to justify excuses for wrong decisions, as he must always have a firm grasp of what is right and wrong. As the saying goes, “Love the sinner but not the sin”. This is not to say that the therapist holds the moral compass in the therapy sessions, but he is in a position to influence the “awakened” client to come up with his own appropriate decisions from the therapy point forward. These interventions are just a few examples of counseling models that social workers may use with their clients. To illustrate how these may be applied, three cases are discussed namely Child Abuse and Neglect; Alcoholism and Drug Addiction; and Suicide and Suicidal Behavior. Traumas experienced in childhood leave not only physical but also emotional scars. Most battered children grow up problematic and have the tendency to repeat the cycle of child maltreatment and abuse with their own children. Gitterman (2001) enumerates the different forms of child maltreatment as physical or emotional abuse, physical, emotional or educational neglect and sexual abuse. Risk factors that may lead to child abuse include both the perpetrator’s and the child’s. For the perpetrator: substance abuse, anger management and emotional control problems; predisposition to anxiety, depression and hostility; the need for control and pessimism regarding social relationships and lack of experience in caring for children and lack of knowledge of child development are very influential factors that may provoke one to hurt a child. Child risk factors include prematurity and low birth weight; lack of social responsiveness; attractiveness; and temperament. The quality of family interactions is also one factor, neglectful and abusive families have more negative interactions and fewer overall interactions than nonmaltreating families. Aggressive and antisocial behavior modeled by adults to their children are found to likewise encourage the same in their children. Such problematic cases need to treat everyone involved. The Task-Centered Model may prove effective in this case especially if the clients are cooperative and resolved to stop the dysfunctional behavior. The child-victim usually needs therapy to alleviate him or her of the traumatic effects of the abuse. The adult perpetrator is the one who needs treatment to stop the abusive behavior with intensive processing of the source of their negative emotions towards their victims. Both practitioner and client brainstorm on tasks that can be done to prevent the abusive behavior. An example could be finding something positive in the child to admire and express lovingly. This sincere gesture hopefully develops respect for the child and vice-versa. Alcoholism and other drug addiction is another common problem handled by caseworkers. They share the same symptoms and behavioral manifestations. Under DSM-IV-TR (text revision of 2002), the following are the usual behaviors exhibited by substance abusers/ dependents who manifest one or more of the following behaviors: tolerance of painful consequences of the addiction; withdrawal symptoms when the addiction is stopped; unsuccessful efforts to cut down use; time spent in obtaining the substance replaces social, occupational or recreational activities; failure to fulfill major obligations; continued use even when physically hazardous; recurrent legal problems; recurrent social or interpersonal problems.   “With Substance Abuse the user has a choice: he/she uses in spite of illegal, unsafe consequences, or inappropriateness of the drinking/drugging experience.” (DSM-IV-TR, 2002). Clients who come to therapy find themselves continuing to use alcohol or drugs despite their awareness of its consequences to themselves or their families. According to Gitterman (2001), “Addictive behavior is a biophysicosocial life condition that is influenced by multiple factors affecting all areas of functioning. To understand addictive behavior and to help people who encounter drug-related difficulties, social workers must adopt a dual person: environment focus.” (p. 88). The Client-Centered Approach would be fitting to apply in such a case. Alcoholics and Drug dependents need to be assured that there is somebody who will not abandon them and will be there for them to help and guide them towards treatment. The practitioner, adopting a dual person perspective listens sensitively to the client’s concerns both as a friend and as a professional. He is there to guide the client to decide on his own how he wants to rid himself of his addiction and strengthen his resolve to change for the better. “By adopting an ecological perspective toward addictive behavior, social workers will begin to (1) understand clients, their strengths, and their problems in their own terms: (2) accurately assess the nature and severity of their needs and resources; and (3) develop meaningful assistance strategies that help clients and others alter addictive lifestyles and develop supports for sobriety.” (Gitterman, 2001, p. 88) One last example of a case needing the support of an effective social worker is Suicidal cases, which are becoming rampant with deeply depressed individuals. In Gitterman’s text, Shneidman defines suicide is defined as “a human act of self-inflicted, self-intentional cessation” (Gitterman, 2001, p. 789). The preoccupation with the idea of death overcomes the client as a way to deal with his problems. The key word is “intent”, which determines how serious the individual is in carrying out his self-destructive plans. Acts judged with low intent are considered less serious or even manipulative. However, the gravity of the desire to die is clearly difficult to assess, as there is currently no widely accepted classification system for it. There are many factors and reasons associated with suicide as explained by various theories. The Psychodynamic theory views suicide as the product of internal, unconscious motives. The individual would rather hurt himself than hurting others. Motives may be rebirth, reunion with a dearly departed person or lost object, revenge, etc. Feelings of abandonment, helplessness and hopelessness might be too strong to fight. The Biological theory suggests genetic predispositions to suicide due to biochemical imbalances. Cognitive theories explain suicide and suicidal behaviors as attempts to convey distress or as a means to solve problems. Learning theories define suicidal behaviors as learned from past experiences or motivated by role models who gained positive responses from others. A psychiatric disease model suggests suicide as a consequence of a psychiatric disease and may not be the conscious will of the individual. Common factors in suicidal cases are the clients’ dark thoughts and feelings. A fitting approach to help suicidal clients would be the Cognitive Theory approach. The basic premise of Cognitive Theory is the clients’ erratic or exaggerated beliefs that it is their fault why they came to such a dreadful state. The goal of therapy is to help the client realize that reorganizing the way they view situations will call for a corresponding reorganization in behavior – sort of marrying the concepts of “mind over matter” and “self-fulfilling prophecy”. In helping the client manage the way he thinks, he will then be able to manage the way he feels and behaves. Empowering the client that he is worthy of living life because he is endowed with skills and good qualities will cause a paradigm shift in his thinking and eventually dissuade him from his suicidal tendencies. Social workers are beacons of light in the dark tunnels of hopelessness. They serve to provide hope and acceptance of the things life may throw at people in unfortunate times. Social workers have the power to provide temporary relief from pain, whether physical, cognitive or emotional. They are our confidantes, our sympathetic friends, our angels on earth. References American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed). Washington, DC. DSM-IV-TR (text revision of 2002) Retrieved on November 23, 2007 from http://allpsych.com/disorders/substance/substanceabuse.html Gitterman, A., (2001). Handbook of social work practice with vulnerable and resilient Populations (2nd ed) New York Columbia University Press. Turner, F.J., (1996). Social work treatment interlocking theoretical approaches. (4thed).Toronto. Van Nijnatten, C. (2006) “Finding the words: social work from a developmental perspective” Journal of Social Work Practice Vol. 20, No. 2, July 2006, pp. 133–144 Read More