Reality creation and practice - Essay Example

The social construction framework is useful to human service workers in the fields of family therapy and psychotherapy in that it allows practitioners to investigate and empower client’s creation of meaningful understandings of themselves and the wider world. The framework focuses on the key influences of sociocultural forces and the environmental context of human understanding, learning and accumulation of knowledge. Within family therapy this theory provides the therapist with a powerful ability to draw family members away from blaming each other for their behaviors, and placing these behaviors within a larger sociocultural context.

For example, the Western values of independence, competition and profit contributing to the family to place pressure on their son to find gainful employment and to do better in life than what they have. In turn, the son has felt misunderstood, isolated and unable to achieve due to constant “failures” and has chosen to drop out of society. Now living in a shelter, the son is attempting to find work, but constantly faces rejection, which is further inhibiting his self-esteem. His parents feel they are unable to help him, feel guilty for his poor upbringing and don’t have anyone to talk to.

The framework is useful for the family therapist in this instance in that the family can be encouraged to exhibit agency within the therapeutic process, such as role playing each other as well as perceived ideals, and with their increased agency and autonomy be less dependant on the therapist to provide meaning for their experiences. The psychotherapist as well benefits from the use of the social construction framework in that theories such as Bandura’s self-efficacy model complement the concept of reality being constructed through human activity.

Using social modeling of Bandura allows the personal counselor to empower their client by