II. Patients of the department of psychological medicine,guy's hospital,london 1

Abstract

Harvey Dean (1998) rejects my (Wakefield, 1988a; 1988b) argument that minimal distributive justice is the essential mission of social work and that treatment of mental disorder is not part of the profession's essential mission but rather a derived task. He argues that social work has broader ethical aims that encompass both pursuit of justice and treatment of mental disorder. In this article, 1 review my earlier position and respond to Dean's objections. I argue that Dean's narrativist account of the profession's ethical aims is overly broad and that he confuses non‐disordered psychological problems with mental disorders. I conclude that neither my “minimal distributive justice” view of social work's mission nor my exclusion of treatment of mental disorder from the profession's essential mission are disconfirmed by Dean's arguments.     

Personal prelude to pandemic 2020

ABSTRACT

This essay is a personal story, that also serves as my prelude to pandemic 2020, as well as my decision to issue a June 2020 Call for Papers on Group Work Stories About Pandemic 2020, that this Issue of the Journal launches.     

Pentimento

Abstract

When asked to consider writing a personal essay about a transformational moment in the development of myself as a clinician, this unfolding of events immediately came to mind. This moment captures a story about my development as a clinical social worker through my personal psychoanalysis. Sometimes, when one can contain his/her anxiety about receiving, a spontaneous and wonderful gift may present itself for the opening. This is my offering-a gift to students of clinical process.     

John Coltrane and Me

Abstract

In this essay, I consider the role that cultural objects play in one's personal development by taking a closer look at the relationship between people and the creative products of their fellows. As a launching point to this study, I examine my own relationship with the music of two jazz icons, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, viewing the differences in my reactions to, and uses of, their musical offerings over times as a reflection of my own personal growth. My contention is that under the right conditions people can use cultural objects to reconnect with disavowed aspects of their experiences.     

Reflections and Prospects of the Gerontological Social Work Training and Education: The AGESW Pre-Dissertation Fellows Program

ABSTRACT

The demand for professional training, mentorship, and research in the field of aging is expected to increase remarkably. Recent statistics indicate that less than 8% of social work students nationwide specialize in gerontology; however, a significant amount of social work graduates, regardless of their specialization at school, serve older adults in various health care settings. In addition, the aging populations that social work graduates serve are becoming more racially and ethnically diverse. In order to address this issue, it is critical to support students and emerging scholars to not only become more competent in gerontological social work, but also engage in culturally competent research and practices. In this commentary, I described my experiences as a former fellow of the AGESW (Association for Gerontology Education in Social Work) Pre-Dissertation Fellows Program that fosters doctoral students in the field of gerontological social work. The program helps its fellows comprehend basic principles of doctoral education, develop strong professional networks with other colleagues and mentors across the country, and respect diversity in the population we serve as well as those within our own fellow group.     

Metamorphosis of a Gerontological Social Work Scholar

ABSTRACT

My participation in the Pre-Dissertation Fellows Program (PDFP) was a defining moment in the development of my career. This commentary focuses on how my participation helped me transition from mentee to mentor and from PhD student to faculty member and scholar in gerontological social work and end-of-life care. While many students have limited mentorship from gerontological faculty in their own program, the PDFP offers a bridge to gerontological scholars and peer support across the US. Beyond that, opportunities are readily available for participation with the Association for Gerontology Education in Social Work (AGESW) and for collaboration across this network. Like myself, many awardees move into faculty positions and their accomplishments are varied and impressive. It is difficult to fully separate these from the connections, mentorship, and support received from the AGESW network and through participation in this program.     

Remembering with and Without Awareness Through Poetry to Better Understand Aging and Disability

SUMMARY

Poetry has been described as a universal translator. I offer three poems that are evocative of my experience as a child with my grandfathers and their disabilities; and as an adult attempting to deal with the impending death of my father. My wish is that the first poem will reinforce the idea that connecting with one's own memories of aged and disabled family members might support our interactions with people who are aged and disabled in the here and now. I present the final two poems to encourage those working with family members of seriously ill aged people in a hospital setting to better understand the stress of decision-making and to consider devising short-term mutual aid groups to support them during a time for which no preparation exists.     

A sensorial No Man’s Land: corporeality and the Western Front during the First World War

ABSTRACT

During the First World War in France and Belgium life on the Western Front was predominantly lived below the surface. The proliferation of hitherto unimaginably powerful weaponry rendered surface existence untenable. This retreat into the earth necessitated a complete revision of soldiers’ somatic engagement with their immediate environment. In my work as an archeologist of modern conflict landscapes, I have devised a methodology which combines archeological exploration with participant sensation or “sensory ethnography” to interrogate these complex, ambiguous and often dangerous subterranean places. In this article I show that as the war destroyed it also created new realities in which the senses were forced to work together like never before under the pressures of industrialized warfare. My work suggests how a holistic investigation (grounded in sensorality) of particular modern conflict landscapes can take the form of an ethnographic archeology, or an ethnography of the dead, demonstrating the potential for archeology and anthropology to work together in the increasingly interdisciplinary field of modern conflict studies.     

Wrestling with Legacy

Abstract

Those of us who are children of Holocaust refugees and survivors inherit a complex, multi-faceted legacy that manifests itself in various conscious and unconscious ways at different stages of our lives. In the following pages, I share my journey toward a better understanding and integration of my parents' Holocaust experiences, and of the losses they and their extended families suffered under Nazi rule. That understanding necessitated traveling to my father's place of birth, developing relationships with Germans currently residing there, and immersing myself in the details of the demise of the Jewish community of the small rural village of Roth, Germany.

Immersing myself in my father's Holocaust history was both daunting and healing. It provided me with an opportunity to wrestle with my legacy in a way that interrupted the cycle of intergenerational prejudice that I was passing on to my own children. It inspired me to create an educational exhibit that could teach the lessons of the Holocaust in a way that is personal and relevant to students, with the intent of helping visitors to understand their civic responsibility to actively protest against prejudice and social injustice.     

Personal reflections on 30 years of social work development in China

ABSTRACT

China has developed modern social work over the past 30 years, introducing new theories and models of good practice that have been drawn from diverse parts of globe. It has also made extensive contributions to disaster interventions based on its engagement in numerous calamities that have affected the population in China, including the devastating Wenchuan earthquake of 2008. More recently, its dynamic leaders have supported the development of social work in other Asian countries. I have been privileged to have developed a long-standing relationship with China, its culture and its history for many decades, even before I became a social worker. My social work colleagues have honoured me by strengthening this interest by providing many opportunities to walk alongside them. This article considers my personal reflections on a profession’s development through momentous world events, and China rightly deserves to celebrate its 30 years of growth and development.     

Manchester through the Ears

ABSTRACT

As part of a wider sensory ethnography on the development of place attachments and situated knowledge amongst international newcomers to a city (Manchester, England), this article tells the story of my collaboration with Phoebe, a student of acoustics from bandung, Indonesia. Using a participatory sensory ethnographic method, Phoebe was encouraged to devise her own contribution to my project, which was modeled around her own sensory preferences and technological expertise. Our work together took place over a period of 4–5 months and yielded a series of soundscape compositions and accompanying narrative texts, all of which conveyed Phoebe's newly acquired sound-based knowledge, or acoustemology, of Manchester. Using narrative textual accompaniments to her recordings, Phoebe ascribes qualities to her surroundings that overlap with her own personal qualities, in effect showing how much she blends with her new city. As Phoebe and I subsequently listened to and “talked over” her soundscape compositions, they evoked sound marks, or sensory memories, of the landscape, sounds and music that Phoebe left behind in Indonesia. these sound-elicited interviews added further layers of emplaced knowledge to both of our constructions of the city.     

The aesthetic life of artificial flavors

Abstract

Artificiality is usually understood as that which is man-made and is in contraposition to the natural. The term itself is increasingly recognized as a negative pole, while the label of “natural” is exploited as guarantee of healthiness in marketing food campaigns. This article takes issue with the natural/artificial debate by emphasizing the aesthetic side of artificial flavorings – chemical substances designed to alter or enhance the taste of processed foods. Here, I reconsider the conception of artificiality as a poor imitation of nature and instead underline the link between technology and aesthetics, by examining the practice of flavorists. Through ethnographic detail I call for moving the synthetic out of the “inauthentic” and argue that the attempt to mimic natural flavors through synthesis is not only an act of imitation and resemblance (as critics exclusively contend) but can also be thought as an act of representation and interpretation (as my fieldwork illuminates).     

The Panchshil Buddha Vihar Group: Dalit migrant life and group solidarity during the pandemic

ABSTRACT

This narrative is based on my previous experience and telephonic discussions with Dalit (Dalits are an ex-untouchable caste of India, who have been subject to discrimination and exclusion historically and placed at the bottom on the Indian social system) migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic. The narrative aims to highlight the life and trajectory of Dalit migrants pre- and during the pandemic. In addition, the narrative illustrates their everyday strategy as a group in response to the pandemic. Further, the narrative describes various means and methods of Dalit migrants to advance community solidarity, which has helped them to survive and escape the city, to return to their villages.     

Li as a Way to Order: The Intellectual Characteristics and Historical Role of Xun Zi’s Theory of Li

Abstract

To illustrate the overall content and historical significance of Xun Zi’s political philosophy, this paper proceeds as follows. First, it reviews previous research on ideas of li (ritual and social norms) and discusses why Xun Zi’s theory of li has been undervalued. Second, it briefly introduces my earlier study of this issue, The Confucian Quest for Order: The Origin and Formation of the Political Thought of Xun Zi. Third, it proposes an analytical framework that highlights the intellectual characteristics and historical role of li in the Xunzi. This framework analyzes li in the broad sense, differentiating between the theory of li, li as an institution and li as a way to the restoration of order. Fourth, it describes some intellectual characteristics of the Xunzi’s theory of li as a way to order. Based on these discussions, this paper argues that Xun Zi’s theory of li as a way to order is a political philosophy with a broad vision which goes beyond the framework of a single dynasty or state to cover the history and modes of existence of human society as a whole.     

The Essential Power of Group Work

SUMMARY

For almost two decades, leaders in the field of social group work have been warning that the foundational principles and practice of group work as a modality are in danger of being absorbed into generalist social work practice. This paper expands upon the appeal of leaders in the social group work field to generate an environment in which group work is recognized as an integral method in social work practice and education. This paper examines group work as a powerful methodology in social work practice with a specific theoretical framework and skill base that is fundamental to the social work profession. The characteristics of group work's strengths are explored with a comprehensive overview that inspires renewed commitment to preserving, practicing and promoting social group work as a viable and integral part of social work practice.     

I. Patients of the treatment division of the judge baker guidance center 1

Abstract

There is a growing emphasis in the social work literature that social work's overall mission should be that of social justice and that mental health be relegated as outside of social work's realm. This paper draws upon a constructionist and narrative perspective in developing a general formulation of clinical social work to bridge the gap between social justice and mental health.     

Residential Treatment: Contextual Learning and Demand for Work from a Social Group Work Perspective

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the implications of integrating social group work theory to residential treatment facilities in order to improve therapeutic engagement of clientele. This examination focuses on the natural and serendipitous construction of groups within residential treatment facilities. These natural groups provide frontline workers with constellations that are symmetrical to the knowledge-base of social group work theory. In addition, this paper incorporates the initial phases of social group work stage theory as a means of providing opportunity for contextual learning to residential clientele as well as planning appropriate demand for work within these settings.     

Play Therapy with Rosy

Summary Rosy is typical of many problematic children in residentialsettings as well as natural homes. What is perhaps not so typicalin social work practice is play therapy, an intervention thathas been acknowledged as having contributed to a significantimprovement in Rosy's behaviour and emotional stability. Certainconditions are necessary—a suitable playroom; assuranceof regular sessions; a play therapist who is, at least to someextent, freed from her own unconscious preoccupations so thatshe can work effectively on the child's needs without interjectingher own. The aim of this paper is to present a synopsis of thetheoretical background, to outline some practical considerations,and to quote from my work with Rosy as a living example of playtherapy in the hope that others will be stimulated to considerplay work as a viable method of intervention with some children.Rosy's play sessions lasted a little over a year, many othercases require less time.     

Friendship Across the Life Cycle

Abstract

Using a group work model, this article discusses a short term group for older women developed to explore the importance of friendship in late life. In collaboration with group leaders, group members determined weekly topics that explored the significance of friendship through the life cycle. Social work group practice that focuses on the meaning and development of friendship for and with older women is presented as an effective therapeutic intervention for practitioners in settings such as community mental health clinics, senior centers, elderly housing, home care agencies and nursing homes.     

Parents Beyond Oceans: A Social Group Work Curriculum for Chinese Immigrant Parents

ABSTRACT

Parents Beyond Oceans is a unique curriculum that was first implemented in 2011 as part of The Center for Family Life’s efforts to work with Chinese immigrant parents in Brooklyn, New York. Drawing on best practices in social group work and culturally competent social work, the curriculum creates a space where parents can share and process their immigration stories and traumas. Pre- and posttesting show that after participating in the program, parents felt less isolated, more a part of community that treated them like equals, and more accepting of cultural differences in parenting practices.