Enduring not enjoying? Emotional responses to studying abroad among Danish and Chinese students

ABSTRACT

Students’ emotions during stays abroad have mainly been treated as ”culture shock”, where difficulties are interpreted as universal ”stages” towards ”adaptation”. This paper explores how students from different cultural and educational traditions experience studying abroad differently. The study presents a qualitative study of 18 Danish and Chinese students in Chinese and Danish universities and situates itself within the literature on culture shock, student emotions and study-abroad experiences. The study exposes the students’ complex emotions throughout their studies abroad and explains how these emotions relate to processes of self-formation, professional and academic development, increase or decrease in freedom, and student agency.     

Creative Solutions and Development for Social Workers Treating People with Serious Mental Illness - Contributions from Supervision

Social workers who are engaged in a therapeutic work with clients who have serious mental illness often face specific challenges and find themselves in crisis states in therapy, which stem from the return of the clients’ symptoms and their cognitive impairments as well as social stigma. These crisis states cause dramatic changes in the way social workers mentalize their clients and they are propelled to draw from covert, unformulated, and dissociated knowledge that they have about the client’s experience, which contributes to achieving new, surprising, and creative ways to mentalize the client. Such crisis resolutions enhance therapists’ personal and professional development and serve as an identification model for their clients.     

Mental Health Consumer and Carer Participation in Professional Education: ‘Getting There Together’ for Children of Parents with Mental Illness and Their Families

Abstract

‘Getting There Together’ is a professional education seminar developed as a collaborative project by professionals, mental health consumers and carers aimed at service providers who work with children of parents with mental illness and their families. The need for such professional education concerning this group is well recognised and the project reported herein was initiated by a reference group of professionals, consumers and carers focusing on children of parents with mental illness in the Eastern region of Melbourne (Victoria, Australia). The project began and continued as a collaborative effort during development and implementation, which ensured the experience, point of view and voice of consumers and carers was central to the material prepared, and at the time of seminar presentations. Seminar participants were from the family welfare, child care and supported housing sectors. Seminar participants found the first person accounts of consumers and carers the most helpful aspects of the seminars because they gave new insights into the experiences of carers and of mental health consumers as parents, as well as an understanding of ‘… the whole family, and how the child fits into the picture’.     

Deprived of human rights

Abstract

In June 2018 the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities published a report on the educational system in Spain, in response to some complaints submitted by SOLCOM (Association for Community solidarity and social inclusion of people with functional diversity). The report has had a substantial impact. A few months earlier, in February 2018, people from all over Spain had taken part in a workshop held at the Universidad de Málaga, as part of a research project entitled ‘Emerging Narratives about Inclusive Schools Based on the Social Model of Disability: Resistance, Resilience and Social Change’. The project aims to gather accounts of activist experiences from families and professionals who determinedly struggle to make schools places where all children are recognised through presence, participation, learning and success in the pre-compulsory and post-compulsory education stages. Both the Committee’s report and the statements made by relatives and activists at the workshop illustrated and bore witness to a systematic violation of many children’s right to education solely due to their disability.     

Examining the Psychometric Properties of the Identify as a Professional Social Worker Subscale

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Identify as a Professional Social Worker Subscale, which assessed the Council on Social Work Education–prescribed competency identify as a professional social worker and conduct oneself accordingly. The results of confirmatory factory analysis indicated that the items on the measure assessed the underlying latent construct of identification as a professional social worker. The item response theory analysis indicated that the measure could be shortened to a four-item measure, and the item “demonstrate professional demeanor in behavior, appearance, and communication” was the highest discriminating item, whereas “advocate for client access to the services of social work” was the lowest discriminating item. Implications for research, measurement development, and the 2015 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards are discussed.     

Spiritual Media Experiences,Trait Transcendence,and Enjoyment of Popular Films

Recent scholarship on media psychology acknowledges that media entertainment offers not only purely hedonistic enjoyment but also meaningful experiences. This study expands our understanding of media enjoyment by exploring the role of media entertainment in evoking spiritual emotions and beliefs, such as those related to connectedness, blessedness, and transcendence. Results from an online survey (N = 220) indicate that media entertainment elicits meaningful as well as spiritual emotions and increases the saliency of spiritual beliefs as related to self-actualization and spiritual experiences in everyday life. Furthermore, trait transcendence and eudaimonic media motivations add to the explanation of audiences’ mediated spiritual experiences. Open-ended responses, analyzed by three coders, revealed that themes of transcendence and human connectedness are an integral part of viewers’ entertainment experiences. This exploratory study provides the groundwork to investigate spiritual media experiences and advance understanding of audiences’ appreciation for media entertainment. Implications for popular culture and mediated spirituality are discussed.     

New social intervention technologies as a challenge in social work: IFSW Europe perspective

ABSTRACT

This study aims at analyzing the degree of training, use, and practice of the new technologies among the social work professionals in their work environment and at finding out their main reluctance or reservations to a more intensive use of ICTs in the performance of their tasks. For this purpose, a structured and closed questionnaire has been sent to the chairpeople of the professional organizations’ members of the International Federation of Social Workers Europe (IFSW Europe), which also includes Turkey and Israel. The reason for this choice lies in the fact that the representatives for the professional organizations have a privileged view on the situation of the profession from a global perspective and are the key informants on the current situation surrounding the social workers. This study allows us to know, among other results, that the success of ICTs among the professionals will depend on their ability to adapt to the specific professional nature of the social worker in the intervention domain. However, the uncertainty regarding the security of the personal data treatment, regarding the increase of the non included or paid work hours, and also, regarding the increase of professional stress are key factors explaining the reluctance of some professionals to a more intensive use of ICTs.     

What students’ Facebook posts teach us about the identity challenge in field placements abroad

ABSTRACT

Facebook is a common tool that enables students to publicly express their emotions, thoughts, experiences, and knowledge. On the assumption that the personal narratives of students can provide deep insights into their learning processes during practical training programs, the article presents content analyses of Facebook posts written by Israeli students who participated in an international social work field placement program in India. Content analysis of the students’ posts reveals that they grappled with their personal and professional identities as part of the learning process that occurred while they were formulating their professional identity as social workers. The analysis elicited three main themes: (1) awareness of the national identity; (2) exploration of other identities (personal, professional, and global); and (3) an attempt to contain multidimensional identity. The students discussed the main challenges they faced in the process of formulating an identity that will enable them to engage in international social work, and they described the fluctuations that occurred in those identities. The results show how public Facebook posts can be used as a tool to shed light on the contribution of social work education in international field placements, and provide insights into the learning processes that students experience in field placements abroad.     

A Strengths Perspective on Caregiving at the End-of-life

Abstract

The most recent version of the Australian Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics includes substantial reference to social workers’ professional responsibilities for environmental awareness and advocacy. This article reports on a qualitative study of 20 Australian environmentally-conscious social workers from a variety of fields of practice. The study found that while there was a high level of awareness of the relevance of environmental issues for social work practice, participants reported professional and organisational constraints, which prevented them from aligning their environmental concerns with their professional practice. The findings from this study suggest that proenvironmental views and actions may not yet be accepted as a legitimate aspect of social work practice, despite strong recognition of the links between social justice, human rights, social work, and the environment in the Australian Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics.     

Gender,race, and the use of prayer to manage anger

ABSTRACT

Women and blacks are more likely than men and whites to use prayer to manage negative emotions such as anger. However, the pathways explaining these associations are not fully understood. Using data from the 1996 General Social Survey’s emotion module, we evaluate four potential mechanisms that might account for these associations: women’s and blacks’ relatively high levels of religious participation, relatively low socioeconomic status, extended duration of their negative emotional experiences, and relatively lower perceived control. Women’s and blacks’ higher likelihood of using prayer to manage anger is partially accounted for by their higher levels of religious participation, lower socioeconomic status, and duration of anger. Lower levels of perceived control contribute only to blacks’ use of prayer to manage anger. Our findings highlight the importance of identifying pathways that explain why particular social groups use particular emotion management strategies.     

Managing Organizational Emotions: Framing Feelings of Illegitimacy in the Radical Women's Prison Movement

Abstract

This article examines how activists manage the potentially deleterious emotions that arise in social movement organizations. Using data from a case study of an organization in the contemporary radical women's prison movement in California, I explore how feelings of illegitimacy are managed and sublimated by activists, during the course of organizational life, to sustain participation in the movement. Drawing on framing theory, I find that organizational frames serve as mechanisms that manage and focus activists' feelings, delimit movement strategies, and inspire and legitimate collective action.     

Introspection as intra-professionalism in social and health care

This article analyses two cases from health and social care, adopting a psycho-societal approach. The analysis highlights how professionalism evolves and develops through an introspection of the relational and scenic processes between professionals, as well as between the professional and the client or patient. As a phenomenon at the core of professional practice, it will be argued that introspection needs to recognize and encompass the intra- and inter-psychic responses and understandings of professionals and their clients and patients. The first case places supervision as a learning space, where framing and complex exchanges of loss and confirmation, and of denial and displacement take place between a group of social workers and their supervisor. In the second case, it becomes apparent how the research interview opens up an opportunity for processing the emotions and socially critical experiences involved in hospital work.     

Reflections on Closeted Helping Professionals

Abstract

Reflections noted in the provocative paper by Roui-lard elsewhere in this volume are reconsidered from a variety of professional and client perspectives. Among these viewpoints is a discussion regarding the boundaries of disclosure of sexual orientation. Public or professional responsibilities concerning disclosure are considered in light of the right to privacy of lesbian and gay helping professionals. The impact of disclosure upon lesbian or gay clients as it relates to the age of the client and of the service being provided is considered. Some political implications of “coming out” versus remaining “closeted” are also discussed.     

Awareness of Self—A Critical Tool

This paper discusses the applications of self-awareness to all levels of clinical practice, and the urgency for its development in social work students; self-reflectiveness builds clinical competence, can prevent boundary violations and burnout, and offers protection against client violence. It is a basic cornerstone for the development of the professional self, which is the foundation for evolving professional maturation. Students need guidance in becoming aware of how their own feelings, attitudes, and relationships with clients are major factors in the helping process in all service settings, and further, that helping others is in itself a process. Students are generally idealistic, and wish to ease suffering, without understanding the obstacles to be overcome, nor how they themselves would be involved in the process. Social work education, dominated by cognitive-behavioral theories and evidence-based treatments, reinforces students' own tendencies to offer advice and to provide the ‘right solution’ to clients' problems. Educational recommendations for developing self-reflectiveness include: reclaiming psychodynamic theories; emphasizing self-awareness academically and in the field; utilizing process recording; and providing special educational opportunities such as video labs and observational experiences.     

Emotionen und Lebenszufriedenheit in der „Erlebnisgesellschaft“

According to sociological diagnoses of present time, in many western countries a postmodern consumer, entertainment, and event culture has emerged. This paper draws especially on Schulze’s volume on the event society (?Erlebnisgesellschaft“, 1992). On a theoretical level, it is argued that people living in a consumer and event society would act more and more inward oriented: They increasingly strive for pleasing experiences, a high level of well-being, and seek positive affects. Furthermore, they ever more regard their emotions as a criterion for the assessment of their own life. By using data from the European Social Survey 2006, this latter assumption is examined in a comparative perspective for 23 European countries. The findings show that in all countries considered previously experienced positive (negative) emotions lead to an increase (decrease) in people’s life satisfaction. Emotions influence a persons’ life satisfaction substantially. However, multilevel analyses demonstrate that this effect varies between countries: The more a society resembles the ideal type of a consumer and event society, the larger is the impact of a person’s previously experienced emotions on the assessment of his or her own life. Hence, in a consumer and event society life satisfaction catches a strong hedonistic shade.     

‘Anger is Why We're All Here’: Mobilizing and Managing Emotions in a Professional Activist Organization

The emotions involved in social activism are central factors in the recruitment to, motivation for, and sustainability of social movements. But this perspective on the role of emotions within social movements contrasts with studies of emotions within mainstream organizations where employees are called on to manage their own emotions and those of others. Thus, while much social movement research focuses on how activists actively cultivate emotional expression, these ideas rarely intersect with the organizational research that examines how a diminished quality of working life may result from the need for employees to modify, suppress or emphasize emotions. Using in-depth interviews with activists at Amnesty International, this article bridges this theoretical divide by examining emotional labour and emotional regulation among paid activists in a professional social movement organization. I explore the ways in which employees struggle with the emotional component of their work and the implications of these emotions for the quality of their working life, the stability of such organizations and the maintenance of social movements.     

‘Befriend them but not be their friend’: Negotiations of youth practice in a digital age

ABSTRACT

‘You’ve gotta befriend them but not be their friend’ is how one youth worker thoughtfully described the secret to successful youth practice. This paper draws on experiences of youth workers in the United Kingdom to consider how the growth of digital technologies comes to be negotiated and articulated in professional practice. Situating these experiences alongside young people’s accounts, this article highlights a distinction between young people’s relationship with the digital and adult perceptions of youth and technology. The aim of this paper is to consider what factors contribute towards this divide and where adult perceptions come from, if not from the experiences of young people themselves. The article then goes on to discuss the potential consequences of the presence of technology and discourses surrounding the digital for youth worker’s engagements with young people in professional practice. Overall, this article argues for the enduring relevance of youth workers and physical youth centres in a digital age and joins several scholars in critiquing the chronic under-investment in youth workers and provision in the UK and beyond.     

Frozen in Time: Idealization and Parent-Blaming in the Therapeutic Process

Contemporary theory and culture can lead a therapist to view a client’s positive feelings towards parents as defensive idealization, while negative or hostile feelings may be seen as “deeper” and more important. This article suggests that both idealization of and critical feelings about parents can serve as defenses against other painful emotions and both are developmentally necessary. Contemporary neurobiological and attachment research indicate that “talk therapy” helps individuals manage emotions. This work can be derailed if anger is privileged over idealization. Clinical examples illustrate these ideas and show how unpacking both critical and overly positive attitudes can encourage development. Clients increase their capacity to tolerate a wider range of feelings, maintain a consistent and cohesive sense of self, and build meaningful relationships. Therapists’ countertransferential identification with clients’ parent-blaming and a not uncommon desire to reduce complex and confusing experiences to a more manageable subset of emotions are also addressed.     

Confidentiality

Abstract

Confidentiality was the ethical dilemma most frequently encountered by Israeli social workers in a 1998 national survey (Linzer, Conboy and Ain, 2002). A reanalysis of survey responses found the social workers cared about preventing violations of client privacy, promoting client self-determination, and respecting client dignity, especially when challenged by: (1) public institutions' right to know, (2) limitations of protection of client communications and information, including duty to warn, (3) child and family dilemmas, (4) informed consent ambiguities, and (5) computers and technology utilization. Social workers looked to their own counsel, colleagues, and supervisor's advice and their professional code of ethics for guidance.     

Books Received

Abstract

The generic nature of social work assists social workers to fulfill, variety of tasks and roles, in a range of settings. Social work train in provides workers with a broad range of knowledge and skills, as well as an ability to be both flexible and adaptable across a given range of situations. Such a ‘launching base’ is essential for all social workers, particularly those who work in the resource-starved remote area sector.

Through the author's own insights and experiences on the remote setting of Saipan, a small island located in the western Pacific Ocean this article examines some of the unique personal and professional challenges that confronted him during his stay on Saipan. These accounts are later transposed generally to an exploration of their implications for practitioners who work, or are contemplating working in a remote area.