Critically Reflective Practice in Social Work Development

There are many disadvantaged communities and individuals in history and today. Many of these communities access social work services for mental health, counselling, psychosocial intervention and holistic intervention to empower and enhance quality of life. Within my student placement I was part of a service that support majority the middle eastern community providing Social Work intervention and support. Many of the individuals accessing the services presented with underlying challenges such as trauma and self-medicating behaviours. Social Work practise required a healing processes and positive change focussing on family, individuals and organisational structure. can be challenging as there is an expectation to fix and resolve all issues. However once clients are faced with adversity individuals seek therapy in order to understand what it is that is causing anxiety and emotional change. The aim of therapy, very briefly, is to increase the clients level of differentiation and to decrease emotional reactivity to chronic anxiety in the system. As differentiation increases, so anxiety will decrease (Gehart, 2010, p. 290). Basically differentiation may be defined as the ability to separate intrapersonal from interpersonal distress. From an intrapersonal perspective, one should be able to separate feelings from thoughts in order to be able to respond rather than react. From an interpersonal angle, it is necessary to be able to know where one ends and another begins without a loss of self (Gehart, 2010, p. 284). Furthermore, therapy does not influence the client if the issue is external so why would one have to change? It creates change for the external world such as a job, friend and family, therefore a Social Work works towards change using approaches such as Cognitive Behaviour Therapy or Dialectal Behaviour Therapy.

During this trimester, I have gained further in-depth knowledge and an introduction to additional major Social Work and psychotherapeutic methodologies, theories, and applications. I have integrated my preferred theory of Social Work and deepen their understanding of the theory and practice of other major Social Work theories and approaches. I have studied the philosophical theories and practical application of a range of approaches to Social Work. Covering other therapeutic modification and contemporary approaches are explored throughout the study of this unit has given me a broader understanding of the Social Work approaches used in today settings.

Within this session I have applied my main focus on an introductory session to gather information about the client based on the presenting issue in this case domestic violence. Reeves (2008) suggests that gaining an understanding of the clients needs early in the Social Work process is essential, regardless of the Social Works theoretical model. A Social Work assessment is an exploration by the Social Work and client of what has brought the client to Social Work, what the client wants or needs to change and how or if that might be facilitated by Social Work and the Social Work (Reeves, 2008, p. 63).

I applied solution focussed or motivational interviewing skills, allowing the client to explore positives and focus on the positives. is based on the assumption that clients have the ability to solve their own problems. This positive focus is taken further by looking at what already works for the client and finding ways to connect that positive experience to help in the future. A common approach in brief therapy is to ask the client: Tell me about times when you felt a little better and when things were going your way (Corey, 2009, p. 379). Throughout the session I such as open ended question and closed questions to gather information needed to build a trust and professional rapport with the client. Domestic violence was the core of the clients issue. I used the motivational interviewing theory/approach to the Social Work session, this is evident as I explored ambivalence and identified hope, I allowed the client to feel empathy throughout the session through my language and body language and exploring the positive supports the client can use in this present time.

I identified the clients reaction to specific question, therefore I found Gestalt therapy to be appropriate in asking the client about the reaction. Essentially, gestalt therapy aims to integrate various conflicting parts of a client. It does not offer an analysis or attempt to get rid of feelings; it helps clients to re-own parts of themselves that have become lost or disowned along the way. The aim is to experience and then integrate all the factions of ones personality. Throughout the session I did maintain sensitivity and did not advise the client or make a dramatic scene out of the situation being an abusive situation. In further session I would explore the domestic violence issue in depth if necessary, if not I would continue to focus on strength-based therapy, followed by gestalt therapy. This will enable the client to explore their strengths and work in gestalt therapeutic frame to assist with the clients supressed emotions.

There are many different methods to work with a client to influence change, these methods include: working determinedly against client resistance; interpreting and challenging client defences; encouraging, persuading and cajoling clients to keep persisting at the hard work of changing themselves; and experimenting with a wide variety of methods to find the one that works best with their individual clients.

Client issues in the early ages social issues were addressed by group therapy. Human problems were addressed by individual or group therapy models based upon intrapsychic process and psychopathology (Barker & Chung, 2013, p. 13). Following in the later ages family and systemic Social Works, argued that it was the interactions between the individual and members of their family and other social systems that counted. For some Social Works, the inclusion of multigenerational and extended family systems was also important this was due to the fact that family systems where needed to be able to explore further issues to identify how each client interacted with the external world.AN effective approach that Social Work used was a systemic approach which concentrated on action and diminished interrupting problematic patterns of behaviour. As stated by Nichols (2014, p. 61) states: Constructivism teaches us to look beyond behaviour to ways we interpret our experience.

Harry Goolishian and Harlene Anderson developed a collaborative approach where Social Works did not adopt the role of expert. The focus of a collaborative approach is on a relational system and process in which a client and a Social Work become conversational partners in the telling, inquiring, interpreting, and shaping of the narratives. The collaborative Social Works did not approach their clients from the perspective of function or structure (Nichols, 2014, p. 61). They did, however, adopt a stance of curiosity and held that concepts like systems, enmeshment and triangles are merely metaphors which do not exist in some objective reality but are merely metaphors or constructions.For example: Nichols (2014, p. 61) gives the example of an adolescent boy who consistently disobeys his parents. He says that constructivists would point out that the boys actions are not just as a result of the parents efforts to discipline the son but on the boys construction of their authority. Social constructionists would add that this construction is not only shaped by the boy in regard to what occurs in the family but also by messages transmitted from the culture at large; from school, at the movies, television and so on. According to constructivists, people have problems because of the way that they interpret the objective conditions of their lives, whereas social constructionists recognise that the meanings given emerge in the process of talking with other people (p. 62).