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02 Editorial
03 Jeanne Marsh talks about the influence of
Sharon Berlin on scholarship and practice

05 Froma Walsh looks at a family resilience

framework

15 Malcolm Payne discusses complexity and

social work theory and practice

21 Jerome Wakefield and Judith Baer examine

levels of meaning and the case for theoretical
integration

29 Susan Kemp looks at practicing place:

everyday contexts in child and family welfare

38 James Clark discusses complex approaches to

wicked problems

49 Social Work Now aims

50 Information for contributors

Social Work Now is published three times a year by Child, Youth and Family.
Views expressed in the journal are not necessarily those of Child, Youth and Family. Material
A P R I L

may be reprinted in other publications only with prior written permission and provided the

2008

material is used in context and credited to Social Work Now.

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EDITORIAL

Professor Sharon Berlin:

Social Work Theorist
Dr Marie Connolly
In 2007 a social work theorist of international

Theoretical explanations can help us to

reputation retired from her position at the

understand and make sense of a complex

University of Chicago. Professor Sharon Berlin,

human world. In exploring ways of helping

as Jeanne Marsh will pay tribute to in the

clients, social workers can draw on a range

foreword to this edition, has furthered social

of theoretical perspectives in their work. In

work knowledge about cognitive behavioural

this special edition we explore social work

theory in ways that bridge the theory/

theories for practice theories that help us

practice divide, guiding practice along the

to navigate our way through complex human

interactive dimensions of personal meaning and

troubles. Some of the papers are challenging,

environmental realities.

as they present complex conceptual territories.

Hopefully there will be something for everyone

Professor Berlin has periodically spent time

as the papers encourage us to reflect on how

in New Zealand, contributing to the teaching

theory contributes to and influences our

and learning of theory, and through her work

practice.

has found a special place here. In May 2007 a

group of social work theorists from across the
world gathered at the University of Chicago for
a symposium to honour the work and career

Dr Marie Connolly is the Chief Social Worker at the

Ministry of Social Development.

of Professor Berlin. Given her connection with

New Zealand, we thought it would be fitting
to dedicate a special edition of Social Work
Now to social work theory, and in particular to
her work. We were delighted to find that the
academics who presented at the symposium
were happy to share their work with us in this
special edition.

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FOREWORD

Sharon B. Berlin, steward of

the discipline: her influence
on social work scholarship
and practice
Dr Jeanne Marsh
Sharon B. Berlin, Helen Ross Professor in the

the School of Social Welfare, University of

School of Social Service Administration, served

California, Berkeley. She served as staff social

as a University of Chicago faculty member from

worker at the Connecticut Child Study and

1985 through 2007. Her research and scholarship

Treatment Center in New Haven. After her

during this period significantly shaped the

return to Seattle, she joined a small group of

conceptualisation and practice of contemporary

women in organising one of the first feminist

social work. Her focus on

issues fundamental to the
practice of social work, to
the values, perspectives and
pragmatic concerns that
have shaped the profession
since its inception, serve

counselling centres in the

Sharon Berlins theoretical

work has served to advance
cognitive models of practice
in a manner explicitly
designed for social workers

to advance the field while

region. She was assistant

professor in the School of
Social Work at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison before
joining the faculty of the
School of Social Service
Administration in 1985. She

keeping it grounded in defining concerns. In

continued to work as a practitioner throughout

this work, she has served as a steward of the

her academic career, most recently as voluntary

discipline according to social work scholar,

clinician for the Marjorie Kovler Center for the

William Borden, (2007). As such, she is an

Treatment of Survivors of Torture.

appropriate focus for the dedication of this

Sharon Berlins theoretical work has served

special issue of Social Work Now.

to advance cognitive models of practice in a

Her academic and professional background

manner explicitly designed for social workers.

include a bachelors degree from the College of

She understands that practitioners engage in

Idaho, masters and doctoral degrees from the

fundamental problem-solving processes as they

University of Washington, and a post-masters

seek to understand and engage clients and

programme in Community Mental Health at

decide what to do that will be helpful. At the

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same time, she understands that all humans,

practice wisdom through empirical findings.

practitioners and clients alike solve problems

Bringing knowledge of thinking and judgemental

by relying on memory patterns that allow us to

processes to the context of practice, she

interpret what is happening today. When these

illuminates how practitioners and clients

memory patterns prevent us from recognising

acquire, retain, organise and extract different

that different circumstances require different

kinds of information in the course of regular

thinking, we can become stuck in old and

encounters and how to make the best use of this

unhelpful ways of understanding. Nonetheless,

knowledge to address client goals. As renowned

she also knows from her social work experience

social work scholar Laura Epstein (1993) has

that, for many clients, a therapeutic approach

written, Berlins work is a jump-start toward an

solely focused on a patients thought patterns

advanced round of modernising clinical practice.

is not sufficient. One of her great insights has

Future work will contend with these new

been to recognise that when someones life

ideas.

situation is demoralising, truly effective help

incorporates opportunities for changes in that

References

life situation. In other words, assistance that

Borden, W. (2007) Programme notes: A symposium

to honor the work and career of Sharon B. Berlin,
Helen Ross Professor, The School of Social Service
Administration, The University of Chicago. Chicago,
Illinois, May 11 2007.

a social worker routinely provides helping

a client prepare for a custody evaluation,
coaching her through a court hearing,
intervening on her behalf with a bureaucracy

Epstein, L. Foreword in Berlin, S., & Marsh, J. (1993)

Informing Practice Decisions. New York: Macmillan.

are not just tasks in addition to therapy. They

can explicitly be a part of therapy, because they
can spur new opportunities to learn and change.
Berlins inherent respect for each client is

Dr Jeanne Marsh is the Dean and George Herbert Jones

Professor in the School of Social Service Administration
at the University of Chicago. Her fields of special
interest include services for women and families, service
integration in service delivery, social programme and
policy evaluation, and knowledge utilisation in practice
and programme decision-making.

evident throughout her writings. She is

unwilling to prescribe only one approach or
technique, because differing client circumstances
require different options. Her writing connects
a range of ideas, from neuroscience to social
psychology, from narrative studies to evidencebased practice research. The breadth of ideas is
a testament to her understanding of the broad
assortment of issues social workers are asked to
address, as well as her capacity to examine and
incorporate a range of disciplinary and practical
perspectives.
Berlin builds on nearly three decades of effort by
contemporary social work scholars to develop
an empirically-based practice that is consistent
with the humanistic values of social work. Her
work is part of a larger effort to elaborate

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Using theory to support a

family resilience framework
in practice
Froma Walsh, M.S.W., Ph.D.
Theory, research, and practice in social work

Systems-oriented family process research has

are inescapably intertwined. Each can inform

provided empirical grounding to assess healthy

and enrich the others. As a clinical scholar,

family functioning (see Walsh, 2003b). Yet,

educator, and practitioner over the past three

family patterns differing from the norm are too

decades, I have endeavoured to integrate

often pathologised, particularly when distressed

the three in the development of a family

families seek help. Moreover, family typologies

resilience framework to guide intervention and

tend to be static and acontextual, offering a

prevention efforts with families facing serious

snapshot of intra-familial patterns without

life challenges. I have also found it essential

consideration of family challenges, resources,

to bridge theory and research on normal

and socio-cultural influences. I thought the

human development in the social sciences with

concept of resilience could be more relevant and

preoccupations in the field of mental health on

valuable for practice. By definition, it involves

strengths in the context of stress and is flexible

individual psychopathology and family deficits.

in relation to varied life conditions. Over the

Early in my career I was drawn to the field

past decade, I have developed a family resilience

of family therapy, which was just flowering

framework, building on collaborative, strengths-

in the late 1960s. It was refreshing to cast

based practice approaches, that can take us to

off deterministic theories of early childhood,

another level by tapping into a familys resources

maternal causality for individual problems. As

and potential to master their life challenges.

we have come to realise, views of normality,

health, and dysfunction are socially

The concept of resilience

constructed, permeating all research and clinical

Resilience can be defined as the ability to

transactions, assessments, and aims. Moreover,

withstand and rebound from disruptive life

with social and economic transformations of

challenges, strengthened and more resourceful.

recent decades, theory, research, and practice

Resilience involves dynamic processes that foster

must be relevant to the growing cultural

positive adaptation in the context of significant

diversity and multiplicity of family kinship

adversity (Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000).

arrangements.

It is a common misconception that resilience

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means invulnerability; vulnerability is part of

personality traits for resilience, or hardiness,

the human condition. Nor is resilience simply

reflecting the dominant cultural ethos of the

the ability to bounce back unscathed. Rather

rugged individual (Walsh, 1996). Influenced

resilience involves struggling well, effectively

by psychoanalytic theory, resilience was

working through and learning from adversity,

assumed to be due to innate traits, or character

and integrating the experience into the fabric of

armour, that made some children impervious

individual and shared life passage.

to the damage of parental pathology. The

invulnerable child was likened to a steel doll

Resilience has become an important concept

that would not break under stress (Anthony &

in mental health theory and research over

Cohler, 1987). Theory limited the view of the

the past two decades as studies challenged

family narrowly to the mother-child dyad. The

the prevailing deterministic assumption

contributing or counterbalancing influence

that traumatic experiences and prolonged

of the father or other family members was

adversity, especially in childhood, are inevitably

generally not assessed. In

damaging. Pioneering
research by Rutter (1987),
Werner (1993), and others
found that many children
who experienced multiple
risk factors for serious
dysfunction, such as parental
mental illness, traumatic loss,
or conditions of poverty,
defied expectations and
did remarkably well in life.

The work of Sir Michael

Rutter (1987) led researchers
toward a systemic
perspective, recognising
the complex interaction
between nature and
nurture in the emergence of
resilience over time

cases where there was a

disturbed parent, scholars
and practitioners dismissed
the family as hopelessly
dysfunctional and sought
positive extra-familial
resources to counter the
negative impact. Thus,
families were seen to
contribute to risk but not to
resilience.

Although many lives were

shattered by adversity, others overcame similar

The work of Sir Michael Rutter (1987) led

high-risk conditions, able to lead loving and

researchers toward a systemic perspective,

productive lives and to raise their children

recognising the complex interaction between

well. Studies found, for instance, that most

nature and nurture in the emergence of

abused children did not become abusive parents

resilience over time. As studies were extended

(Kaufman & Ziegler, 1987).

to a wide range of adverse conditions such

as growing up in impoverished circumstances,

Clinicians often work with individuals and

families who suffer from trauma who are
overwhelmed by daunting challenges, and whose
lives have been blocked from growth by multistress conditions. What makes the difference for
those who rise above adversity?

dealing with chronic medical illness, being

severely abused or neglected, or recovering
from catastrophic life events, trauma, and
loss resilience came to be viewed in terms
of an interplay of multiple risk and protective
processes over time, involving individual,

Individual resilience in multi-systemic

perspective

family, and larger socio-cultural influences.

Individual vulnerability or the impact of stressful

To account for these differences, early studies

conditions could be outweighed by positive

by child development scholars focused on

mediating environmental influences.

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In a remarkable longitudinal study of resilience,

not nor to label and dismiss those who are

Werner (1993; Werner & Smith, 1992) followed

struggling at a particular time as not resilient.

the lives of nearly 700 multi-cultural children

This research affirms the potential throughout

of plantation workers living in poverty on the

life, for those who have suffered to gain

Hawaiian island of Kauai. By age 18, about two-

resilience and to turn their lives around.

thirds of the at-risk children had done poorly

mental health services, or trouble in school or

Relational lifelines for individual

resilience

with the law. However, one-third of those at

In my survey of over two decades of

as predicted, with early pregnancy, needs for

risk had developed into competent, caring, and

resilience research with varied populations

confident young adults, with the capacity to

and methodologies, the crucial influence of

work well, play well, and love well as rated

significant relationships stood out across studies.

on a variety of measures. A strong, mentoring

The resilience of individuals was nurtured by

relationship, as with a coach

or teacher, was a significant
variable. In later followup studies through middle
adulthood, almost all were
still living successful lives,
with stable relationships and
employment. When hurricane
Iniki devastated the island,
fewer were traumatised
compared to the general

bonds with kin, intimate

a developmental
perspective is required,
recognising the potential,
despite a troubled
childhood or adolescence,
for human resilience to
emerge across the life
course

partners, and mentors such

as coaches and teachers,
who supported their efforts,
believed in their potential,
and encouraged them to
make the most of their lives.
In the practice field, the
prevailing theoretical lens has
blinded many to the family
resources that can foster

population, showing that

overcoming early life adversity made them

resilience, even where a parents functioning

hardier, not more vulnerable, in the face of later

is seriously impaired. A family resilience

life challenges.

perspective recognises parental strengths and

potential alongside limitations. Furthermore,

Of note, several individuals who had been

grounded in a systemic orientation, it looks

poorly functioning in adolescence turned

beyond the parent-child dyad to consider

their lives around in adulthood, most often

broader influences in the kin network, from

crediting supportive relationships and

sibling bonds to couple relationships and

religious involvement. Such findings counter

extended family ties. An example of this

deterministic assumptions that negative effects

wider family empowerment is the use of family

of early life trauma are irreversible. Rather,

decision-making processes in New Zealand child

a developmental perspective is required,

protection legislation, The Children, Young

recognising the potential, despite a troubled

Persons and Their Families Act 1989. The family

childhood or adolescence, for human resilience

group conference, the key mechanism of family

to emerge across the life course. There are

decision-making and empowerment within the

important implications for practice here. We

legislation, addresses and resolves care and

must be cautious not to frame resilience as a

protection issues by bringing together and

static set of traits some have it and others do

utilising the knowledge, resources and support

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of the wider family group. This approach

strengths and potential alongside vulnerabilities.

fundamentally alters the deficit-based lens

A multi-systemic view expands focus to tap

from viewing troubled parents and families as

extended kin, community, and spiritual

damaged and beyond repair, to seeing them as

resources.

challenged by lifes adversities with potential

for fostering healing and growth in all members

The concept of family resilience

(Wolin & Wolin, 1993).

The concept of family resilience extends beyond

In the field of traumatology, researchers are

seeing individual family members as potential

increasingly shifting attention from post-

resources for individual resilience. It focuses on

traumatic stress disorder to better understand

risk and resilience in the family as a functional

the resilience and post-traumatic growth

unit (Walsh, 1996; 2003a). A basic premise in

experienced by many individuals in the

this systemic view is that serious crises and

persistent adversity have an

aftermath of trauma events

(Calhoun & Tedeschi, 2006;
Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996).
Van der Kolk and colleagues
have advanced a bio-psychosocial understanding of
trauma, its treatment, and
its prevention, including
attention to variables that
influence vulnerability,
resilience, and the course
of post-traumatic reactions
(van der Kolk, McFarlane, and

In the field of
traumatology, researchers
are increasingly shifting
attention from posttraumatic stress disorder
to better understand
the resilience and posttraumatic growth
experienced by many
individuals in the aftermath
of trauma events

Weisaeth, 1996). The effects

impact on the whole family.

In turn, key family processes
mediate the recovery or
maladaptation of all
members and the family unit.
The family response is crucial.
Major stresses can derail
the functioning of a family
system, with ripple effects
for all members and their
relationships. Key processes
in resilience enable the family
system to rally in times of
crisis, to buffer stress, reduce

of trauma depend greatly

the risk of dysfunction, and support optimal

on whether those wounded can seek comfort,

adaptation.

reassurance, and safety with others. Strong

connections, with trust that others will be there

Family stress, coping, and adaptation

for them when needed, counteract feelings of

The concept of family resilience extends

insecurity, helplessness, and meaninglessness.

theory and research on family stress, coping,

Despite the groundbreaking work of Figley

and adaptation (McCubbin & Patterson, 1983;

on the impact of catastrophic events on the

McCubbin, H., McCubbin, M., McCubbin, A.,

family (Figley & McCubbin, 1983), only recently

& Futrell, 1998; McCubbin, H., McCubbin, M.,

are approaches being developed to strengthen

Thompson & Fromer, 1998). It entails more

family and community resilience in response to

than managing stressful conditions, maintaining

major trauma (Walsh, 2007).

competence, shouldering a burden, or surviving

A family resilience orientation to practice seeks

an ordeal. It involves the potential for personal

out and builds relational lifelines for resilience

and relational transformation and growth

of the family unit and all members. It recognises

that can be forged out of adversity. Tapping

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into key processes for resilience, families that

conviction in their potential. Assessment and

have been struggling can emerge stronger and

intervention are redirected from how problems

more resourceful in meeting future challenges.

were caused to how they can be solved,

Members may develop new insights and abilities.

identifying and amplifying existing and potential

A crisis can be a wake-up call, heightening

competencies. Worker and clients work together

attention to important matters. It can become

to find new possibilities in a problem-saturated

an opportunity for reappraisal of life priorities

situation and overcome impasses to change.

and pursuits, stimulating greater investment in

This positive, future-oriented stance refocuses

meaningful relationships. In studies of strong

from how families have failed to how they can

families, many report that through weathering a

succeed.

crisis together their relationships were enriched

A family resilience framework

and became more loving than

they might otherwise have
been.

Utility of a family
resilience framework for
practice
As Werner has affirmed: 1)

A family resilience
framework is distinguished
from a more general family
strengths perspective by its
focus on strengths in the
context of adversity

resilience theory and research

is distinguished from a more

general family strengths
perspective by its focus on
strengths in the context of
adversity (Walsh, 2003a). It
links symptoms of distress
with stressful events and
conditions in the family
and wider environment.

offer a promising knowledge base for practice;

Families most often come for help in crisis, but

2) the findings of resilience research have many

often they do not initially connect presenting

potential applications; and 3) the building of

problems with relevant stressors. A basic

bridges between clinicians, researchers, and

premise guiding this approach is that crises and

policy makers is of utmost importance (Werner &

persistent challenges impact the whole family

Johnson, 1999).

and, in turn, key family processes mediate the

My efforts over more than a decade have

adaptation of all members and relationships.

focused on the development of a family

This family resilience framework can serve as a

resilience framework for clinical and community-

valuable conceptual map to guide intervention

based intervention and prevention. This

efforts to target and strengthen key processes as

resilience-oriented approach builds on

presenting problems are addressed. As families

developments in the field of family therapy that

become more resourceful, risk and vulnerability

have refocused attention from family deficits to

are reduced and they are better able to meet

family strengths (Walsh, 2003a). The therapeutic

future challenges. Thus, building resilience is

relationship is collaborative and empowering of

also a preventive measure.

client potential, with recognition that successful

interventions depend on tapping into family.

This conceptual approach shifts the prevalent

Our language and discourse are strengths-

deficit-based lens from regarding parents and

oriented and empowering. Less centred on

families as damaged and beyond repair, to

therapist techniques, what matters more is the

seeing them as challenged by lifes adversities

therapists relationship and engagement with a

with potential to foster healing and growth in

family, with compassion for their struggle and

all members. Rather than rescuing so-called

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survivors from dysfunctional families, this

can be seen as nested contexts for nurturing

practice approach engages distressed families

and reinforcing resilience. A multi-dimensional,

with respect and compassion for their struggles,

holistic assessment includes the varied contexts,

affirms their reparative potential, and seeks to

seeking to identify common elements in a

bring out their best qualities. Efforts to foster

crisis situation and in family responses while

family resilience aim both to avert or reduce

also taking into account each familys unique

dysfunction, and to enhance family functioning

perspectives, resources, and challenges.

and individual wellbeing (Luthar et al, 2000).

Such efforts have the potential to benefit all

A developmental perspective is also essential

family members as they fortify relational bonds

to understand and foster family resilience. (1)

and strengthen the family unit.

Families navigate varied pathways in resilience

with emerging challenges over time. (2) A pile-

Putting ecological
and developmental
perspectives into practice
This family resilience
framework combines
ecological and developmental

up of multiple stressors can

A developmental
perspective is also essential
to understand and foster
family resilience

overwhelm family resources.

The impact of a crisis may
also vary in relation to its
timing in individual and
family life cycle passage.
Past experiences and stories

perspectives to understand

of adversity and family response can generate

and strengthen family functioning in relation

catastrophic expectations or can serve as models

to its broader socio-cultural context and multi-

in overcoming difficulties.

generational life cycle passage.

Varied adaptational pathways in resilience

Bio-psycho-social systems orientation

Most major stressors are not simply a short-

From a bio-psycho-social systems orientation,

term single event but rather a complex set

risk and resilience are viewed in light of multiple,

of changing conditions with a past history

recursive influences involving individuals,

and a future course (Rutter, 1987). Family

families, and larger social systems. Problems

can result from an interaction of individual,

resilience involves varied adaptational pathways

family, or community vulnerability in the impact

over time, from the approach taken to a

of stressful life experiences. Symptoms may

threatening event on the horizon, through

be primarily biologically based, as in serious

disruptive transitions, subsequent shockwaves

illness, or largely influenced by socio-cultural

in the immediate aftermath, and long-term

variables, such as barriers of poverty and

reorganisation. For instance, how a family

discrimination that render some families or

approaches an impending death, facilitates

communities more at risk. Family distress may

emotional sharing and meaning making,

result from unsuccessful attempts to cope with

effectively reorganises, and fosters reinvestment

an overwhelming situation. Symptoms may be

in life pursuits will influence the immediate and

generated by a crisis event, such as traumatic

long-term adaptation to loss for all members and

loss or suicide in the family, or by the wider

their relationships (Walsh & McGoldrick, 2004).

impact of a large-scale disaster (Walsh, 2007).

Given the complexity of life situations, no single

The family, peer group, community resources,

coping response is invariably most successful;

school or work settings, and other social systems

different strategies may prove useful in meeting

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new challenges. Some approaches that are

reactivate painful memories and emotions

functional in the short-term may rigidify and

from the past, as in post-traumatic stress

become dysfunctional over time. Practitioners

reactions, or family histories of abuse, neglect

work with families at various steps or transitions

or violence. The convergence of developmental

along their journey, helping them to integrate

and multi-generational strains increases the risk

what has happened and to meet immediate and

for complications (Carter & McGoldrick, 1999).

future challenges.

Unresolved past losses can resurface with a

current or threatened loss (Walsh & McGoldrick,

Pile-up of stressors

2004). Family members may lose perspective and

Some families may do well with a short-term

conflate immediate situations with past events.

crisis but buckle under the strains of persistent

It is important to inquire about family stories of

or recurrent challenges, as
with prolonged joblessness or
a chronic illness. A pile-up of
internal and external stressors
can overwhelm the family,
heightening vulnerability
and risk for subsequent
problems. Reeling from
one crisis to the next, the
cumulative pressures can be
overwhelming for a family.

past adversity and how they

Family resilience-oriented
practice builds on principles
and techniques common
among strength-based
collaborative approaches,
but attends more centrally
to links between presenting
symptoms and family
stressors

Family life cycle perspective

influence future expectations,

from an optimistic outlook
to catastrophic fears.
Particularly noteworthy are
multi-generational anniversary
patterns.
In sum, symptoms of distress
are assessed in temporal
context as well as family and
social contexts. A family
timeline and a genogram

Functioning and symptoms of

are essential tools for clinicians to schematise

distress are assessed in the context of the multi-

relationship information, track systems patterns,

generational family system as it moves forward

and guide intervention planning (McGoldrick,

across the life cycle (Carter & McGoldrick, 1999).

Gerson, & Petry, 2008). Whereas genograms

A family resilience practice approach focuses

are most often used to focus on problematic

on family adaptation around nodal events that

family-of-origin patterns, a resilience-oriented

are stressful and disruptive. These include

approach also searches for positive influences,

complications with predictable, normative

past, present, and potential. We inquire about

transitions, such as parenthood and adolescence,

resourceful ways a family or an elder dealt

and those with unexpected, untimely events,

with past adversity, and models of resilience

such as disabilities or death of a child.

in the kin network that might be drawn on to

inspire efforts to master current challenges. Key

Frequently, individual symptoms may coincide

principles of the practice framework are outlined

with stressful transitions, such as parental

in tables one and two on page 12.

remarriage, that require boundary shifts and

redefinition of roles and relationships.

Practice principles and applications

Legacies of the past

Family resilience-oriented practice builds on

A multi-generational perspective is also required.

principles and techniques common among

Distress is heightened when current stressors

strength-based collaborative approaches,

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Table 1

Table 2

Family resilience: conceptual

framework for practice

Practice principles to strengthen

family resilience

Resilience-oriented practice: facilitate familys

ability to rebound from crises and overcome
persistent adversity, strengthened and more
resourceful.

Convey conviction in potential to overcome

adversity
Humanise and contextualise distress:
- understandable, common in adverse situation,
extreme conditions
- depathologise; decrease stigma, shame, blame
Provide safe haven, compassion for sharing
stories of suffering and struggle
Facilitate family communication, mutual support,
collaboration
Identify and build strengths alongside
vulnerabilities
Build relational lifelines, networks:
- tap into kin, community, and spiritual
resources
Seize opportunities to master the possible:
- learning, positive growth, and stronger bonds
- shift focus from problems to possibilities,
creativity
- steps to attain future hopes and dreams
Integrate adversity and resilience into individual
and relational life passage.

Meta-framework for community-based services:

relational view of human resilience
shift from deficit view of families: challenged by
adversity
- potential for repair and growth
grounded in developmental and systemic theory
- bio-psycho-social-spiritual influences
- multi-systemic approach: family, community,
larger systems
stressors impact family system, family response
influences
- recovery of all members, relationships, and
family unit
contextual view of crisis, distress, and adaptation
- family, larger systems, and socio-cultural
influences
- temporal influences
timing of symptoms and family crisis
events
pile-up of stressors, persistent adversity
multi-generational family life cycle
influences
varied adaptational challenges and
pathways in resilience.

in family organisation, resilience is fostered

by: (1) flexible yet stable structure with
strong leadership, (2) connectedness, and (3)
kin, social, and community resources

but attends more centrally to links between

presenting symptoms and family stressors.
Interventions are directed to strengthen
relational bonds and tap resources that can

communication processes facilitate resilience

through: (1) information clarity, (2) open
expression of feelings and empathic response,
and (3) collaborative problem solving and
proactive approach to future challenges.

reduce vulnerability and support coping,

adaptation, and positive growth.
Synthesising findings in research on resilience
and well-functioning families, the Walsh
family resilience framework was designed to

Offering a collaborative, non-pathologising

guide practice assessment and intervention

approach, a family resilience framework

by strengthening key processes for resilience

has useful application in a range of adverse

(Walsh, 2003a; 2006):

situations (Walsh, 2002; 2006):

family belief systems support resilience when

they help members: (1) make meaning of
crisis situations, (2) sustain a hopeful positive
outlook, and (3) draw on transcendent or
spiritual values and purpose, most often
through spiritual faith, practices, and
community (Walsh, 2008, in press)

healing from crisis, trauma, major disasters,

and loss

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navigating disruptive transitions (e.g.

separation, divorce, migration)
mastering multi-stress challenges of chronic
conditions (e.g. illness, poverty)

12

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 bouncing forward
to adapt to new life
challenges.
Resilience-oriented practice
may involve individual,
couple, family, and extended
kin sessions in a variety
of formats including brief
family consultations, psycho-

change families, this strength-

Resilience theory and

research support clinical
convictions that all
families even the most
troubled have the
potential for adaptation,
repair, and growth

based approach enables

workers, in collaboration with
family members, to draw out
the abilities and potential
in every family, and to
encourage the active process
of self-righting and growth.
For helping professionals,
the therapeutic process is

educational multi-family

enriched as we bring out

groups, or more intensive

family therapy. Multi-systemic approaches may

the best in families and practice the art of the

also involve community agencies, or workplace,

possible.

school, healthcare, foster care, justice, and

other larger systems. Periodic, cost-effective
modules can be timed for critical phases of a

References

long-term adaptational process (Walsh, 2006).

Anthony, E. J., & Cohler, B. J. (1987). The invulnerable

child. New York: Guilford Press.

Conclusion

Calhoun, L. G., & Tedeschi, R. G. (Eds.). (2006).

Handbook of Posttraumatic growth: Research and
practice. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

The very flexibility of the concept of resilience

lends itself to many varied applications with

Carter, B., & McGoldrick, M. (1999). The Expanded

Family Life Cycle: Individual, family, and social
perspectives. (3rd ed.). Needham Hill: Allyn & Bacon.

diverse populations. A family resilience

framework can be applied usefully with a wide

FIgley, C., & McCubbin, H. (Ed.) (1983). Stress and the

family: Coping with catastrophe. New York: BrunnerMazel.

range of crisis situations and persistent life

challenges. This approach affirms the varied
pathways that can be forged for resilience.

Kaufman, J., & Ziegler, E. (1987). Do abused children

become abusive parents? American Journal of
Orthopsychiatry, 57, 186-192.

The need to strengthen family resilience has

never been more urgent, as families today are

Luthar, S. S., Cicchetti, D., & Becker, B. (2000). The

construct of resilience: A critical evaluation and
guidelines for future work. Child Development, 71,
543-562.

buffeted by stresses and the uncertainties of

economic, political, social, and environmental
upheaval. With increasing family diversity,

McCubbin, H., McCubbin, M., McCubbin, A., &

Futrell, J. (Eds.). (1998). Resiliency in ethnic minority
families. Vol. 2. African-American families. Thousand
Oaks: Sage.

no single model of family health fits all.

Yet, resilience theory and research support
clinical convictions that all families even
the most troubled have the potential for

McCubbin, H., McCubbin, M., Thompson, E., &

Fromer, J. (Eds.). (1998). Resiliency in ethnic minority
families. Vol. 1. Native and immigrant families.
Thousand Oaks: Sage.

adaptation, repair, and growth. A family

resilience orientation provides a positive and
pragmatic framework that guides interventions

McCubbin, H. & Patterson, J. M. (1983). The

family stress process: The Double ABCX model of
adjustment and adaptation. Marriage and Family
Review, 6 (1-2)s, 7-37.

to strengthen family processes for resilience as

presenting problems are addressed. Rather than
simply providing a set of techniques to treat or

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McGoldrick, M., Gerson, R., & Petry, S. (2008).

Genograms: Assessment and intervention. (3rd. ed.)
New York, Norton.

Werner, E. E. (1993). Risk, resilience, and recovery:

Perspectives from the Kauai longitudinal study.
Development and psychopathology, 5, 503-515.

Rutter, M. (1987). Psychosocial resilience and

protective mechanisms. American Journal of
Orthopsychiatry, 57, 316-331.

Werner, E. E., & Johnson, J. L. (1999). Can we apply

resilience? In M.D. Glantz and J. L. Johnson (Eds.)
Resilience and development: Positive life adaptations.
(pp. 259-268). New York: Academic/Plenum Pub.

Tedeschi, R. G., & Calhoun, L. G. (1996). The

Posttraumatic Growth Inventory: Measuring the
positive legacy of trauma. Journal of Traumatic
Stress, 9, 455-471.

Werner, E. E., & Smith, R. (1992). Overcoming the

odds. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Wolin, S., & Wolin, S. (1993). The resilient self: How
survivors of troubled families rise above adversity.
New York: Villard Books.

Van der Kolk, B. A., McFarlane, A. C., & Weisaeth,

L. (Eds.) (1996). Traumatic stress: The effects of
overwhelming experience on mind, body, and society.
New York: Guilford.
Walsh, F. (1996). The concept of family resilience:
Crisis and challenge. Family Process, 35, 261-281.

Froma Walsh is the Mose and Sylvia Firestone Professor in

the School of Social Service Administration and Professor
in the Department of Psychiatry, Pritzker School of
Medicine, at the University of Chicago. Her fields of
special interest include family systems and developmental
theory, family resilience practice applications, family
and couples therapy, end-of-life issues, recovery from
trauma and loss, and contemporary family diversity and
challenges.

Walsh, F. (2002). A family resilience framework:

Innovative practice applications. Family Relations,
51(2), 130-137.
Walsh, F. (2003a). Family resilience: A framework for
clinical practice. Family Process, 42(1), 1-18.
Walsh, F. (2003b). Normal family processes: Growing
diversity and complexity. (3rd ed.) New York:
Guilford Press.
Walsh, F. (2006). Strengthening family resilience. 2nd
ed. New York: Guilford Press.
Walsh, F. (2007). Traumatic loss and major disasters:
Strengthening family and community resilience.
Family Process, 46, 207-227.
Walsh, F. (Ed.). (in press). Spiritual resources in
family therapy. 2nd Ed. New York: Guilford Press.
Walsh, F., & McGoldrick, M. (Eds.). (2004). Living
beyond loss: Death in the family (2nd ed.). New York:
Norton.

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Complexity and social work

theory and practice
Malcolm Payne
Most social workers, wherever they work, deal

team continued to be involved, partly because

with complex life situations in their practice. If

of continuing contact with Harry, who was

situations were not difficult in various ways or

considered a risk.

complex in their ramifications, people would

Catherine brought up Yvonne and John largely

often manage them without calling on help

on her own, but three years ago was diagnosed

from a social worker. This paper focuses on the

with cervical cancer. More recently, it became

implications of the complexity of the situations

clear that she had only a few months to live, and

that social workers deal with for the way in

arrangements for the children

which they use theory in

their practice. I argue that
social work theory does
not adequately guide social
workers practice in such
complex situations. They

Most social workers,

wherever they work, deal
with complex life situations
in their practice

after her death needed to

be planned. In law Harry
would be entitled to resume
parental responsibilities after
Catherines death, and he was
not considered a safe parent.

need to incorporate a range

of additional knowledge and skill to make good

As Catherine became frailer, Yvonne remained at

use of practice theory.

home with her mother. John increasingly stayed

with Catherines sister, Louise, and his cousins.

Yvonne (16) and John (11), the children of

The familys plan was that he would move there

Catherine and Harry, are an example of the kind

permanently when Catherine died, while Yvonne

of complexity that many social workers face in

would stay in Catherines home. During the last

their practice.

few weeks of Catherines life, Harry, who had

sporadic contact with the children, turned up

There were several break-ups between Catherine

at Catherines home asking to see them. On two

and Harry after Yvonne was born, partly

occasions he was drunk and contact was refused,

caused by Harrys violence. The final break-up

but his attitude became more demanding as the

came just after her pregnancy with John was

weeks went on.

confirmed. Harry eventually went to live with

another woman, whose children were considered

On the weekend of Catherines death, Harry

at risk and removed from the home because

called, drunk again, at Louises house in another

of his violence. The local child protection

town to try to see John. He sat outside in the car,

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was threatening and had to be asked to leave

the responsibility of the social workers

involved to assess and respond to the need
and risk affecting various participants on
behalf of the state

by the police. Louise had no rights as a parent,

but she and her husband were concerned about
Harry visiting. The child protection responsibility

the social work principle of engaging family

members and finding respectful, open ways to
do this, especially in the face of hostility or
violence

for John was to transfer to the authorities in

Louises hometown, and a meeting was set up
to transfer the case. However, Yvonne also
explained to the social worker that she felt the

the complexity of trying to create safe

contact between children and their noncustodial parent/s to maintain family
relationships, identity and belonging

need for protection if Harry visited the original

family home.
The various strands of this situation highlight

the delicate balance of a strengths-based

practice approach in child protection work
while at the same time considering risks,
needs, rights and wishes of all parties

different aspects of social work practice. Among

these strands are:
the childrens direct experience of marriage
break-up and domestic
violence in their lives from
This list
a young age
Johns experience of
impending and actual
separation from his sister
and incorporation into
another family, which is
itself reforming to include
him

of issues is not
exhaustive but it reminds
us that social workers deal
both in making practical
arrangements, and in the
emotional and behavioural
content of the situations

Johns integration into a

new school at a time of
bereavement, and the consequences of this
for his school and other pupils

Yvonne taking on
independent responsibility
for her own living
arrangements and a house
at the age of sixteen
the administrative
complexities of
transferring responsibility
for children at risk from
one public authority to
another

the professional and administrative

responsibilities for liaison about a complex
family situation involving different public
authorities and responsibilities.

the childrens recent experience of the death

of a parent, probably the first major death of
someone close to them in their lives

This list of issues is not exhaustive but it reminds

us that social workers deal both in making

the childrens experience of threat from their

fathers behaviour, and their perceptions and
understanding of these family dynamics

practical arrangements, and in the emotional

Harrys issues with alcohol, and his emotional

and social responses to parenthood in his two
families

and have to make them work. They also have

and behavioural content of the situations. They

are part of official and administrative systems
to take into account the legal rights and duties
that they have as professionals and officials,

the legal complexities of parental rights and

responsibilities where children are protected
by removal from or separation from their
parents, and where family members take on
parental responsibilities

and those that their clients have as parents

and citizens. For example, there is an informal
arrangement between Catherine and her sister
for Johns care after her death that might be
fine in many families, although it would usually

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be better to confirm it through legal processes.

are no such luxuries in full-time professional

However, this is inadequate in dealing with the

practice.

complicated parental rights and behavioural

Practice theory is an aspect of social work

difficulties in this situation.

theory concerned with how to do social work,

Unlike Catherines doctors and nurses, who

in which ideas are developed to prescribe

mainly focused on her treatment and comfort as

particular models of practice or ways of

she approached death, the focus of social work

practising (Payne, 2005a). Practice theory

is on the social systems of which individuals are

tries to make sense of the work social workers

a part. So social workers were involved with

actually do, and includes formal and informal

important social issues for several members of

sets of ideas. Formal practice theory is written,

the family, and were responsible for making a

usually published, evidence and analysis worked

variety of social systems work properly. For

out in a rational structured form. It offers

example, a thoughtful social worker would

general ideas that may be applied deductively to

realise that Johns bereavement at a young age

particular practice situations; that is, the ideas

might well have an emotional

impact on his classmates at
school that would need to be
managed.
The complexity is of different
kinds. Some of it arises

are applied to the situation

Informal practice theory

draws on ideas and
experience gained in life
and practice

rather than the situation

generating ideas.
Informal practice theory
draws on ideas and
experience gained in life
and practice. It is applied

because there are several

individuals and family groups involved, some

inductively, that is, the theory derives from

because a variety of social and behavioural

particular situations and is generalised to

issues are present, some because of a mixture of

other relevant practice situations. This

agencies and legal and official responsibilities.

requires decisions about similarities and

Social workers have to deal simultaneously with

differences between situations to decide if the

each of these different aspects of complexity.

generalisation is relevant. Practice theory is not

the only form of social work theory: there are
also theories about what social work is and of

Weaknesses in social work theory and

knowledge

psychological and social knowledge about the

clients world (Sibeon, 1990).

The assumptions of the theory and knowledge

bases of social work do not fit complexity of

The assumption of evidence-based or research-

this kind, even though it is commonplace in

aware practice is that fairly clear prescriptions

practice. This is one of the reasons that social

for action can be identified from research, but

workers often comment that the theory that

this does not consider how these are mediated

they are taught on their courses is sometimes

by official or legal responsibilities or agency

unhelpful when they reach full-scale practice.

function (Webb, 2001). Practice theory generally

In education, while writing essays about the

prescribes actions that take place with one

application of theory to practice, and in practice

client or family. Many practice theories such as

placements, it is possible to limit the range of

task-centred practice, solution-focused work or

factors that a practitioner deals with. There

cognitive behavioural practice presume a precise

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targeting of specific behaviours (Payne, 2005a).

and understanding to incorporate a range

These systems of thought may give us ideas

of knowledge about the services and social

about a situation and organise a response that

environments in which they work. Pawson et

people can understand and accept. For example,

als (2003) work refers to:

task-centred practice helps practitioners and

organisational knowledge, about government

and agency organisation and regulation

clients identify a series of tasks to be shared.

Solution-focused work generalises successes

practitioner knowledge, drawn from

experience of practice, which tends to be
tacit, personal and context-specific

in clients lives to other issues where they are

having difficulty. In both sets of ideas, this helps
practitioners and clients.

user knowledge, drawn from users knowledge

of their lives, situation and use of services,
including the views of children and young
people

While such theories may be helpful as part of

practice, the situations practitioners work with
are not the main focus of much social work

research knowledge, drawn from systematic

investigation disseminated in reports

practice theory. Because it defines the ideas

that should be applied to a situation, it does not
make provision for ideas to
emerge from the situation
that practitioners are dealing
with. Therefore, it does not
allow clients and others in
the family system to develop
and act on ideas about
how they might be dealt
with. Complex relationships
between different family
groups, all with a legitimate
call on some aspects of

Complex relationships
between different family
groups, all with a legitimate
call on some aspects of
social welfare provision,
and the provision of
packages of caring services
lie outside most practice
theory prescriptions

bring this knowledge together

to practice in ways that
respond to their personal
style of relating to people
and forms of response
determined by their agency
to their roles. Among the less

and the provision of packages of caring services

well-specified elements of practice that may be

lie outside most practice theory prescriptions.

relevant are:

Practice theory also does not deal with working

across several organisations with different roles

caring, which brings together two elements:

a receptiveness and openness to clients
needs and interests and a proactive response
to the understanding thus gained about
clients and their situation, so that clients
personal development and control of their
circumstances is enhanced (Mayeroff, 1971;
Noddings, 1984; Payne, 2008)

and legal and administrative mandates.

Bringing knowledge and understanding

together
Social workers therefore need more than
practice theory to deal with complex situations.

enhancing resilience, improving the capacity

of individuals and families to respond to
the social issues that they face in their life
(Oliviere and Monroe, 2007; Walsh, 2006)

They need to bring the ideas and techniques

that come from practice theory together
with other aspects of social work knowledge

15740 NOW Mar 08_39.indd 20

Moreover, social workers

and colleagues as appropriate

social welfare provision,

SOCIAL WORK NOW: APRIL 2008

policy community
knowledge, drawn from
administrators, official
documentation and analysis
of policy research.

18

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 emotional labour and intelligence,

responding in a way that is acceptable to the
participants to their feelings and improving
the participants capacity to deal with the
emotional stresses of their situation (James,
1993; Morrison, 2007)

difficulties arising from his bereavement and his

support, being prepared to stand alongside

people as they work through what is
happening to them (Sheppard, 2004)

work in the various relationships. They could

process, as a way of understanding the

trajectory of events (Payne, 2005b).

of course this knowledge would help them know

Practice frameworks provide further

Understanding the process of what is happening

opportunities to collate theory, research and

for Yvonne and John in their bereavement and

knowledge types into conceptual guides for

various losses would also be important. In this

practice (Healy, 2005; Connolly, 2006). Social

way, practitioners could work out how concerns

work supervision also provides an important

would mount at the time of loss, and when

change of placement.
The family situation is so complex that
practitioners would rely on family members to
interpret behaviour and understand what would
not solely rely on over-simplified assumptions
about family or human development, although
what kinds of issues to raise questions about.

mechanism for the

exploration of these issues so
that practice is informed in
ways that strengthen good
outcomes for children and
their families.
Looking again at Yvonne and
Johns situation, the various
social workers involved

extra effort to help would

Practice frameworks
provide further
opportunities to collate
theory, research and
knowledge types into
conceptual guides for
practice

be required. It would be
important to be prepared to
listen to the different concerns
of the participants: John and
Yvonnes losses and fears;
Louises anxieties about the
impact of the bereavement and
taking John into her family;
and also Harry, since his

would need a great deal

behaviour may reflect rising

of organisational and practitioner knowledge

stresses and provide opportunity to facilitate some

about how the agencies and organisations need

intervention to help him and secure relationships

to be contacted, chased and supported to deal

for Yvonne and John. Being prepared to act

with the various problems the children face.

to help resolve particular issues as they arise is

Intervening in this situation would require

supportive because it means standing alongside

active pursuit of the links to ensure that John

people at a difficult time.

and Yvonne were safe. The responsibility is

splintered so much that practitioners could not
assume that the cases would transfer between

Conclusion

authorities cleanly; that Yvonne would be

I have argued that dealing with complexity

helped to deal with her bereavement in her new

requires more of social workers than following

fairly isolated position, or that the police would

prescriptions of practice theory that may be too

intervene effectively to protect Yvonne in her

oversimplified to be useful in complex situations.

mothers home; or that the school would be able

Practice theory may be applicable to particular

to understand and deal with Johns emotional

aspects of situations within the complexity of

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peoples lives. It may offer ideas about how to

Payne, M. (2005b). Social work process. In Adams,

R., Dominelli, L and Payne, M. (eds). Social Work
Futures: Crossing Boundaries, Transforming Practice.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 21-35.

see the situation that clients are dealing with.

However, social workers also need to call on a
range of sources of knowledge and respond to

Payne, M. (2008). Social Care Practice in Context.

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

the complexity in many of the situations that

they deal with by analysing and understanding

Sheppard, M. (2004). An evaluation of social support

intervention with depressed mothers in child and
family care. British Journal of Social Work, 34,
939-60.

the process and trajectory of issues as they have

arisen in clients lives. They need to use that
knowledge and theory in a caring, emotionally

Sibeon, R. (1990). Comment on the structure and

forms of social work knowledge. Social Work and
Social Sciences Review, 1(1), 29-44.

intelligent and supportive way with the aim of

disentangling the various elements of a complex
system and enhancing the resilience both of the

Walsh, F. (2006). Strengthening Family Resilience.

(2nd ed). New York: Guilford.

people involved and the social and organisational

systems that they are entwined with.

Webb, S. A. (2001). Some considerations on the

validity of evidence-based practice in social work.
British Journal of Social Work, 31(1), 57-79.

R EFE R ENCES
Connolly, M. (2006). Practice frameworks:
Conceptual maps to guide practice in child welfare.
BJSW Advance Access published online on June 16,
2006, British Journal of Social Work, doi: 10.1093/
bjsw/bc1049.

Malcolm Payne is Director, Psycho-social and Spiritual

Care, St Christopher's Hospice and Honorary Professor,
Kingston University/St George's Medical School, London. He
has worked in UK probation, social services, and national
and local voluntary organisations. He is author of 'Modern
Social Work Theory' (3rd ed, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005)
and more than 250 other publications.

Healy, K. (2005). Social work theories in context:

Creating frameworks for practice. New York:
Palgrave.
James, N. (1993). Divisons of emotional labour:
disclosure and cancer. In Robb, M., Barrett, S.,
Komaromy, C., and Rogers, A. (2004) Communication,
Relationships and Care: A Reader. London:
Routledge, 259-69.
Mayeroff, M. (1971). On Caring. New York: Harper
and Row.
Morrison, T. (2007). Emotional Intelligence:
emotion and social work: context, characteristics,
complications and contribution. British Journal of
Social Work, 37(2), 245-63.
Noddings, N. (1984). Caring: A Feminine Approach to
Ethics and Moral Education, Berkeley. University of
California Press.
Oliviere, D. and Monroe, B., (eds) (2007). Resilience
in Palliative Care, Oxford: Oxford University Press
Pawson, R., Boaz, A., Grayson, L., Long, A., and
Barnes, C. (2003). Types and Quality of Knowledge in
Social Care, London: SCIE.
Payne, M. (2005a). Modern Social Work Theory. (3rd
edn). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Levels of meaning and

the case for theoretical
integration
Jerome C. Wakefield and Judith C. Baer
Cognitive therapy tends to focus on how the

2000) failed to consider the context of depressive

clients thoughts distort reality and lead to

symptoms. It thus failed to distinguish normal

anxiety and depression. But what if reality

sadness due to environmental stressors from

contains stresses that might cause anyone

genuine depressive disorders in which something

anxiety or depression? Sharon Berlin (2002)

has gone wrong with an individuals emotional

in her book, Clinical Social Work Practice: A

functioning and the individual is stuck in

Cognitive-Integrative Perspective, emphasised

a pathologically deep or prolonged state of

the need to integrate into cognitive-behavioural

sadness and associated symptoms.

assessment and treatment traditional social work

person-in-environment concerns about the real

Because sadness is biologically designed to be

challenges of the environment of the client.

an emotion experienced in response to certain

The point is fundamental: the very notion

kinds of losses and other environmental stresses,

that an individuals cognition is distorted or

one cannot infer that there is a biological or

irrational depends on a prior assessment of the

other internal dysfunction without evaluating

real environment and whether the individual is

the relationship between the environment and

reacting normally to it, so cognitive assessment

the individuals response to it. Misdiagnosis

makes no sense without bringing in the

of normal responses to distress as depressive

individuals relationship to the environment.

disorder may be the reason, for example, why

in the Dunedin longitudinal study of health

The problem of lack of attention to

outcomes in youth, fully 17% of a New Zealand

environmental context goes well beyond

sample of 26-year-old Caucasian young adults

cognitive-behavioural theory. One of us

qualified for having major depressive disorder

(Wakefield), in a recent book with sociologist

in that very year. This is a level that seems

Allan Horwitz titled The Loss of Sadness:

implausible for true disorder, but may reflect

How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow

normal reactions to stress and loss.

into Depressive Disorder (2007), argued that

the current fourth edition of the American

The realisation that cognitive-behavioural theory

Psychiatric Associations Diagnostic and

must be expanded to include assessment of

Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM;

environmental variables leads to the question:

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are there other limitations in the cognitive-

a vast empirical literature on learning but also

behavioural perspective that unnecessarily

from recent neuro-scientific discoveries that

constrain the workers understanding of

reveal the anatomy of learning; so people really

and response to the clients problem? We

do have conditioned behaviours subject to the

believe the answer is that, perhaps with

principles of learning.

cognitive-behavioural theory as a base, todays

(3) People have cognitive/representational

practitioner must be an integrationist about

mental contents including conscious beliefs and

theory and incorporate defensible insights from

desires, sometimes irrational, that motivate

a variety of theoretical perspectives into the

and guide their actions. We know this not only

basic cognitive-behavioural repertoire.

Reasons for integration of

psychotherapy theories
There are persuasive scientific
and moral arguments for the
integration of clinical ideas
in social work education
and practice. The scientific
argument for an integrationist
view of psychotherapy theory
is simple: each of the major
theories focuses on one piece
of the truth about human
nature and each of the major
theories does get at part of
the truth. There are several

from our commonsense understanding of our

own and others minds, but

The realisation that

cognitive-behavioural
theory must be expanded
to include assessment of
environmental variables
leads to the question: are
there other limitations in
the cognitive-behavioural
perspective that
unnecessarily constrain the
workers understanding of
and response to the clients
problem

levels of meaning at which

also from the remarkable

effectiveness of folk
psychology (i.e. the intuitive
understanding of people in
terms of beliefs and desires
that cause their actions)
that we use to interact with
others in our everyday lives.
For example, how is it that
all the articles from around
the world comprising this
special section converged
in New Zealand at the right
moment for publication?
The only answer is that
the various writers had

individuals operate, and all

certain beliefs about the deadline and what was

of these levels are potentially involved in a

required, and certain desires such as to have

psychosocial problem and in its treatment, but

their article included, and thus their actions

each theory treats mostly one level.

led to the convergence of the articles. There

Briefly, levels of meaning processing include at

is nothing in behavioural or psychodynamic

least the following:

theory that would begin to enable one to

predict such events. Cognitive explanation in

(1) Although not strictly in itself a level of

terms of beliefs and desires is firmly anchored

meaning, peoples meaning systems are rooted in

in this folk-psychological understanding,

biological structures that support the generation

which may itself be a biologically rooted way

of meaning in the brain.

we have of interpreting one another. But

(2) People are instrumentally conditioned

beyond folk psychology, this level of conscious

by contingent reinforcers and classically

representations is also supported by a vast

conditioned as well. We know this not only from

cognitive science empirical research tradition.

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(4) People are also influenced by an extensive

demonstrates that no one treatment works for

network of mental representations that are

everyone. To serve all clients the practitioner

outside their awareness. We know this not

must be prepared to be flexible and offer a

only from everyday experience but from a

change of treatment strategy when warranted

vast research literature in cognitive science

by the clients lack of response or incomplete

that demonstrate the unconscious activation

response to the initial intervention strategy.

of meanings, as well as from some reliable

Moreover, because each individual is operating

elements of the psychodynamic literature.

at all the meaning levels noted above, different

These unconscious meanings can interact with

sorts of interventions are often required in the

course of treatment to get

conscious meanings in ways

we are not aware of.
(5) People are shaped in ways
they may not be aware of
by cultural and family rules
and other interpersonal
processes that form the
context and background for
their actions and provide
implicit rules that may be
followed without awareness.
For example, when having
a conversation, people
from different cultures feel
comfortable standing at
different distances, some

The moral case for

integration is simply that
it is in effect a form of
malpractice to approach
the client within one
theoretical perspective
when it is scientifically
known that the truth
is more complex and
the therapeutic options
available are broader than
those encompassed by any
one theory

at aspects of the very same

problem. The different levels
are so interconnected that,
except for the biological level
(which arguably requires an
entirely different training to
directly evaluate and treat,
although all the levels are
influencing and are influenced
by biology), a worker must
be prepared to utilise any
of them with a given client,
so referring out seems a
cumbersome and inadequate
process.

closer, some further away

apparent as people adjust themselves to others

Why researchers need integration and

cooperation, not competition

comfort levels).

For most practitioners, theory even cognitive-

(at international conferences, this becomes

behavioural theory is a means to clinical goals,

The moral case for integration is simply that it

not an end in itself. Yet practitioners often

is in effect a form of malpractice to approach

become wedded to one theoretical approach in a

the client within one theoretical perspective

way that can constrain clinical decision making.

when it is scientifically known that the truth

is more complex and the therapeutic options

One common idea in support of theoretical

available are broader than those encompassed

exclusivity is that it is more scientific and

by any one theory. Informed consent requires

intellectually assertive if there are multiple,

that theoretically divergent intervention options

competing, strongly defended theories, so

be presented to the client, and that treatment

integration is a bad, even scientifically flaccid,

not be limited by the workers theoretical

idea. It is true that scientific progress is best

persuasion. The moral argument is based on the

derived and truth best revealed from the

scientific argument. It is, first, that research

vigorous clash of opposed ideas. But when it

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comes to theories of practice, this proposal is

cognitive, and psychodynamic appear each

based on an anachronistic picture of theory in

to capture some possible cases and thus to be

the mental health field. It harks back to the

about specific etiologic pathways rather than

psychotherapy wars in which universal claims

universal theories of etiology. These theories are

were made by each theory as to its truth and

not logically in competition or at least to the

therapeutic efficacy, and each theory competed

extent they are formulated in a way that they

with all the others. It seems fair to say that this

are, the formulations are needlessly inflated and

strategy has not led to a scientific resolution

ignore reality. Rather, each theory attempts to

in favour of one or another theory and has

capture one possible causal pathway that can,

not yielded much progress. The reason for this

by itself or in conjunction with the others, lead

failure is that the competition was based on

someone to become disordered. Consequently,

a misconstrual of the relationship among the

what is called for is not competition but

various theories. They were framed as mutually

cooperation to identify etiologically pure

patients and to identify the

exclusive universal theories,

but their relationship turned
out to be complementary.
If one open-mindedly
considers the evidence from
research, clinical experience,
and everyday life, it seems
apparent that all the major
theories of psychopathology
have important elements

If one open-mindedly
considers the evidence
from research, clinical
experience, and everyday
life, it seems apparent
that all the major theories
of psychopathology have
important elements of truth

role of each explanatory

hypothesis in hybrid cases. In
a multiple-etiology reality, a
competition between singleetiology nosologies is not
progressive and cannot yield
a valid diagnostic manual.
There is much to criticise in
the DSMs operationalised
definitions of various mental

of truth. The processes

disorders (Wakefield, 1996, 1997). However, one

described by behaviourists, cognitivists,

of the great contributions of the DSM has been

psychodynamicists, systems theorists, and

to provide theory-neutral criteria that do not

biological researchers all shape behaviour and

cite any etiology and, because they are based on

are all necessary to explain disorder in some

manifest symptoms, can be used by adherents

contexts. Moreover, a process may be useful

to all theoretical schools to identify individuals

in treating a disorder even when the etiology

with a certain disorder. The DSM enabled the

lies elsewhere. In other words, on the basis of

different schools to talk to one another and

the overall evidence available at this time, if

compare their theories in a way that had not

there is any theory of etiology and treatment in

happened before. This subtle but historically

which it is rational to believe, it is some version

important and beneficial contribution of the

of integrationism. From this perspective, all

DSM to providing the conceptual infrastructure

the traditional theories, if framed as universal,

for theory integration has not been adequately

exclusive alternatives, are pseudoscientific;

recognised.

their unjustifiably inflated claims are based on

ideology rather than evidence.

Types of integration

For example, the many theories of depression

Traditionally there are four forms of

behavioural, biological, systems-theoretic,

psychotherapy integration (Gold, 1996);

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technical eclecticism, the common-factors

of central elements from two or more theories,

approach, theoretical integration, and

potentially including the theories models of

assimilative integration, all of which combine

personality, psychopathology etiology, and

theory and technique. Technical eclecticism

mechanisms of psychological change. By

has been considered the most clinical and

forming one consistent theoretical system

technically oriented form of psychotherapy

incorporating different models, there is a logical

integration; however, it is the least conceptually

coherence to theoretical integration lacking in

or theoretically integrated (Stricker & Gold,

the other approaches. This allows the therapist

2003). In technical eclecticism, clinical strategies

to approach a case in a more systematic fashion.

and techniques from two or more therapies

Different theoretical assumptions are placed

are applied sequentially or in combination.

within one overarching theory, so the therapist

Techniques are chosen based on clinical

can make principled judgments.

match to the needs of the patient without

Safran and Messer (1997)

any systematic theoretical

rationale, based on clinical
skill and intuition as well as
patient preference.
Common factor integration
is based on the idea that

Common factor integration

is based on the idea that
groups of therapies share
similar change processes
and techniques

argue from a postmodernist

position that different
theories have such different
ontological assumptions
that in principle they can
never be theoretically or

groups of therapies share

technically integrated. This

similar change processes and

seems a dubious argument, if

techniques (Rosenzweig, 1936). Additionally, all

we are right that the theories capture different

therapies share commonalities such as socially

levels of the meaning system that in fact does

sanctioned rituals, the provision of hope, and

exist in human beings and that the different

encouragement to the client (Frank, 1961).

levels do interact in overall functioning. This

When using the common factors approach,

is because the parts of the theories that reflect

the therapist attempts to identify which of

reality do interact and are part of one larger

the common factors will be most important in

reality that a future theory ought to be able

interventions for specific cases; then a review of

to capture. The postmodernist view seems

the relevant intervention and psychotherapeutic

a dead end intellectually that freezes us in a

interactions is conducted to determine those

state of therapeutic ideology. The theories

as currently stated are incompatible in part

that best fit the clients situation. The goal is to

because they each claim to have the exclusive

provide the client with the best possible unique

truth and apply to all possible situations,

combination of known therapeutic factors to

which is false, and in part because each of the

ameliorate his or her problems.

theories is just incorrect on many points. The

Common factors integration often combines

point of theoretical integration is to evaluate

insight, new relational learning and experiences,

which components of each theory deserve to

as well as hope by way of the therapeutic

be retained, to moderate the claims of each

relationship. The therapeutic relationship is now

so they can be placed within a larger system,

believed to be the most potent common factor.

and to hypothesise how the overall system

Theoretical integration consists of a synthesis

of interacting levels of meaning works so

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that intervention strategies can be devised

its particular concerns, purposes, methods,

accordingly.

strengths, and limits, and no single approach

however encompassing it may seem can

However, there has as yet been no successful

possibly meet all needs over the course of

super-ordinate integration that includes

intervention.

personality, psychopathology, worldview, metatheoretical and epistemological assumptions, or

Another answer to the challenges of integrating

a theoretically coherent and adequate technical

diverse theoretical approaches is assimilative

eclecticism (Safran & Messer, 1997). One

integration. Stanley Messer (2001) argues that

answer, other than awaiting a future theoretical

theories of therapy are grounded in observation

integration, has been to embrace theoretical

and evidence, but contain multiple truths

pluralism. The pluralistic tradition falls within

defined and contained by the interpersonal,

postmodernism, and holds that one theory

historical, and physical context in which

cannot pre-empt an alternative organisation

interventions occur. Theoretically integrative

approaches are assimilative

of the evidence; therefore,

the best way to approximate
truth is to have multiple
theories competing by way
of evidence (Safran & Messer,
1997; Borden, 2008).
Pluralist points of view
emphasise the current limits
of human understanding
and assume that no single

Pluralist points of view

emphasise the current limits
of human understanding
and assume that no single
framework captures the
variety and complexity of
actual experience in the
real world

framework captures the

when they start from one

approach as fixed and primary
and open themselves to
incorporate new techniques
into the existing conceptual
model of practice. When the
therapeutic context differs
from the context in which
the new techniques were
developed, the meaning,
impact, and use of the

variety and complexity of actual experience

interventions may be modified and reinterpreted

in the real world. Thinkers and practitioners

to fit the primary model. The psychodynamically

approach concerns from multiple, independent

based integrative therapy developed by Stricker

perspectives, realising that there are mutually

and Gold (1996) is an example of assimilative

exclusive descriptions of the world and

integration according to Messer. This is because

equally valid points of view that inevitably

the therapy proceeds along standard guidelines,

contradict one another. In this respect, pluralist

but other methods are used as needed and

perspectives challenge notions of grand theories

these may advance psychodynamic goals while

that presume to assert universal truths, and

affecting the target problem.

take the more realistic position that theoretical

formulations and empirical findings at best

Next steps in integration what

cognitive theory might assimilate from
psychodynamics

provide partial, incomplete understanding of

experience. From a pluralist point of view,
then, theories serve a range of functions,
providing tools for critical thinking and decision-

Cognitivism attributes problems to irrational

making as practitioners carry out their work.

or distorted cognitions. It thus holds that the

Every theoretical system is distinguished by

solution is to correct beliefs through disputation

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or learning, the latter including, for example,

conflict. Weakness of will is the single most

extinction or disruption of negative thoughts

basic challenge to the cognitivist position.

and reinforcement of positive thoughts. What

For example, if I am having a problem eating

might such cognitive theory still learn from the

cake, the cognitivist looks for the irrational or

psychodynamic tradition?

distorted beliefs that lead to the self defeating

behaviour.

One lesson that cognitions can be unconscious

has already been learned, both with respect

However, what psychodynamicists see is

to the individuals initial lack of awareness of

that, even if all of the beliefs are lined in the

automatic thoughts and to the deeper lack

right direction, and even if the client clearly,

of awareness of the meaning schemas that

rationally, and undistortedly understands that

generate the automatic thoughts. With respect

it is better not to eat the cake, the patient may

to the existence of mental representations

still eat the cake. The psychodynamic insight is

outside of awareness, there has been a

that the problem is not always essentially one

convergence to some extent

of cognitive-behavioural
and psychoanalytic views.
To take one example: The
cognitive-behavioural
theorist Aaron Beck (1976)
posits deep schema derived
from childhood experiences

of cognition at all; rather

The intellectual apparatus

of psychoanalysis is aimed
at understanding how
human problems go beyond
what can be accounted for
by cognitivism

action may flow from a

desire other than the one
attached to the preferred
cognition. Cognitivists, like
the philosopher Socrates,
tend to see humans as having
rational thoughts that lead

that shape and generate the

to action; psychodynamicists

automatic negative thoughts

see that thoughts are often

that people have about their relationships

in competition with each other and that the

and other aspects of their lives. John Bowlby

rational thought does not always win in the

(1958), the object-relations theorist responsible

competition to cause action. Thus no amount of

for attachment theory, similarly posits mental

adjustment of thought insures the solution to a

representations outside of awareness that are

problem of impulsive or self defeating action.

derived from childhood attachment patters

Weakness of will occurs when there is

and constitute an internal working model

conflict between desires and the best desire

of attachment that shapes expectations in

does not win. Thus, to deal with symptoms,

relationships throughout life. These views are in

psychodynamicists attend to internal conflict.

many ways quite congruent.

One problem in resolving conflict is that desires

In our view there are other aspects of

are not always integrated and rationally judged

psychodynamic theory that could be usefully

one against the other. Thus psychodynamicists

assimilated to cognitive theory. The intellectual

work on helping people to recognise their

apparatus of psychoanalysis is aimed at

conflicted desire and to integrate them within

understanding how human problems go beyond

their rational calculus to the degree possible.

what can be accounted for by cognitivism. The

Because conflict is not recognised as basic by

two most essential problems not dealt with

cognitivists, this aspect of mental functioning

by cognitive theory are weakness of will and

is essentially ignored. We believe an enlarged

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cognitive viewpoint that assimilates selected

Stricker, G., & Gold, J. (2003). Integrative approaches

to psychotherapy. In Alan S. Gurman and Stanley B.
Messer (Eds). Essential Psychotherapies, second ed,
(pp. 317-349).

insights from the psychodynamic approach

in this way offers a fruitful step toward the
grander synthesis for which the field is waiting.

Stricker, G., & Gold, J.R. (1996). An assimilative

model for psychodynamically oriented integrative
psychotherapy. Clinical Psychology: Science and
Practice, 3, 47-58.

References
American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth
Edition, Text Revision. Washington, DC, American
Psychiatric Association, 2000.

Wakefield, J.C. (1996). DSM-IV: Are we making

diagnostic progress? Contemporary Psychology, 41,
646-652.
Wakefield, J.C. (1997). Diagnosing DSM-IV: Part
1 DSM-IV and the concept of mental disorder.
Behavioral Research and Therapy, 35, 633-650.

Beck, A.T. (1976). Cognitive therapy and the

emotional disorders. New York: International
Universities Press.
Berlin, S. (2002). Clinical social work practice: A
cognitive-integrative perspective. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Borden, W. (2008). Comparative theory and
integrative perspectives in psychosocial intervention.
In A. Roberts (Ed), Social Workers Desk Reference.
New York: Oxford University Press.

Jerome C. Wakefield, Ph.D., DSW is University Professor,

Professor of Social Work, and Professor of Psychiatry at
New York University. He holds two doctorates, in Social
Work and in Philosophy, both from the University of
California-Berkeley. He has published extensively on the
conceptual and theoretical foundations of the mental
health professions.

Bowlby, J. (1958). The nature of the childs tie to his

mother. International Journal of Psych-Analysis, 39.
350-373.
Frank, J. (1961). Persuasion and healing. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press.
Gold, J. (1996). Key concepts in psychotherapy
integration. New York: Plenum Press.

Judith C. Baer, Ph.D., is an associate professor at Rutgers,

The State University of New Jersey. She teaches advanced
theories of practice in the M.S.W. and Ph.D. programs. Her
research interests include attachment relationships, and
mentalisation during phases of adolescent development.

Horwitz, A.V. & Wakefield, J.C. (2007). The loss

of sadness: How psychiatry transformed normal
sorrow into depressive disorder. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Messer, S.B. (2001). Assimilative integration Journal
of Psychotherapy Integration, (11) (1), 1-4.
Rosenzweig, S. (1936). Some implicit common factors
in diverse methods of psychotherapy. American
Journal of Orthospychiatry, 6, 412-415.
Safran, J.D., & Messer, S.B. (1997). Psychotherapy
integration: A post-modern critique. Clinical
Psychology: Science and Practice, 4, 140-152.

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Practicing place: everyday

contexts in child and family
welfare
Susan P. Kemp Ph.D.
No one lives in the world in general

In various forms, from home-based family

Clifford Geertz, 1996.

preservation services to community-based

interventions, place-based services have long

Place, and its corollary, displacement, lie at

been a hallmark of child welfare practice.

the centre of child welfare practice. Child

Yet with some exceptions (see e.g. Berrick,

neglect, the issue that more than any other

2006; Crampton, 2007), place has received

brings children and families into contact with

surprisingly little attention in child welfare

child welfare services, is intrinsically linked

discussions. Meanwhile, a growing body of

with everyday life in difficult places. The loss

theoretical and empirical scholarship in other

of place, through homelessness, for example,

fields points to the mediating role of place, for

or refugee status, creates other risks to family

better of worse, in a range of health, mental

wellbeing. Efforts to stabilise vulnerable

health, and developmental outcomes (see e.g.,

families and prevent child placement typically

Cummins et al, 2007; Evans, 2004). Given its

involve place-based services and supports. If

obvious centrality in the lives of vulnerable

children must be removed from their families,

children and families, it seems time for the field

place once again looms large in child welfare

to grapple more seriously with this issue.

decision-making. Should children ideally be

This brief paper takes some initial steps in this

placed in their home communities, even if

direction. Since to practice differently we

these neighbourhoods pose risks to healthy

must first revisit the conceptual frameworks

development? How do we balance the choice

on which our practice depends, I begin with

between a foster placement near home and

an expanded definition of place, focusing on

placement with extended family at a distance?

two key domains: place as site of experience,

When children experience multiple foster

identity and meaning; and place as a site of

placements, what role does the repeated loss of

power and inequality. Building on these ideas,

place play in the problems these children face?

I then offer some preliminary suggestions for

And returning children home, the child welfare

place-sensitive practice, focusing on assessment

system again focuses on providing place-based

and engagement. These may in turn stimulate

supports for fragile family ecosystems.

further thought and conversation about the

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Place and meaning

interventive possibilities in a more thoroughgoing focus on place in child welfare practice.

Who we are relates to where we are: As

people fashion places, so, too, do they fashion

Re/thinking place

themselves (Feld & Basso, 1996, p. 11). For

Place is the local, lived articulation of sense,

indigenous peoples, place and self are one. A

body, identity, environment, and culture:

Hawaiian educational leader tells Malulani

A person is always in and of place. Place is

Meyer (2001), I am shaped by my geography (p.

captured in the intersubjective sharing of

128). This connection with the land is spiritual,

experience and social practice. Place in this

symbolic, and physical; Im not in the place

sense is not opposite to space, but connected

but the place is in me (Suopjarvi, cited in Zapf,

to and produced by spatial practices and

2005, p. 637). To care for place is to care for

logics (Kelly, 2003, p. 2280).

and nurture the collective self; living in balance

and harmony with the earth is the foundation

Dolores Hayden (1995) describes place as one

of spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental

of the trickiest words in the English language, a

wellbeing (Wilson, 2003).

suitcase so overfilled one can never shut the lid

Although Western thought tends to separate

(p. 15). Each of us has our own, commonsense

person and place, the phenomenological

understanding of place,
based in our lived experience.
Place has become even more
challenging to think about
as people increasingly are
connected in cyberspace.
Nonetheless, three defining

philosophers have likewise

Each of us has our

own, commonsense
understanding of place,
based in our lived
experience

features emerge from the vast

argued that there is no self

without place, and no place
without self (emphasis in
original) (Casey, 2001, p.
684). In this view, place is
the most fundamental form
of bodily experience (Feld

interdisciplinary literature on

& Basso, 1996, p. 9), a visceral sensibility that is

the subject (Agnew, 1987; Gieryn, 2000). First,

preconscious and non-mentalistic, unmediated

place is somewhere a tangible, geographic

by thought or reason.

location, albeit one of variable size and flexible

We know place sensuously, through sight, smell,

boundaries. For most of us place has a physical

sound, touch, and taste: the cues from place

presence: home, neighbourhood, a beloved rural

dive under conscious thought and awaken our

wilderness or urban streetscape. Yet place is

sinews and bones, where days of our lives have

not just a location on a map. Rather, place is

been recorded (Fullilove, 2004, p. 10). The body

locale, a meaningful location (Cresswell, 2004,

goes out into and experiences place; in turn,

p. 7) brought to life by human occupancy and

place experiences take up residence (Casey,

engagement. As we engage with places, live

2001, p. 688) in the body, becoming part of

in them, name them, build them, harm them,

the deep structure of meaning and identity.

remember them, love or hate them, we develop

When we are away from beloved places, a

a sense of place a personal and collective

familiar smell or sound can suddenly take us

orientation to place that connects to identity

there. Returning, our bodies greet the familiar;

and wellbeing (Tuan, 1977).

a particularity of light, the shape of hills or

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buildings, the feel of land or pavement beneath

attachments in place, to school, neighbourhood,

our feet. Place, in this sense, is a fundamental

and friends. Other children and families have

ontological building block of human subjectivity

long histories of disruption and displacement,

and wellbeing.

through separation, divorce, housing instability,

or migration. Child welfare social workers are

As places get under our skins, they become

likely to interpret this history through the lens

repositories of individual and collective meaning.

of interpersonal attachment theory, forgetting

Whether place meanings accrue gradually, over

that disruptions in place attachments may

long experience, or suddenly through an intense

also have lasting impacts. In early research on

or defining encounter, whether experiences in

migrant children, for example, Robert Coles

place are positive, negative, or mixed (Manzo,

(1967) concluded that constant changes of place

2005), they leave us forever marked. Although

function in these childrens lives as a chronic

we inevitably revise and rework earlier place

disaster, disrupting healthy development and

attachments in new settings, the legacy of these

psychosocial functioning. When children have

attachments nonetheless interacts, often in

histories of displacement,

complex ways, with present

experiences and functioning.
The unanticipated loss of
beloved and familiar places
can have devastating
consequences (Fullilove, 1996),
causing grief and trauma
not just through the loss of
social ties but also through
the traumatic separation of
the self from a community

Although we inevitably
revise and rework earlier
place attachments in
new settings, the legacy
of these attachments
nonetheless interacts, often
in complex ways, with
present experiences and
functioning

the physical disruption

of out-of-home care may
recreate old losses, further
complicating the threats to
adjustment and wellbeing
that invariably come
with disruptions in family
relationships.
Many child welfare-involved
families also belong to
communities with histories

landscape of meaning

of forced displacement,

(Hummon, 1992, p. 260). At the personal level,

genocide, and place-based oppression. The

the root shock (Fullilove, 2004) of involuntary

experiences of Holocaust survivors, African

displacement undermines trust, increases

Americans, diasporic immigrant communities,

anxiety about letting loved ones out of ones

and indigenous peoples teach us that these

sight, destabilises relationships, destroys social,

historical traumas ripple across the life course

emotional, and financial resources, and increases

and into future generations, creating soul

the risk for every kind of stress-related disease,

wounds (Duran et al, 1998) that profoundly

from depression to heart attack (Fullilove, 2004,

influence contemporary wellbeing. In these

p. 14). At the community level, displacement

communities, experiences of separation and

ruptures fragile emotional, physical, and social

removal such as those associated with child

ecosystems. In general, separation from place is

welfare involvement can revive earlier traumas;

thus an operation that is best done with care

healing, in turn, necessarily involves recognising

(Fullilove, 2004, p. 11).

historical as well as contemporary experiences

For many children, the upheavals that come with

(Evans-Campbell, 2008).

child welfare involvement sever longstanding

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Place and power

and exclusion and from more subtle processes

Place is also and always a site of power. We

of defining people as in place or out of place

cannot separate lives lived in places from the

(Cresswell, 1996).

larger spatial and socio-political structures that

At the same time, we must not forget that all

produce those settings. In place, broader social

people exercise agency and are empowered in

systems come to ground and are manifested in

place. Through placemaking the processes by

everyday life. Given that lives in impoverished,

which humans make even the most challenging

marginalised neighbourhoods and risks to child

and depleted places into home places and

and family wellbeing go hand in hand, this

communities (Burton et al, 2004; Schneekloth

insight is central to child welfare practice.

& Shibley, 1995) marginalised and vulnerable

people contest stigma, develop coping strategies,

Processes of inclusion and exclusion, privilege

establish and strengthen social ties with others,

and inequality operate not in but through

build social networks, and resist social and

place (Gieryn, 2000). Dangerous and physically

spatial demarcations. Social

segregated public housing

projects perpetuate and
compound the social and
economic difficulties of
poor families. Conversely,
privileged residential
neighbourhoods, created and
sustained at the expense of

Place is deeply implicated

in the construction and
maintenance of social
identities based in race,
class, ethnicity, gender,
sexuality, age, or ability

workers, who by definition

stand at the interface of
people and their everyday
environments, have both
the opportunity and the
responsibility to support, and
expand peoples agency in
place.

less advantaged communities,

are rich in resources and opportunities.

Towards place-sensitive child welfare

practice: knowing place

Increasingly, these affluent enclaves are also

spatially separated, reducing social interaction

What, then, does it mean to take place

across differences and further cementing race

seriously (Casey, 1997) in child welfare practice?

and class divisions.

An important first step is to incorporate more

complex understandings of the role of place

Viewed through the lens of power, place identity

in clients lives into the linked processes of

also becomes more complex. Place is deeply

assessment and engagement. James Leigh (1998)

implicated in the construction and maintenance

taught social workers about the importance

of social identities based in race, class, ethnicity,

in culturally competent practice of cultural

gender, sexuality, age, or ability. Social and

discovery, grounded firmly in local settings

cultural stereotypes differentiate and classify

and knowledge. Independent of their work

both places and people, reproducing in the

with particular children and families, social

process larger social patterns of inclusion and

workers need to become deeply familiar with the

exclusion. The social marginality of persons

places in their clients lives. This background

with disabilities, or with chronic mental

knowledge can then provide the foundation for

illness, or without housing, or the poor, for

deeper exploration of the meaning of place in

example, results from both overt segregation

individual and family experience.

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Cultivating an ethnographic imagination

of risk and opportunity that shape families

lives in place. A partial list of place-based

We must try to understand place mindfully

environmental factors linked to childrens

(Fullilove, 2004, p. 235).

developmental outcomes (Evans, 2004) includes,

A first step in understanding place is to

for example: physical hazards; environmental

engage it first hand. Where possible, child

pollutants and toxins; adequacy of municipal

welfare social workers should spend time in

services, such as schools, health services, and

the neighbourhoods where their clients live,

transportation; access to retail and other

walking, observing, and absorbing the texture of

services (including access to healthy food);

daily life in place. What is the built environment

housing quality, and access to developmental

like? Do people have access to the natural

resources such as playgrounds, libraries, and

environment? What is the mix of people? How

computers. Structural features of place such

do they make use of the neighbourhood? How

as these can profoundly shape child and family

safe is it? Do people keep to their homes or are

experiences and outcomes, and should thus

they out in the community?

What kinds of community
resources are available? For
whom? What is the cultural
environment? How adequate
and accessible is public
transportation? What about
shops and other services?
This immersion in place is

routinely be factored into

In Washington State,
administrators use GIS plots
of the spatial distribution of
children removed from their
homes to recruit foster
parents in high placement
neighbourhoods

essential, yet we run the risk

child welfare decision-making

processes. Geographic
Information Systems and the
data they produce open up
different perspectives on
person/place relationships.
In Washington State,
administrators use GIS plots
of the spatial distribution of

that our assessments will reflect (and reproduce)

children removed from their homes to recruit

dominant stereotypes. To avoid this, social

foster parents in high placement neighbourhoods

workers should also seek out and learn from

(Stone, 2008): When people see these maps

local residents and cultural guides. Tours of

they want to know what they can do (p. 1).

the neighbourhood or guided walks can provide

In California, researchers collect GIS data on

rich opportunities for deeper learning. How

the spatial distribution of foster placements in

do residents describe this neighbourhood?

relation to childrens home neighbourhoods,

What about its history? How has it changed?

showing patterns of dispersion and displacement

What has this meant for the people who live

and allowing administrators and policy

there? What are the good things about the

makers to evaluate efforts to strengthen

neighbourhood? What is difficult? What is it

neighbourhood-based foster care (Stone, 2008).

like to live and raise children in this community?

As one Washington state community provider

said, Until I saw the map I didnt realise the

Spatial data

breadth of the problem when you see all these

Aggregate spatial data, which increasingly are

children streaming out of the community, then

readily available through online resources,

you begin to understand how they become high-

provide vital perspectives on the larger patterns

risk children (pp. 3-4).

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Experiences in other fields, such as participatory

her experience. As Sharon Berlin reminds us, a

community planning, suggest that clients and

sense of surprise and eagerness to learn (Safran

workers also can find it helpful to see the

& Mestner, 1997, p. 141, cited in Berlin, 2005,

map. Consider, for example, the possible value

p. 499) is vital in effective practice. Powerful

in case planning of the following questions.

methods for learning about place with clients

What, in general, is the spatial distribution of

include oral and written narratives and stories,

children in foster care and their families for

and visual methods.

this office? What does this familys spatial

Narratives and stories

map look like (where are the key places in this

Humans use narratives and stories to make

familys life)? Looking across these two levels of

sense of, internalise, reorder, and act on their

data, what should be prioritised in this familys

place-based experience. Indeed, vernacular,

case planning? What trade-offs might have to

lay and indigenous place knowledge is typically

made (for example, to balance placement near

presented in story form (Popay et al, 2003).

birth parents and school against placement

Place narratives allow for deeper engagement

with extended family, or to reduce time spent

in accessing services?) And,

with clients lived experience

more pointedly, if place

in place, and give both

matters, how will that

commitment be reflected in
the decisions being made?

Connecting person and

place: learning from our
clients

As clients tell stories about

their everyday lives, some
of the inevitable distance
(social and spatial) between
clients and workers is
bridged

clients and social workers the

opportunity to develop more
dimensional understandings
of family experiences.
Importantly, they may also
enhance moral proximity,
a different kind of knowing
about what place means in

In its most powerful form, acceptance of

clients lives. As clients tell stories about their

others requires that we grasp their reality

everyday lives, some of the inevitable distance

(Berlin, 2005, p. 485).

(social and spatial) between clients and workers

Place comes to life in the everyday experience of

is bridged. Methods for eliciting clients place

children and families. Our clients are the most

narratives can be written or oral, including

knowledgeable guides to their own experience,

interviews, storytelling, diarying, and narrative

and learning from them is at the centre of

writing.

culturally responsive, place-sensitive practice.

Visual methods

When peoples everyday knowledge is surfaced,

Visual methods, such as photography, video,

validated, and responded to, it brings clients

film, mapping, sketches, and art are increasingly

perspectives into practice decision-making and

popular as mechanisms for accessing and

provides the basis for enhancing capacity and

reflecting on peoples experiences in place.

competence (Antweiler, 1998).

Visual forms open up powerful perspectives on

In the cross-cultural practice of learning about

peoples experiences in place, both positive and

place, the client is the cultural guide, and the

negative (Castleden et al, 2008). Many of these

social worker is the interested stranger (Leigh,

methods are relatively easy to translate into

1989, p. 49) who seeks to learn about his or

practice. Children and families can photograph

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the important places in their lives, make maps

which place functions as a source of opportunity

and drawings, or collaborate with workers to

and constraint in their lives, or the relationships

construct visual time/space diaries.

between their own experiences and larger social

structures and conditions. Critically reflective

The lives of child welfare clients tend to be

conversations provide opportunities for clients

spatially complex; typically, they become

and workers to make these connections,

even more complicated with child welfare

potentially opening up both new perspectives

involvement. The mother of a child in foster

on family issues and additional options for

care, for example, faces an array of geographic

designing solutions.

challenges linked to her involvement with child

welfare services. Her child is in one place, the

Concluding thoughts

child welfare office where visitation typically

The perspectives on place and its role in the lives

occurs is in another. She likely is mandated

of children and families presented here resonate

to undertake services such as substance abuse

with but also extend the New Zealand child

treatment and parenting classes in yet other

welfare practice framework

settings. She is either

working or involved with
job-related services and, not
infrequently, she is unstably
housed. And, by the way,
she rides the bus, or rather
multiple buses, since there
is no direct route to her

In child welfare practice,

as in social work more
generally, people and
their personal, family, and
collective experiences claim
the centre of attention

home neighbourhood. What

(Connolly, 2007), which

emphasises child- and familycentred, culturally responsive,
and empowering practice. In
child welfare practice, as in
social work more generally,
people and their personal,
family, and collective
experiences claim the centre

might be gained from a more

of attention. New Zealands deeply thoughtful

deliberately spatial analysis of this mothers

child welfare practice framework is no exception

experience? What, for example, does a day in

in this regard. At the same time, given its focus

her life look like, as she juggles childcare, work,

on children and families within their social and

public transportation, mandated services, and

cultural contexts, it holds within it the potential

a child or children in foster care? Where does

to bring place more fully into the picture.

she go over the day? How does she get there?

How much time does it take? Where are the key

Recognising that ties to place go deep, that

places in her life? Simple visual tools can bring

place and wellbeing are intricately connected,

these realities to life for workers and clients,

and that the loss of beloved places involves

with powerful implications for assessment,

blows to our individual and collective selves that

engagement, and case planning.

we should not underestimate, a richly developed

sense of place is vital in the context of practice

Critically reflexive dialogue

that at its core involves helping children and

Sharon Berlin (2005) describes acceptance as an

families to navigate many forms of disruption

open, active, searching, and reflexive process

and upheaval. From this sense of place, in

(p. 500), involving dialogue, discovery, critical

turn, comes renewed appreciation for the

inquiry, action, and reflection on action. Clients

difficult but essential work of partnering with

have more or less awareness of the ways in

children, families, and communities to construct

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places they can love, places that are healthy

Cresswell, T. (2004). Place: A short introduction.

Malden, MA: Blackwell.

for working, building community, and raising

Cummins, S., Curtis, S., Diez-Roux, A., & Macintyre,

S. (2007). Understanding and representing place
in health research: A relational approach. Social
Science & Medicine, 65, 1825-1838.

families (Schneekloth & Shibley, 1995, p. 5).

References:

Duran, E., Duran., B., Braveheart, M. Y. H., & HorseDavid, S. Y. (1998). Healing the American Indian soul
wound. In Y. Danieli (Ed.). International handbook
of multigenerational legacies of trauma. New York:
Plenum Press.

Agnew, J. (1987). Place and politics: The

geographical mediation of state and society.
London: Allen & Unwin.
Antweiler, C. (1998). Local knowledge and local
knowing: An anthropological analysis of contested
cultural products in the context of development.
Anthropos, 93, 469-494.

Evans, G. W. (2004). The environment of child

poverty. American Psychologist, 59, 2, 77-92.

Berlin, S. B. (2005). The value of acceptance in social

work direct practice: A historical and contemporary
view. Social Service Review, September, 482-510.

Evans-Campbell, T. (2008). Historical trauma in

American Indian/Native Alaska communities. Journal
of Interpersonal Violence, 23, 3, 316-338.

Berrick, J. D. (2006). Neighborhood-based foster

care: A critical examination of location-based
placement criteria. Social Service Review, December,
569-583.

Feld, S. & Basso, K. H. (1996). Introduction. In S.

Feld & K. H. Basso (Eds) Senses of place (pp. 2-11).
Sante Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.
Fullilove, M. T. (1996). Psychiatric implications of
displacement: Contributions from the psychology
of place. American Journal of Psychiatry, 153, 12,
1516-1523.

Burton, L. M., Winn, D.M., Stevenson, H., & LawsonClark, S. (2004). Working with African American
clients: Considering the homeplace in counseling
and therapy practices. Journal of Marital and Family
Therapy, 30, 4, 397-410.

Fullilove, M. T. (2004). Root shock: How tearing up

city neighborhoods hurts America and what we can
do about it. New York: Ballantine Books.

Casey, E. S. (1997). The fate of place: A philosophical

history. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Geertz, C. (1996). Afterword. In S. Feld & K. H.

Basso (Eds) (1996). Sense of place (pp. 259-262).
Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.

Casey, E. S. (2001). Between geography and

philosophy: What does it mean to be in the placeworld? Annals of the Association of American
Geographers, 91, 4, 683-693.

Gieryn, T. (2000). A space for place in sociology.

Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 463-493.

Castleden, H., Garvin, T., & First Nation H. (2008).

Modifying Photovoice for community-based
participatory Indigenous research. Social Science &
Medicine, 66, 1393-1405

Hayden, D. (1995). The power of place: Urban

landscapes as public history. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
Hummon, D. M. (1992). Community attachment:
Local sentiment and sense of place. In I. Altman & S.
M. Low (Eds). Place attachment (pp. 253-277). New
York: Plenum Press.

Coles, R. (1967). Migrants, sharecroppers, and

mountaineers. Boston: Little, Brown.
Connolly, M. (2007). Practice frameworks:
Conceptual maps that guide interventions in child
welfare. British Journal of Social Work, 37, 825-837.

Kelly, S. E. (2003). Bioethics and rural health:

Theorizing place, space, and subjects. Social Science
& Medicine, 56, 11, 2277-2288.

Crampton, D. (2007). Debate with authors: In

response to Jill Duerr Berricks Neighborhood-based
foster care: A critical examination of location-based
placement criteria. Social Service Review, June,
343-345.

Leigh, J. W. (1998). Communicating for cultural

competence. New York: Allyn & Bacon.
Manzo, L. C. (2005). For better or worse: Exploring
multiple dimensions of place meaning. Journal of
Environmental Psychology, 25, 67-86.

Cresswell, T. (1996). In place/out of place:

Geography, ideology, and transgression. London:
UCI Press.

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Meyer, M. A. (2001). Our own liberation: Reflections

on Hawaiian epistemology. The Contemporary
Pacific, 13, 1, 124-148.
Popay. J., Williams, G., Thomas, C., & Gatrell, A.
(2003). Theorizing inequalities in health: The place
of lay knowledge. In R. Hofrichter (Ed.). Health
and social justice: Politics, ideology, and inequity in
the distribution of disease (pp. 385-409). New York:
Jossey-Bass.
Schneekloth, L. H. & Shibley, R. G. (1995).
Placemaking: The art and practice of building
communities. New York: JohnWiley & Sons.
Stone, A. (2008). Mapping software helps
Washington State find foster parents. Government
Technology: Solutions for Government in the
Information Age. Accessed online, February 19, 2008,
http://www.govtech.com/gt/241680
Tuan, Y-F (1977). Space and place: The perspective
of experience. Minneapolis, MN: University of
Minnesota Press.
Wilson, K. (2003). Therapeutic landscapes and First
Nations peoples: an exploration of culture, health,
and place. Health & Place, 9, 83-93.
Zapf, M. K. (2005). The spiritual dimension of person
and environment: Perspectives from social work and
traditional knowledge. International Social Work,
48, 633-642.

Susan P. Kemp Ph.D. is Charles O. Cressey Endowed

Associate Professor and Director of the Ph.D. programme
in Social Welfare at the University of Washington School
of Social Work, Seattle. A New Zealander, she worked
as a child welfare social worker in Palmerston North
and Auckland before completing her PhD at Columbia
University in New York.

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Complex approaches to
wicked problems: Applying
Sharon Berlins analysis of
dichotomous thinking
James J. Clark, Ph.D., LCSW
The progress of any profession depends on the

actively solving client and social problems to

effective decision-making of its practitioners, the

become unusually reflective and self-critical.

successful transmission of knowledge, values,

The philosopher Rudolph Carnap describes an

and skills by its educators, and the dynamic

intellectual focus on external questions as

generation of scientific understanding by its

inquiry about problems external to any designed

scholars. All of these accomplishments are

language or symbol system (Bird, 1995). It is

demanded by society, promised by professionals

plausible to argue that if applied to a profession,

in exchange for the privilege to practice, and

then external questions would be those that

therefore are critical for

the survival and flourishing
of professions (Koehn,
1994). Furthermore, these
activities demand careful
attention to the types of
thinking, reasoning, and
decision-making processes

ask about the ultimate

Along with a philosophical

astuteness, asking external
questions demands
patience, enthusiasm,
humility, and risk-taking

purposes of a professions
existence, as opposed to
those asking questions about
the technical approaches
necessary to actually
complete specific professional
and scientific tasks. Along

clinicians, teachers, and

with a philosophical astuteness, asking external

scientists employ as they move through their

questions demands patience, enthusiasm,

daily tasks. This attention to thinking should

humility, and risk-taking because such queries

not be neglected by substituting automatic

are often unwelcome and dismissed as irrelevant

conduct of professional activities, nor minimised

or obstructionist accusations particularly

by prioritisation of political strategising, nor

inimical for professionals.

bypassed by the apotheosis of any particular

epistemology. However, it is very difficult

External questions tend to be the province

to think about thinking because this asks

of professional scholars and theorists. How

professionals who are naturally oriented to

important it is then for those professionals

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charged with the stewardship of a profession

versus quantitative debates that had ignited

(Golde & Walker, 2006) to ask external questions

in the 1980s and would not dampen down

in order to strengthen the profession. And it is

until the early 1990s. Articles promulgated in

critical that theorists ask useful and significant

various social work research journals, as well as

external questions as opposed to convenient,

presentations and speeches delivered at social

resolvable, and simply vivid external questions.

work research conferences, tended to highlight

It is tempting to choose that approach because,

the polarised positions taken by advocates

in fact, the identification, delineation, framing,

who, on one hand, argued for the necessity of

and articulation of significant external questions

the objective, experimental paradigm of doing

are extremely demanding tasks that can as easily

science in order to join the modern techno-

lead to failure as to success.

scientific world. On the other hand were those

opposing researchers who argued that social

This article will consider one approach to

works growing, exclusive reliance on the

thinking about thinking as developed in Sharon

positivist, experimental paradigm as the way

Berlins early but seminal

paper on dichotomous and
complex thinking. While
Berlin would proceed to
develop her ideas and
clinical strategies even
more fully in her later work
with Jeanne Marsh (Berlin
& Marsh, 1993) and then in

to knowledge was obsolete,

It is critical that theorists

ask useful and significant
external questions as
opposed to convenient,
resolvable, and simply vivid
external questions

invalid. (See Tyson, 1995, for a

collection of these critiques).
Faced with this dichotomy,
Peile (1988) attempted to
soberly describe the claims
of both camps (which he
designated as empiricism

her major book on clinical

and normative paradigms)

theory (Berlin, 2002), the 1990 paper raised

and argued for a creative synthesis (p. 13) in

provocative problems that merit close reading

social work research. Although his paper sought

and discussion. The article concludes with

common ground and brought historical and

some extensions of Berlins analysis and their

philosophical perspectives to the debate, it was

relevance for contemporary social work.

unclear exactly how this synthesis would emerge

or how it would look in operation.

Dichotomous and complex thinking

The most visible advocate for the normative or

Sharon Berlin (1990) explored several external

heuristic critique was Martha Heineman Pieper

questions in an unusually timely and effective

(1995) who later succinctly summarised her

contribution to the Social Service Review

position as follows:

entitled, Dichotomous and complex thinking.

She made a number of arguments that continue

In summary, if social work and the other

to be important to consider in our contemporary

social and behavioural sciences adopt the

situation as we think about the problems

heuristic paradigm, researchers will cease the

associated with effective social work practice

single-minded pursuit of the chimerical goal

and knowledge generation. When the paper first

of neutral, value-free science, and will be

appeared, the American social work profession

able to integrate the more attainable values

was embroiled in the so-called qualitative

of the recognition and regulation of bias with

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patriarchal, and clinically

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their traditional humanistic values into

obscure the complexities that are necessary

their scientific activities (p. xxv).

for full understanding (p. 48). While she

saw the usefulness of emphasising the merits

Heineman Pieper did not see the acceptance of

of quantitative and qualitative positions,

the heuristic paradigm as an epistemological

the debate had regressed toward vociferous

preference. Rather, she appraised the

exchanges in which excessive reliance on one

positivist approaches of her colleagues as truly

philosophical and methodological passage to

destructive, undermining both poles of social

knowledge seem to overshoot the mark and

works mission to individual enhancement and

result in substituting one excess for another (p.

social justice:

48). Eschewing the readily available ad hominem

Further, both the effort of critiquing

attack, Berlin was not suggesting this outcome

the positivist claim for the superiority of

was the function of the personal shortcomings

interventionist research and the concomitant

of various advocates, but that it derived from

argument for the scientific standing of

the bipolar nature of the debate itself.

naturalistic social and

behavioral research are
matters of great concern,
because for so many years
unwarranted positivist
strictures have limited
the range of data that
are considered legitimate,
which in turn restricts
social and behavioral
researchers ability to
study clinical practice in
all its complexity and to
be effective advocates
for social reform
(p. xxvx-xxvi).
Berlins examination of
dichotomous thinking,

Berlins examination of
dichotomous thinking,
therefore, did not just
involve the selection and
discussion of a particularly
interesting type of cognitive
operation, but also explored
an important external
question for social work
research through analysing
the bipolar manner in which
many important debates
about epistemological and
methodological problems
had been framed

therefore, did not just involve

Berlin correctly asserted that

dichotomous thinking was
not restricted to the unique
controversies to be found
in social works qualitativequantitative debate. In
fact, dichotomous thinking
was also generated by
powerful structural forces,
especially those socialhistorical norms and roles
that helped people create
essential polarisations such as
clients versus clinicians and
clinicians versus scientists.
For example, in this first
dichotomous relationship,
clinicians (healers) are
more likely to identify the

the selection and discussion of a particularly

biases and erroneous thinking of their clients

interesting type of cognitive operation,

(sufferers). In fact, most psychotherapists begin

but also explored an important external

with the assumption that the client presents

question for social work research through

with significant and often self-generated

analysing the bipolar manner in which many

cognitive distortions that drive chronic error

important debates about epistemological and

patterns. While this is often the case, the

methodological problems had been framed.

bipolar nature of the treatment relationship can

Indeed, she noted that even though bipolar

lead clinicians to ignore their own biases and

constructions sharpen distinctions, they also

heuristics that have become habitual through

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years of professional training and practice, and

pointed to the importance of polarisation in

then to overconfidently hold these judgments as

assisting the brain in human memory storage,

veridical (Garb, 1998).

suggesting that this bi-hemispherical organ may

actively generate dichotomous frameworks and

Paradoxically, those outside the profession who

binary data processing. In sum, it is evident

appreciate the benefits that such expertise

that bipolar, dichotomous perception, thinking

can provide, also can quickly point out that

and remembering are intrinsic to the natural

strong beliefs generated by highly restricted

operation of the human mind. However, this

perceptions will inevitably spell trouble.

type of brain-based natural and automatic

Drawing on folk psychology for this idea,

operation can also increase the likelihood that

recall that the French expression dformation

people become overconfident in its range and

professionnelle (a pun on the notion of

infallibility.

professional formation) is suggestive of the

experts tendency to view
the world through a
prestigious but idiosyncratic
framework, sometimes even
in those situations that might
better be served by a more
commonsense, generalist,
laypersons perspective.

Implications for theorising

Berlin argued that

dichotomous categorisation
was a natural habit of
mind with evolutionary
advantages

It is important to note
that public intellectuals
and academics routinely
employ dichotomies as they
theorise. Ian Shapiro (2005)
has criticised this practice as
one example of academias

Berlin argued that dichotomous categorisation

widespread tendency to use gross concepts,

was a natural habit of mind with evolutionary

(e.g. concepts such as positive versus negative

advantages. Citing the work of constructionist

liberty). Gross concepts are usually detached

psychologists such as George Kelly and Michael

from empirical, historical, and contextual

Mahoney and the information processing

models of explanation, i.e. they are stand-alone

theory proposed by Susan Fiske and Shelley

ideas that are supposed to transcend time, place,

Taylor, she described the potentials inherent

and socio-economic contingencies. While they

in dichotomous thinking to reduce complexity,

are not usable for any practical or political

resolve ambiguity, enhance certainty, assist in

tasks, they are advantageous for social scientists

prediction, and test the outer boundaries of

more interested in developing political theory

any continuum. Fortunately, Berlin did not fall

which endures mainly by feeding off its own

controversies because we depend on it for our

into the self-contradiction that dichotomous

livelihood (p. 174). Indeed, such debates over

thinking is bad (and to be eliminated) while

gross concepts are myriad in human behaviour

complex thinking is good. In fact, she argued

theory, probably because they provide cognitive

that defining and exploring polarities can be

shortcuts for students attempting to master

the first step in synthesising higher levels of

complex systems of thought. For example, think

understanding and organisation, as found in

of the standard textbook polarity employed by

many Eastern religions and Ilya Prigogenes

comprehensive examination authors: Describe

systems theory.

and analyse the divergent approaches to human

And as Berlin (2002) would later describe in

behaviour and behaviour change in the theories

greater depth, neuropsychological evidence has

of Sigmund Freud and B.F. Skinner.

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Yet, closer examination of Skinners intellectual

can elucidate the biases and heuristics that

development has recently uncovered his multiple

drive individual dichotomous thinking, it is

areas of agreement with and incorporation of

also crucial to understand the sociology, social

Freudian concepts about the unconscious and

psychology, and economics of intellectual

human nature (Overskeid, 2007). Paul Meehl,

rituals, habits, and institutions maintained by

co-author of the MMPI and the supposed arch-

communities and social networks (Collins, 2000;

enemy of clinical inference, enjoyed describing

Sunstein, 2003).

the distress of his actuarial minded colleagues

when they observed the portrait of Freud above

Clinicians and scientists

the analytic couch residing in his faculty office

Berlins second example of an important

at the University of Minnesota (Meehl, 1989).

professional dichotomy, clinicians versus

Edwin Boring, the intransigent experimentalist,

scientists, has a long and sometimes notorious

routinely wrote letters encouraging theoretical

history, especially in the profession of

tolerance in his unsuccessful attempts to quell

psychology. The aforementioned qualitative-

the internecine fighting between operationist

quantitative debate in social work pales in

and psychodynamic psychologists working

duration, significance, and

in Harvards psychology
department (Nicholson, 2005).
If theoretical dichotomisation
is not essential to or even
can be proven to inhibit
scientific and professional
progress, why does it

If theoretical
dichotomisation is not
essential to or even can be
proven to inhibit scientific
and professional progress,
why does it persist?

persist? Why can it not

acrimony as compared to
clinical psychologys longrunning clinical versus
actuarial debates (Garb,
1998). With social works
widespread embrace of
evidence-based approaches
in the twenty-first century,
it is imperative that the

simply be rejected in favour

advantages and disadvantages of clinical

of more complex intellectual frameworks? The

psychologys polarisation be understood in

answer is because there are distinct benefits

order to avoid unnecessary and repetitive

that derive from dichotomous thinking and

error. Again, in its most simplistic rendition,

bipolarisation. Political and academic polarities

this dichotomy arranges that clinicians work as

can help people stake out powerful and coherent

emotionally involved, intuitive and outcome-

intellectual positions that are reinforced by

biased professionals, while scientists pursue

ongoing, vociferous debates among founders

dispassionate investigation as unemotional,

and disciples who resolutely and profitably

objective, and intellectually open truth-seekers.

skirmish with enemy troops. While it is

remarkable how historical studies of these

This vision of the scientist owes much to

seemingly irreconcilable theories reveal common

R.K. Mertons (1973) sociology of science

intellectual heritages and assumptions, the deep

which delineated scientists communalism,

schemas shared among theoretical schools,

universalism, disinterestedness, and organised

formed by decades of training, teaching, writing

scepticism, as well as Carl Hempels (1966) logic

and conferencing, are notoriously difficult to

of natural science, which centralised deductive-

relinquish. While social cognitive psychology

nomological explanation. Berlin challenged this

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version of science from her vantage point of

description of scientific logic in his 1966 classic,

many years of clinical and scientific work.

Philosophy of Natural Science, argued that

Semmelweis empirical approach and scientific

Nonetheless, scientists are human

reasoning was prototypical of the rigorous

instruments of knowledge formulation Like

scientist at work.

the rest of us, scientists are not dispassionate.

They are persuaded by prevailing social

On the other hand, Nuland painstakingly

values; on a quest for certainty; deluded by

documents how Semmelweis distress over the

vivid examples, biased samples, and selective

painful deaths of the mothers and infants in his

perception; and shaken by disconfirming

care and his ambition to achieve professional

findings (p. 54).

recognition motivated him to relentlessly pursue

the problem. This same passionate approach to

The history of science (as opposed to the

medical science led to his failure to disseminate

philosophy of science) and the contemporary

his discoveries to colleagues and to gain the

studies of the lives and careers of scientists

professional and academic

(Runyan, 2006) have

confirmed Berlins
observation that
emotionalism is not
necessarily antithetical to
science, and especially, it is
not antithetical to scientists
(p. 55, emphasis added).
Sherwin Nulands (2004) study
of Ignac Semmelweis, the
Hungarian physician who
investigated and discovered
the source and transmission

Recent biographies of
giants of twentieth
century science such as
Albert Einstein, Robert
Oppenheimer, and Richard
Feynman also illustrate
that the messy lives
of scientists and their
discontinuous approaches
to doing science defy
simplistic characterisation

prestige he has received

only posthumously. In fact,
Nuland persuasively shows
that Semmelweis employed
a rigorous mind that was
ultimately thwarted by
his volatile reactivity to
professional criticism, his
stubborn unwillingness to
revise his confusing and often
incendiary manuscripts and
professional correspondence,
and the sense of ethnic
inferiority that came from

of puerperal fever, is

being a Hungarian living

especially instructive. Semmelweis practiced

and working in an Austro-German intellectual

medicine with a mid-nineteenth century

community.

scientific knowledge base a century which

would close with the germ theory developed by

Eventually, Semmelweis came to consider

Louis Pasteur. Nonetheless, by 1847 Semmelweis

himself as the enlightened adversary of almost

successfully used a quasi-experimental clinical

every leading medical scientist in Europe. For

trial combined with careful archival research

example, he invariably and formally accused

to determine that physicians whose unwashed

those obstetricians who did not accept his

hands probed the female patients in Viennas

theories as murderers of childbearing women,

prestigious research hospital were transmitting

thereby impeding the dissemination of his

some type of infectious matter into their

important conclusions about infectious disease

obstetric patients, thereby causing high rates

transmission. Additionally, because he sent

of childbed death. In fact, Carl Hempels

himself into exile by prematurely returning

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to Hungary, he removed himself from the

professional purposes, contexts, and strategies.

scientific and clinical centres that would have

The disadvantage was that this multiplicity

made possible future collaborations, and

defied the cogent development of a singular

precluded the research designs that might

mission or purpose some saw as necessary

further have developed his original work and

for professional unity and enhanced social

moved him toward a fuller understanding of the

influence.

pathogenesis of puerperal fever (Nuland, 2004).

It is interesting to hold onto the idea that social

This troubling life history reveals the profound

works multiplicities may have contributed

humanity of an intellectual and clinician whose

greatly to the professions idiosyncratic analytic

emotional vulnerabilities motivated him to

powers and creativity. On the other hand,

great scientific achievement while ultimately

those irritated by this seeming incoherence

thwarting him from achieving personal and

and conceptual untidiness often prefer

professional success. Recent biographies of

to characterise the professions work as a

giants of twentieth century science such

dichotomous commitment to individual and

as Albert Einstein (Isaacson, 2007), Robert

society, which has frequently been recast as

Oppenheimer (Bird & Sherwin, 2006), and

service to individuals versus

Richard Feynman (Gleick,

1993) also illustrate that the
messy lives of scientists
and their discontinuous
approaches to doing
science defy simplistic
characterisation. Writing
about the scientific spirit,
Michael Mahoney (2005)

It is interesting to hold onto

the idea that social works
multiplicities may have
contributed greatly to the
professions idiosyncratic
analytic powers and
creativity

rejects scientisms purely

service to society. While such

dichotomies fall short of the
everyday phenomenology
of practice, they suggest
interesting starting points
for describing social works
commitment to persons and
societies.
Indeed, C. Wright Mills

rationalist model of scientists

(1959) argues that the sociological imagination

and argues that Beyond the particular questions

required for understanding modernitys social

and answers, science expresses awe. At its

problems requires simultaneously employing

best, science brings us together in a community

multiple levels of analysis:

of seekers who freely share adventures in the

Know that many personal troubles cannot

service of collective understanding (p. 343).

be solved merely as troubles, but must be

understood in terms of public issues and

Wicked problems and complex thinking

in terms of the problems of history making.

In the United States, social work was founded

Know that the human meaning of public

by a number of complicated people pursuing

issues must be revealed by relating them to

a number of complicated agendas designed to

personal troubles and to the problems of

respond to the many complicated personal and

the individual life (p. 226).

social problems facing Americans in the early

twentieth century. The historical, evolutionary

The nature of social works historical entry

advantage lay in social works multiplicity of

into American society as a profession has led

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to its being animated (some would say plagued

problems. The error has been a serious one

by) recurring controversies about its bipolar

[problems] of social and policy planning

(split) mission to address individual distress

are ill-defined; and they rely upon elusive

and social injustices. Mills definition of the

political judgment for resolution. (Not

dynamic relationship between personal troubles

solution. Social problems are never solved.

and public issues appreciates the dichotomy

At best they are only re-solved over and over

but urges the more complex thinking that

again) (p. 160).

characterises his ideal the sociological

Wicked problems cannot be formulated unless

imagination.

one can generate the alternative solutions to

One argument for appreciating, but not settling

those problems long before trying out those

for, dichotomous thinking is to acknowledge

solutions. They have no stopping rule, in the

the complexity of the problems social workers

sense that professionals can determine that the

grapple with daily. In fact, the ubiquity of

problem has been finally resolved. Solutions

professionals dichotomous thinking might

are not true-or-false, but good-or-bad;

solutions are ambiguous and open to multiple

paradoxically indicate the intractable difficulties

interpretations (p. 162). There are no ultimate

professionals confront,
whether these problems
emerge from personal
or public contexts. A
provocative description of
this situation is provided by
Horst Rittel & Melvin Webber
(1973) who define these as
wicked problems. Wicked

tests of solutions to these

Wicked problems cannot be

formulated unless one can
generate the alternative
solutions to those problems
long before trying out
those solutions

problems, and usually no

opportunity to run multiple
tests to try out different
solutions. The social and
financial costs of the main
effects of attempted solutions
to wicked problems are
usually high, and the impact

problems reveal the weak

of their unintended side effects sometimes

strut in the professionals support system [that]

even more costly, so every attempt counts

lies at the juncture where goal-formulation,

significantly (p. 163).

problem definition, and equity issues meet (p.

156). These problems are quite different from

Trial-and-error designs are usually impossible.

those faced by scientists, mathematicians or

At the same time, the sets of possible solutions

engineers who tackle problems that usually can

to wicked problems are neither bounded nor

be precisely formulated and solved, and who

finite human (political) judgements may

work in task environments where it is clear when

enlarge or restrict the type and number of

problems have been finally solved. In contrast,

alternatives under consideration. Additionally,

social workers and the others in the social

tame problems can be categorised into sets

professions are:

that have common characteristics and can

be addressed with similar strategies. Wicked

misled somewhere along the line in

problems usually vary enough across contexts

assuming they could be applied scientists

and time periods that they contain extra

and that they could solve problems in

dimensions that may render previous strategies

the ways scientists can solve their sorts of

ineffectual. To make things more complex,

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every wicked problem can be considered a

readers will consider Rittel & Webbers (1973)

symptom of another problem (p. 165). For

characterisation of wicked problems to serve as

example, child maltreatment can be seen as an

a reasonably accurate phenomenology of doing

example of family violence and addressed at that

contemporary social work. While the purpose

level, while it also can be defined and addressed

of the present article does not allow a complete

as a symptom of profound poverty and social

analysis of their argument, they have provided

inequity. The decisions regarding at which level

plausible descriptions of the problems and task

child maltreatment should be formulated and

environments in which social work practitioners

addressed are characterised by serious scholarly,

and researchers operate. Their analysis also

technical, and political disagreements.

offers an explanation for why social work has

been slow in rushing to adopt exclusively

While science encourages refutation of

scientific approaches to

hypotheses under the aegis of

practice and policy-making

crucial tests, those tackling

wicked problems soon find
that there are so many
alternative explanations
for the sources of problems
and so many opinions
debating whether a problem
has been successfully
addressed, crucial tests
are not possible to design.
Evaluation researchers are
often accused of rigging the
game in that they necessarily

To effectively address
wicked problems,
professionals need to
employ many different
types of thinking
dichotomous, complex,
paradoxical, dialectical,
analytic, synthetic,
reductionist, hermeneutic,
statistical, historical,
biographical, and economic
approaches are called for

despite much external and

internal criticism. While
science holds the promise of
launching more reasoned and
testable practice approaches,
science is certainly useless
for addressing the nonrational dimensions of wicked
problems. This situation
continues to produce the
seemingly endless debates
featuring the truculence of
unreasonable practitioners
and the irrelevance of ivory-

select problems, inputs,

tower researchers yet

and outcomes (successes

and failures) that exclude viable, alternative

another iteration of Shapiros (2005) gross

formulations. That is to say, the choice of

concepts at work.

explanation is arbitrary in the logical sense

However, gross concepts do not help

The analysts world view is the strongest

professionals address wicked problems.

determining factor in explaining a discrepancy

To effectively address wicked problems,

and, therefore, in resolving a wicked problem

professionals need to employ many different

(p. 166). Finally, the planner has no right to be

types of thinking dichotomous, complex,

wrong (p. 167) and professionals become liable

paradoxical, dialectical, analytic, synthetic,

for the harms generated even by their well-

reductionist, hermeneutic, statistical, historical,

intentioned and rigorously designed efforts.

biographical, and economic approaches are

Some readers might be tempted to surrender

called for. Academicians and practitioners

at this point, given this rendering of the murky

need to work across disciplines and professions

problems and impossible tasks which confront

to develop imaginative and vital intellectual

professionals. On the other hand, many

networks to bring to bear exponentially more

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powerful and richer analytic capacities than

ideological, and uncomfortable ideas a rare

experienced in the social sciences thus far.

trait for a profession that has sometimes equated

unity of purpose with conformity of thought

Sharon Berlin presented this idea eloquently at

and political position.

the close of the paper under discussion:

All of us are well-advised to pursue a variety

References

of passageways to understanding, allow the

Berlin, S.B. (1990). Dichotomous and complex

thinking. Social Service Review, 64 (1), 46-59.

tension of contrasts, consider the partial

Berlin, S.B. (2002). Clinical Social Work Practice:

A Cognitive-Integrative Perspective. NY: Oxford
University Press.

nature of what we know, look for and ponder

disconfirming information and monitor our
own judgement process. The kind of flexible,

Berlin, S.B., & Marsh, J.C. (1993). Informing Practice

Decisions. NY: Macmillan.

self-searching, reflective perspective that is

advocated here would keep us open, keenly

Bird, G.H. (1995). Carnap and Quine: External and

internal questions. Erkenntnis, 42 (1), 41-64.

observant, ready to change our minds, ready

to think differently, ready to try differently,

Bird, K., & Sherwin, M.J. (2006) American

Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert
Oppenheimer. NY: Knopf.

and appreciative of multiple theoretical and

intervention possibilities (p. 57).

Collins, R. (2000). Sociology of Philosophies: A Global

Theory of Intellectual Change. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.

In other words, it is ultimately up to all stewards

of the profession to urge social workers to

Garb, H. (1998). Studying the Clinician: Judgment

Research and Psychological Assessment. Washington,
D.C.: American Psychological Association.

develop the tolerance (and excitement) for

remaining sceptical and hopeful, or more
precisely, pragmatic, as we approach complex

Gleick, J. (1993). Genius: The Life and Science of

Richard Feynman. NY: Knopf.

problems. This is easier said than done. For

example, the emergent popularity of evidence-

Golde, C.M., & Walker, G.E. (Eds) (2006) Envisioning

the Future of Doctoral Education: Preparing Stewards
of the Discipline - Carnegie Essays on the Doctorate.
San Francisco, CA: Josey-Bass.

based practice in the United States hopes to

succeed where the carefully wrought clinicalscientist (Boulder) model of clinical psychology

Heineman Pieper, M. (1995). Preface. In K. Tyson (Ed)

New Foundations for Scientific Social and Behavioral
Research: The Heuristic Paradigm (pp. xxi-xxviii) NY:
Allyn & Bacon.

has failed. The integration of professional

values, ethical imperatives, cultural-social
mandates, and even professional intuitions with
the scientific-rationalist approaches to problem

Hempel, C.G. (1966). Philosophy of Natural Science.

Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall.

definition, analysis, and testing is a tall order,

but appears to approach the complex thinking

Isaacson, W. (2007). Einstein: His Life and Universe.

NY: Simon & Schuster.

required to address wicked problems. The

knowledge problems raised by Sharon Berlin

Koehn, D. (1994), The Ground of Professional Ethics.

NY: Taylor & Francis.

will continue to challenge us in the decades

ahead. The best hope of making significant gains

Mahoney, M.J. (2005). Suffering, philosophy

and psychotherapy. Journal of Psychotherapy
Integration, 15 (3), 337-352.

is to be able to consistently tackle them with

the humility, intelligence, and intrepid energy

Meehl, P.E. (1989). Paul E Meehl. In G. Lindzey (Ed).

A History of Psychology in Autobiography (vol. 3, pp.
337-389). Stanford: Stanford University Press.

she urges the profession to employ. Humility

will include being open to counterintuitive, non-

47

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Merton, R. K. (1973). The Sociology of Science:

Theoretical and Empirical Investigations. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.

Runyan, W.M. (2006). Psychobiography & the

psychology of science: Understanding relations
between the life and work of individual
psychologists. Review of General Psychology, 10 (2),
147-162.

Mills, C. W. (1959). The Sociological Imagination.

NY: Oxford University Press.

Shapiro, Ian (2005). The Flight from Reality in the

Human Sciences. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.

Nicholson, I. (2005). From the Book of Mormon to

the Operational Definition: The Existential Project
of S.S. Stevens. In W.T. Schultz (Ed). Handbook
of Psychobiography (pp. 285-300). NY: Oxford
University Press.

Sunstein, C. (2003). Why Societies Need Dissent.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Nuland, S.B. (2004). The Doctors Plague: Germs,

Childbed Fever and the Strange Story of Ignac
Semmelweis. NY: Norton.

Tyson , K. (1995). New Foundations for Scientific

Social and Behavioral Research: The Heuristic
Paradigm. NY: Allyn & Bacon.

Overskeid, G. (2007). Looking for Skinner and finding

Freud. American Psychologist, 62 (6), 590-595.
Peile, C. (1988). Research paradigms in social work:
From stalemate to creative synthesis. Social Service
Review, 62 (1), 1-19.

Jim Clark is an associate professor at the University of

Kentucky with appointments in the College of Social Work
and the College of Medicine (Department of Psychiatry).
He is a licensed clinical social worker with practice and
research specialisation in forensic mental health, child
maltreatment, and substance misuse.

Rittel, H.W. & Webber, Melvin M. (1973). Dilemmas

in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences 4,
155-169.

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SOCIALWORKNOW

Aims

..
. To provide discussion of social work

practice in Child, Youth and Family.

..
. To encourage reflective and innovative

social work practice.

..
. To extend practice knowledge in any aspect

of adoption, care and protection,

residential care and youth justice practice.

..
. To extend knowledge in any child, family

or related service, on any aspect of

administration, supervision, casework,
group work, community organisation,
teaching, research, interpretation, interdisciplinary work, or social policy theory,
as it relates to professional practice
relevant to Child, Youth and Family
and the wider social work sector.

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publication in Social Work Now, you and any
other authors of your submission (if applicable)

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A tribute to Professor Sharon Berlin

Sharon Berlin - steward of the discipline
Using theory to support a family resilience
framework in practice
Complexity and social work theory and practice
Levels of meaning and the case for
theoretical integration
Practicing place: everyday contexts in child
and family welfare
Complex approaches to wicked problems

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