Use of Self in Social Work: Rhetoric or Reality Archana Kaushik, Ph.D. University of Delhi
[email protected] Journal of Social Work Values and Ethics, Volume 14, Number 1 (2017) Copyright 2017, ASWB This text may be freely shared among individuals, but it may not be republished in any medium without express written consent from the authors and advance notification ofASWB. The Licensed Independent Clinical Social Abstract Workers (LICSW) define “Use of Self” as “sharing In social work literature, use of self implies myself with my clients through skillful self- consciously utilizing knowledge, skills, and values disclosure and empathy and authentically bringing in interventions. Self-awareness is a critical skill all I’m made of into the therapeutic relationship for used to be aware of one’s hidden personality traits use as a therapeutic tool” (Daley, 2013, p.3). The for effective practice. This paper tries to delve use of Self means efficiently and rationally using deeper into the realms of the dynamic nature of self- the knowledge, skills, and values of the social work differentiating between real Self and false selves. It profession to enhance the well-being of a client— is argued that knowing one’s biases and prejudices whether individual, group, community, or society is learning more about the image of the self that we as a whole. The notion of self forms the base of create and not the true Self. The paper asserts that therapeutic social work. Cooper (2012) claims that knowing the true self is a pre-requisite of using self use of self in social work is to engage with questions to ameliorate human sufferings.