Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Jurnal 1961
Jurnal 1961
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access to Social Service Review
to the child, "a new mommy" or some might have been a sterile and rugged
lesser kin, or ? Is he supposed? pursuit to study the abstract and some-
since every role contains expectation? times abstruse social-science literature
to love freely, but not too much? to on role theory. Moreover, an explora-
want the child feelingly, but only until tion into new ideas is actually a per-
the agency rings the bell for ending? tosonal experience. One comes out of such
be parent?yet not quite? "treater" a pursuit not as out of a laboratory
?
trists?refer
fluence people's attitudes clients to social agencies, they
and behaviors
was known and being think
done of this source of help, not because they
by other
perceive that the person is "sick" or "desper-
helping professions; that
ate" counselors
or "bad," but because on
they perceive him
all sorts of problems were becoming
in a social sothose feelings
situation to which
numerous that half the population,
and actions are related. And it
in the final ap-
seemed, was counseling praisal
theas other
to whether or not the client has been
half?
helped, neither the client nor the worker nor
and that whether you were a "case-
the referral source ask whether all hazards to
worker," a "counselor," or ahave
adjustment "psycho-
been removed, or whether
therapist" depended more on your
all emotional fash-
conflicts have been ironed out.
ion sense than on your The sense
appraisal is of
ratherspe-
in terms of whether
the client'sone's
cial role. Yet, if one called ability to self
carry hisasocial roles and
"social caseworker," ithiswasnormal life-functions has been reasonably
imperative
restored or bettered. This says, then, that as
to be able to say what theone's particular
client and the community view it, the
professional focus or competence
person in interaction with areasome problematic
was, and why this was subsumed
aspect and
of his social reality is the focus of the
social caseworker's concerns.3
supported under "social work," I be-
came aware that many other social
If this proposal has validity?that the
caseworkers were likewise concerned
expectation from client and community
with this problem because the phrase is that the social caseworker's particu-
"putting the social back in social work" lar job is to help people who are experi-
became all but a professional shib-encing maladjustments in their social
boleth.
functioning, which is to say in their per-
My "quest for identity" and for theson-to-person, person-to-group, person-
place of "social" pushed me to setto-situation transactions?then it sug-
forth several propositions. Because I gests some rough boundary lines for so-
cannot yet state them better than I did cial casework's special knowledge and
then, I quote from a paper I presentedfunctions. These boundaries, while they
in 1952:
do not offer exclusivity to social case-
The problem which a client brings to a so-work, do demarcate where its particular
cial agency is perceived by him to be a prob-
competence and responsibility lie. They
lem in his social adjustment. It may be caused
demarcate a focus upon the human be-
by a breakdown of normal sources of social
sustenance, or it may be caused by the mal- ing in his current problematic function-
functioning of the person himself; but ing,
in in his troubled interaction between
either case the client sees and feels his prob-
himself and at least one other person,
lem in terms of social maladjustment because
it makes itself known to him as he plays out and/or between himself and the envi-
ronmental forces and instruments cre-
his social roles and engages in his social tasks.
Even when, as a disturbed personality, he ated is or controlled by other people. This
at the very heart of his problem, he rarely "field" of interaction is, by definition,
comes to the social agency saying, "I, my-
"social."
self, need help." He says, rather, "I need
help in relation to my unhappy marriage, my8 "Social Components of Casework Practice," in
bad child, my mother's interferences, my
Social Welfare Forum, 1953, pp. 130-31. (Italics
school work." He seeks a social agency be-
added.) Later, in "Psychotherapy and Counseling:
cause he assumes that it will relate to his Some Distinctions in Social Casework," Annals of
social difficulty, to remove it or provide him the New York Academy of Sciences, LXIII (No-
with some way of coping with it. When other vember 7, 1955), 386-95, these ideas were given
persons?laymen, teachers, doctors, psychia- some further development.
Included in this proposal also was thebe given side-line attention or held in
idea of social role. I had equated it withabeyance.
social functioning, and, while I had The problem-to-be-worked in any
some uneasy question about whethergiven case at any given time may be so
they were fully synonymous, I did notself-evident, so spontaneously agreed
pursue this but turned instead to workupon between client and caseworker,
at what seemed to be a more perplex- that it needs no finding. It is there, cen-
ing problem: Was all of a client's so- tral and pressing. But there are many
cial functioning to be considered withinsituations in which a complex network
the caseworker's purview? If a client of problems confuses both caseworker
and client. Where to begin? Where to
functioned as a father, a husband, a fac-
tory worker, a union steward, a son-in- focus? Among all the problems here?
law, did all these areas of social inter-
Jeanie's health, Jackie's truancy, Mr.
action call for appraisal? Obviously theJames's alcoholism, Mrs. James's dis-
caseworker's focus would be upon the tracted housekeeping, the inadequate
ones in which problems were being en-income and worse-than-inadequate
management?which? Elsewhere I have
countered. But suppose problems per-
meated the person's functioning? suggested several criteria for priorities.5
For some time I did not see the con- The most telling of them is the criterion
nection between role and partialization of the client's own idea of what, at the
of the client's and caseworker's task. I moment, hurts him most, what he sees
worked, rather, on the problem of how as his uppermost problem ("upper-
to find diagnostic and treatment focus most," not "basic"), what he feels and
when, as the caseworker grows more thinks he wants help with. Almost al-
knowledgeable, he sees so much more ways in the social agency this will take
complexity in his cases. I came to the
the form of some impaired and frustrat-
idea of the "problem-to-be-worked,"4ing interaction between himself and an-
other person or persons, or between
which is simply a proposal that at any
given time in a case some particularhimself and some events or conditions.
problem (or problem cluster) must beThe problem may, indeed usually will,
in the center of the caseworker-clienthave many facets. But it is most likely
attention. During that hour or phase of
to be felt and expressed as a problem in
treatment, other problems may have to one major aspect of his social interac-
*I owe the useful phrase, "problem-to-be-tion. In this aspect he is unable to be
or
worked" (at any given time), to Mary Burns, pro- to do what is expected or required of
fessor of casework at the University of Michigan,
him (by others) or what he desires for
who coined it when, in a doctoral seminar, we
were struggling to define the difference between himself (and others). He is, in short,
what a caseworker may see and understand and unable to carry some vital social role.
what he does. Earlier I had called this partialized
problem the "unit for work" {Social Casework: AWhat this suggests, then, is that the
Problem-solving Process [Chicago: University problem-to-be-worked
of between a social
Chicago Press, 1957], p. 29). Later, I used this idea
caseworker and his client, different as it
of problem-to-be-worked as a way of delimiting
family diagnosis ("Family Diagnosis: Some Prob- will be for every case, will be a problem
of undertaking, carrying, or gaining
lems," in Casework Papers, 1958 [New York:
Family Service Association of America, 1958], pp.
5-17, and in Social Welfare Forum, 1958, pp. 5 See Social Casework: A Problem-solving Proc-
122-34). ess, pp.29-33.
day's and today's family treatment is client who is experiencing some break-
that we are now reaching out to deal down or impairment in role perform-
not with all family members but with ance or who is violating role require-
those whose roles seem vital to the prob- ments finds himself at odds with what
lem-to-be-worked.8 he expects of himself and of others, or
3. Role implies that there are certain with what others expect of him.
(Csocial expectations" and social norms The caseworker will need first to
for these activities and interactions be- learn from the client what his ideas of
tween and among human beings. As the role norms are (as well as what he
soon as this is said, we face the persist- has invested in them emotionally). He
ent and valid arguments that for some will need to match those conceptions of
social behaviors there are no norms, norms against the range of what is given
that in a rapidly changing society acceptance or sanction in the communi-
norms are in flux, that class and culture ty. He may need to help his client come
subgroups in a society have differing to accept different norms, or to help his
norms, and so forth. These arguments clients, two or more, develop compro-
are all true, and all important to take mises among their standards for them-
into account. Yet if the caseworker is selves and for one another. But, except
to avoid paralysis and not himself be- in instances of legal violation, the case-
come a victim of normlessness, he mustworker surely will not plant his feet at
take measure of those norms and stand-one spot in the continuum of behavior
ards that are considered acceptable and and say to his client, "There is only this
desirable by the community which his one way to act as a mother, or wife, or
agency, and therefore he, represents.child." Nor, hopefully, would he com-
To do this is not as stultifying or asmit the opposite folly and say in effect,
regimenting as we sometimes pretend it "Since nobody has codified exactly
is. First of all, a norm or standard ofwhat a mother should or should not be
human behavior is not a sharply definedand do [heaven help us if this were to
?to do or to
point. It represents, rather, a range of happen], I will help you"
"usualness," a sketched model. Withinbe what? to overcome discomfort in re-
such a range or model many variations lation to what?
and interpretations of behavior are so- The fact is that social expectations
cially acceptable. "Good social func-and social norms are carried by every-
tioning" and "good role performance"one in a society. The role concept calls
can be assessed only on a continuumthis fact to our attention and does not
allow us to overlook it or forget it. It
from what seems socially constructive
to what seems socially acceptable tosays that what we do, how we and our
what seems or is unacceptable; fromclients behave in any given situation, is
what seems personally satisfying anddetermined not alone by our uncon-
growth-producing to what seems per-scious drives and needs, not only by
sonally frustrating or destructive. The that organization of feelings and
8 For an elaboration of this point see Perlman, stances we call "personality," but also
"Family Diagnosis: Some Problems," op. cit., and by our conscious and half-conscious
"Family Diagnosis in Cases of Illness and Disabil-conceptions of what is called for, what
ity," in Family Centered Social Work in Illness
and Disability (Monograph IV [New York: Na-is expected from us by the other(s) in
tional Association of Social Workers, 1961]). a given social situation, and what we
READING REFERENCES
These references are selected from among the many writings on role be-
cause they offer relatively ready entry to the grasp of the role concept and
its varied implications. Footnote references in the above article are not
repeated in this listing.