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■ The Strengths Model
This page intentionally left blank
The Strengths Model
A Recovery-Oriented Approach to
Mental Health Services
THIRD EDITION

Charles A. Rapp

Richard J. Goscha

1
1
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________________________________________________
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rapp, Charles A.
The strengths model : a recovery-oriented approach to mental
health services / Charles A. Rapp, Richard J. Goscha. — 3rd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-976408-2
1. Psychiatric social work—United States. 2. Social case work—United States—Methodology.
3. Mentally ill—Rehabilitation—United States. I. Goscha, Richard J. II. Title.
HV690.U6R36 2012
362.2'0425—dc22 2011017408
________________________________________________

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Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
■ For my sons, Justin and Devin, and Linda, my wife, who
also is the best strengths practitioner I have known.
Thank you for all you have given me.
Charles A. Rapp

■ To my wife Shelly, and my children Bayley, Brendan, Callie,

and Kelsey, you are my passion for life and the inspiration
behind everything I do. Thank you for all your love, support,
and patience.
Richard J. Goscha
This page intentionally left blank
■ FOREWORD

When I was still a teenager, I was admitted for a second time to a psychiatric institu-
tion. Although it was the same unit, with the same staff who had been there during my
first admission, there was something different about the way they treated me that
second time around. In retrospect, I now understand that on my second admission,
the staff had lost hope for me. In their eyes, I was no longer one of the ones who might
leave the hospital and never return. I had returned, and I was now counted among the
recidivists.
Even the new diagnosis I was given reflected the hopelessness surrounding me:
Chronic Undifferentiated Schizophrenia. Perhaps that’s why I felt a deep urgency to
mobilize all the energy I could muster to get myself out of that place as quickly as pos-
sible. Perhaps I was afraid if I fell into the depths of the hopelessness mirrored in their
eyes, I might never leave and would be lost forever. In order to avoid that fate, I focused
on one thing—getting back to school. More specifically, I insisted I had to be dis-
charged on a Wednesday morning, so I could make it back to my evening English
Composition II course at the local community college.
It took three weeks, and all the strength I had, but, finally, there I stood on a bright
April morning, discharged, standing on the steps of the mental hospital, with my suit-
case in hand. On the outside, I must have looked pretty ragged and worn. There were
dark circles under my eyes. My hands trembled, and my skin was the pasty white mask
that high doses of haloperidol can create. But by six o’clock that evening, I was sitting
in my college course, with my notebook open. I tell you this was a triumph! Yes, I was
so drugged that I was nodding in and out of a stupor, but I remained upright at that
desk. Yes, my hands were trembling but I was holding that pen. Yes, my eyes were
glazed but I stared straight ahead and focused on that teacher. Yes, my vision was
blurred but I tried with all my might to listen to the lecture. From where I sat, this was
a moment of triumph. I felt like I had just climbed Mt. Everest, standing upright in the
thin air with arms raised, my spirit enduring like brightly colored Buddhist prayer flags
against the white snow.
At the midpoint of the class, it was customary to take a coffee break. As the other
students filed out, the professor approached me. I liked him and smiled as he came
over. I thought he would be happy to see me and would say he was glad I was back in
class. Instead, he bent toward me and said, “Pat, you look awful. Why don’t you just go
home tonight, and we’ll see you next week.” Something in me collapsed at that
moment. I felt my spirit breaking. Didn’t he know how hard I had worked to get to
class that night? Why couldn’t he see how strong I was? Why was he focusing on what
was wrong with me, instead of celebrating my achievement? I dragged myself home
and gave up. I sat on the couch, smoking cigarettes and staring at the nicotine-stained
wall in front of me for the next nine months.
I do not fault that professor. I believe he thought he was being helpful. But his
help was not helpful, for two reasons. First, he thought he knew what I needed and

vii
viii ■ Foreword

prescribed his help without my input. He did not understand that in order for help to
be helpful, it must be cocreated in a partnership between a person asking for help and
a person offering to help. Secondly, the professor focused on what was wrong with me
and failed to see the strength in my vulnerability. He probably thought strength and
vulnerability were mutually exclusive. He did not understand that in and through my
vulnerability, I had found the strength to get discharged from a mental institution and
then make it to class that same day.
My experience occurred in a school setting, but the same sort of thing also happens
over and over again in mental health practice. With the best of intentions, staff focus
on our deficits, fail to discern our strengths, and prescribe help that is unhelpful. “You
should try a volunteer job because you are not ready for work.” “We recommend group
home placement because you are not high functioning enough to live in your own
apartment.” “Avoid stress and stay on medications for the rest of your life.” In economic
and in human terms, the cost of this deficits approach is high. Because of it, too many
people receiving services in the nation’s mental health system have put their dreams,
hopes, and aspirations on hold and are living marginal lives in handicaptivity.
The strengths model described in this book represents a powerful antidote to the
high cost of the deficits approach. In this model, strength is not constructed as some
superheroic state of invulnerability. Rather, we learn that even when people present
with obvious vulnerabilities, they also have strengths. Their strengths are in their pas-
sions, in their skills, in their interests, in their relationships, and in their environments.
If mental health practitioners look for strengths, they will find them. After strengths
have been identified, the practitioner and the service user can begin to cocreate help
that is helpful. Help that is helpful focuses on the service user’s strengths and finds
niches in the environment where those strengths can be used and valued. A farmer
diagnosed with schizophrenia begins to farm again. A man who can’t hold a job does
so to buy the motorcycle he has always wanted. A woman with major depression who
is too lonely begins to teach her granddaughter to crochet, and loneliness recedes to
the background as visits from her family become more frequent. And then, the authors
tell us, a remarkable thing happens. A “radiating effect” occurs. It’s as if by focusing on
a single strength, the strong part of the self begins to radiate outward, building a new
life of meaning and purpose.
There is strength in vulnerability. This book teaches us that. In practical terms, it
teaches us the concrete skills necessary for working with clients in real world settings
from a strengths orientation. Additionally, empirical evidence is provided demon-
strating that the strengths model is not just a good idea, but an effective intervention
as well. The application of the strengths model makes a positive difference in the lives
of real people in real world settings. Let’s use it!
Patricia Deegan
■ PREFACE

In the fifteen years since the publication of the first edition, the recovery movement
has risen to prominence internationally. Parallel to this and perhaps in part due to it,
the practice and intellectual energy devoted to strengths-based practice have grown
exponentially. Books have been published, conferences are held, articles written,
and university courses are focused on or at least include attention to strengths-based
practice. Strengths-based practices are increasingly being adopted by mental health
agencies and other fields of practice. A redesign of case management and other
services, sometimes quite dramatic, has occurred in New Zealand, Japan, England,
and Canada. Ironically, perhaps most suggestive of its rising status and credibility has
been the presence of critiques of the model in scholarly journals.
Although this increase in activity is welcome, there is danger lurking. The term
“strengths” as applied to mental health and other human services resonates with many
people and conjures up positive images of our clients and our work. The currency of
the word is such that it is being applied with great casualness. Some believe that just
treating clients with respect and courtesy means you are strengths-oriented. Others
think that if we add a few lines on “client strengths” to an assessment form, we are now
implementing the strengths model. Placing a thin patina of strengths on traditional
approaches and labeling the approach “strengths” is nothing more than old wine in
new bottles. It runs the risk of weakening the future development and creditability of
the strengths model and strengths-based practices in general.
The strengths model is not just a philosophy or perspective, although it is that. It is
rather a set of values and principles, a theory of practice, and explicit and rigorous
practice methods that have been developed and refined over the last 30 years. The
empirical testing of the strengths model has shown consistent results that are superior
to traditional approaches to serving people with severe psychiatric disabilities.
Having said this, much work is yet to be done. Too often, achievement and the
quality of life of people with psychiatric disabilities remain inadequate. Unemployment
is between 70 and 80%, loneliness dominates many lives, much of their time is spent
segregated from “nonclients,” poverty places a pall on their being, and options are
severely constricted. Even though the strengths model is not a panacea for this oppres-
sive situation, it has demonstrated its ability to make a positive difference in the lives
of people we are privileged to serve.
This book is primarily a practice text. It is the first attempt to translate systemati-
cally the ideas and conceptions about the strengths model into a set of empirically
derived practices. While the first three chapters are more conceptual in nature and
chapter 8 discusses the organizational and managerial context for practice, the central
focus of the book is strengths model practice: engagement, strengths assessment, per-
sonal planning, and resource acquisition. This edition of the book includes more
vignettes than the previous edition to make the practice “come alive” for the reader.
There are more strengths model tools or what one colleague calls “navigational aids” to

ix
x ■ Preface

foster the skillful implementation of the methods. There is an expanded section on

recovery and its relationship to strengths model practice. The third edition also fea-
tures more information for the supervisor on teaching the model to staff, including
reviewing tools, giving staff feedback, and field mentoring. Information on writing
goals that meet strengths model criteria and incorporate the language of “medical
necessity” will be helpful to those agencies who depend on Medicaid as a funding
source for their services. Reflective of the growing international interest in the model,
there is more material from other countries. Because the strengths model is still in its
infancy, much has been learned about the methods that comprise the approach. This
volume includes that which we have learned.
Given this purpose and feedback received from a wide variety of people, we have
come to believe that this text has relevance for multiple audiences. For social work
students (B.S.W. and M.S.W.), the book should be directly applicable for any classes
devoted to case management or mental health practice. It has been used as a supple-
ment to undergraduate or graduate social work practice classes. Some universities
have begun elective courses on the strengths model. For these courses, the fit seems to
approach the ideal. We have also been told that the book would also have relevance in
some university curricula in psychology, nursing, psychiatry, vocational rehabilitation,
and occupational therapy.
The book was also written with current mental health professionals in mind. Case
managers should find this volume directly relevant to their practice. Team leaders,
supervisors, and administrators will benefit from the detailed explanation of the meth-
ods as well as the chapter on creating a supportive organizational context for the
model. The behavioral listings of strengths-oriented practices following each of the
practice chapters and the fidelity instrument (chapter 8) are currently being used by
quality assurance personnel. For people responsible for staff development and train-
ing, the book should provide a blueprint for organizing and implementing training for
staff using the tools.
The authorship of this book camouflages the fact that no book owes more to more
people than this one does. The book started in 1982 when the University of Kansas
School of Social Welfare was awarded a $10,000 contract to provide case management
services to a group of people, referred to, then, as “chronically mentally ill.” With good
fortune that only could have come from a higher being, Ronna Chamberlain, a new
Ph.D. student, was assigned to me (Charlie) as a research assistant to design and
mount this project. We identified the desired client outcomes (e.g., community tenure,
independent living, work, leisure time activities) and were befuddled by how existing
case-management approaches with their emphasis on linking clients to formal mental
health services would be able to achieve them. Discarding the current approaches, we
began identifying the elements of practice that we thought would make sense. The
notion of individual and community strengths was central to this initial formulation.
We selected four students who were then assigned to the project to meet their field
practicum requirements for their B.S.W. or M.S.W. degrees. Ronna acted as their
supervisor and field instructor.
We evaluated the work as best we could. Given that the intervention was new and
quickly put together, that we were using inexperienced students to actually deliver the
service, that the host agency was not always supportive of our efforts, and that very few
 Preface ■ xi

approaches with this population had demonstrated success, we were at best hopeful
that the data would show some areas of success and provide direction for improve-
ment. We found, much to our surprise, that on 19 of the 22 indicators we assessed, the
results were positive (Rapp & Chamberlain, 1985). We could not really believe it, but
the next year we mounted three other projects in three different mental health centers.
Matt Modrcin, Dick Wintersteen, and Jim Hanson joined the team. Refinements were
made in the approach, the evaluation was made more rigorous, and once again, posi-
tive results were found. Based on this work, we put together a training manual.
By the mid-1980s, case management was becoming the centerpiece of community
support services, and states were devoting considerable effort to developing case man-
agement “systems.” We were asked to provide consultation and training in Kansas and
several other states. It was at this time that we became acutely aware that this “strengths
approach” was a dramatic shift from the past. In a typical group of trainees, it seemed
half the people said they were already doing it, and the other half said we were crazy for
thinking it. We wish we had been smart enough at the time to let them battle it out
instead of trying to convince each half that they were wrong. To be fair, even in the
earliest training groups, there were always a few people for whom the approach reso-
nated. It put into words and methods what their own practice sensed was right. These
people became the “champions” of the strengths approach.
By the late 1980s, the strengths approach was benefiting from the attention of an
increasing number of faculty members and Ph.D. students at the School of Social
Work. Liane Davis and Sue Pearlmutter applied the model to AFDC recipients of ben-
efits from the Aid to Families with Dependent Children Act in the Job Opportunities
and Basic Skills Training ( JOBS) program, Becky Fast applied it to work with older
adults in long-term care, Dennis Saleebey sought to tailor the model to an approach to
community development, John Poertner applied it to work with youth and families,
and Rosemary Chapin sought application of strengths to social policy analysis and
development. Ann Weick, Jim Taylor, and Dennis Saleebey applied their intellectual
energy to developing a richer conceptual understanding of the model. In 1993, as part
of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) reaccreditation study, the school
adapted the strengths perspective as one of its guiding curriculum themes. It is rare in
social work and other disciplines for a whole school to be so identified with a particu-
lar innovation. To be a part of such an experience is a source of great pride and joy.
So, the “we” is the faculty and Ph.D. students of the Kansas University School of
Social Welfare. The “we” is also the myriad people in practice and administration who
based their practice on the model who were able to show us where further work was
needed but whose work gave the model a credibility it would never have achieved if
relegated to academics. Among the “we” we are indebted to are Leslie Young, Estelle
Richman, Kevin Bomhoff, Marti Knisely, Tom Wernert, Martha Hodge, Linda Carlson,
Dianne Asher, and Diane McDiarmid. More recently, Barbara Anderson and Frank
Tracey of Te Korowai Aroha (TKA) in Auckland, New Zealand, and Paul Liddy of
Timaru, New Zealand, have inspired us and educated us about how the strengths
model can revolutionize a system of care.
The “we” also includes those people, many from other universities, whose work
has mightily influenced the approach. This includes Julian Rappaport, Steve Rose,
Bob Drake, Gary Bond, Debbie Becker, Priscilla Ridgway, Richard Rapp, Pat Deegan,
xii ■ Preface

Paul Carling, and Steve Huff. Dr. Deegan has honored us with her Foreword to this
edition. From across the seas, we have learned much from Dr. Peter Ryan of Middlesex
University in England, and Dr. Hideki Tanaka from Nagasaki Wesleyan University
in Japan.
There are two special “we’s.” The first and foremost is Ronna Chamberlain. Her
ideas at the start and throughout its development comprised the core ideas of the
strengths model. Because she does not like to write, although she does it well, or speak
publicly, although she is quite articulate, her contribution is hidden from most people.
Without her, this book would not exist.
The second special “we” is Pat Sullivan, currently professor of Social Work at
Indiana University, and the former director of mental health for the State of Indiana.
Pat was a student case manager in our first project in 1982, was a supervisor of one of
our special student units, supervised the supervisors of other projects, helped design
the early training, was a trainer, ran a community support services program (CSS)
based on the strengths model, and provided technical assistance to CSS programs
trying to implement the model. He extended the model to work with substance abuse
and employment assistance programs. Pat has done more to conceive of and articulate
the role of environment in the strengths model than anyone else. We were honored
that Pat agreed to write the foreword for the first edition of the book. In a sense, the
circle has been completed.
We would like to express appreciation to Chris Fosher for typing, retyping, retyp-
ing, and retyping the manuscript over the last year.

■ A FEW COMMENTS ON LANGUAGE

In this book, we have used various terms to refer to people with psychiatric disabilities.
Occasionally we used the term “consumer,” which had currency in the 1990s as the
preferred term but is now losing favor. Often we use “client.” Whenever possible we
have tried to just use “people” or “person” unless the context of the text demanded
making a distinction between the person receiving services and other individuals or
groups of people. Please understand, the use of each term is a rhetorical convenience.
We find no term that separates people with psychiatric disabilities from the rest of
society to be acceptable. The entire strengths approach is about personhood, not pati-
enthood or clienthood or even consumerhood. People’s courage, resilience, and, yes,
their strengths in the face of distressing symptoms, disabling conditions, and an often
unresponsive and oppressive society have taught us more about being human than
anything else.
We also use the term “case management” in this text. We acknowledge that this
term is considered pejorative to many persons with psychiatric disabilities. People
with psychiatric disabilities are not “cases” and they do not need to be “managed.” A
more accurate reflection of what this service entails is that it is the services that are
managed to help people reach their goals and recover their lives. We use this term for
this particular service only because it is the most widely recognized in the field at the
current time. Our goal is to change people’s approach to practice, not just the term.
This book is written for multiple audiences, and our hope is that people within systems
 Preface ■ xiii

who currently provide “case management” services will read this book and use it to
move their systems toward being recovery oriented.
Our change in the title of this book has been our first step to remove this term from
our vocabulary. The strengths model is a recovery-oriented approach for anyone who
provides services in mental health, not just a particular service provider. We have also
omitted the term “case manager” throughout the book, except in cases where the
example references a particular provider. We hope that people will continue to advo-
cate for replacing this term with one that more reflects recovery. Until a more appro-
priate title becomes globally recognized, the term should be used with sensitivity to
the negative connotations it carries.
So we end this preface with a favor to ask of the reader. If any of the terms used in
this book have negative connotations to you, or even if they do not, don’t just read
“client” or “consumer,” but think Alice, Joe, Joan, Bill, or some other name. We refer to
people, just like you and me who are striving for the same things we are, who are both
flawed and flawless, who have struggles and difficulties, who valiantly fight every day,
and can experience joy and passion for life. In other words, they are you and me.
This page intentionally left blank
■ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The section in chapter 1 headed “The Dominance of Deficits” has been reprinted from
Ann Weick, Charles A. Rapp, W. Patrick Sullivan, & Walter Kisthardt (1989),
A strengths perspective for social work practice, Social Work, 89, 350–352.
Much of the section in chapter 1 under the heading “Ecological Perspective” is
taken from James Taylor (1997), “Niches and practice: Extending the ecological
perspective,” with permission. In D. Saleebey (Ed.), The strengths perspective in social
work practice, 2nd ed. New York: Longman.
The description of entrapping and enabling niches in chapter 2 is from James
Taylor (1997), “Niches and practice: Extending the ecological perspective,” with
permission. In D. Saleebey (Ed.), The strengths perspective in social work practice, 2nd
ed. New York: Longman.
The section entitled “The Dimensions of Resources: The Four As” in chapter 7 has
been excerpted from Walter Kisthardt and Charles A. Rapp (1992), “Bridging the gap
between principles and practice,” with permission. In S. Rose (Ed.), Case management
and social work practice. New York: Longman.
Figure 7.4 has been reprinted with permission from W. B. Davidson and C. A. Rapp
(1976), Child advocacy in the justice system, Social Work, 21, 225–232.
Portions of chapter 8 has been adapted from Charles A. Rapp (1993), Client-
centered performance management for rehabilitation and mental health services, in
Robert W. Flexer and Phyllis L. Solomon (Eds.), Psychiatric rehabilitation in practice,
with permission from Andover Medical Publishers.

xv
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■ CONTENTS

Foreword vii
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xv

1. History, Critique, and Useful Conceptions:

Toward a Strengths Paradigm 3

2. A Beginning Theory of Strengths 33

3. The Purpose, Principles, and Research Results

of the Strengths Model 51

4. Engagement and Relationship: A New Partnership 70

5. Strengths Assessment: Amplifying the Well Part

of the Individual 93

6. Personal Planning: Creating the Achievement Agenda 130

7. Resource Acquisition: Putting Community Back Into

Community Mental Health 177

8. Supportive Strengths Model Context: Creating the

Conditions for Effectiveness 220

9. Strengths Model Epilogue: Commonly Asked

Questions (Objections) 255

Appendix I. Spirit-Breaking Behaviors 267

Appendix II. Hope-Inducing Behaviors 269
Appendix III. Areas to Explore Through the Strengths Assessment 271
Appendix IV. Quality Review of Strengths Assessment 279
Appendix V. Strengths Model Core Competencies Evaluation Tool 281
Appendix VI. Strengths Model Case Management Fidelity Scale 287
References 293
Index 311

xvii
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■ The Strengths Model
This page intentionally left blank
 1 History, Critique, and Useful
Conceptions
Toward a Strengths Paradigm

The strengths model represents a paradigm shift in mental health, social work,
and other helping professions. A paradigm is a model or way of perceiving the world
and solving problems. The current paradigm, which has continued for over a century,
has been found wanting. The lives of people with psychiatric disabilities continue to be
marked by poverty, loneliness, limited opportunities for achievement, discrimination,
and oppression. As Saleebey (1996) writes:
The impetus, in part, for the evolution of a more strengths-based review of practice,
comes from the awareness that our culture and the helping professions are saturated
with an approach to understanding the human condition obsessed with individual,
family, and community pathology, deficit, problem, abnormality, victimization, and
disorder. (p. 1)
This chapter sketches the context within which the strengths model evolved. We first
describe and critique the paradigm that has dominated mental health practice
for the last century. We then turn to ideas and conceptions that have been useful in
developing the strengths perspective.

■ SOCIAL PROCESSES AND SENSITIZING

VIEWPOINTS

People with psychiatric disabilities continue to be oppressed by the society in which

they live, and this oppression is often reinforced by the practices of the professionals
responsible for helping them. This is rarely done intentionally or with malevolence
but, rather, is elicited by compassion and caring. Because the oppression is dressed up
in the clothes of compassion, it is difficult to identify, to understand in its underlying
dynamics, and to develop alternative approaches to it. This section seeks to describe
those social processes and professional practices that contribute to the oppression.
Figure 1.1 depicts the key elements of the current dominant paradigm.

3
4 ■ the strengths model

Dominance of problems, deficits, and pathology

Damage model
Environmental deficits Oppression
Blaming the victim
Continuum of care and transitions

Figure 1.1 Social processes and practices contributing to oppression

■ THE DOMINANCE OF DEFICITS

Dichotomies pervade human life. In trying to cope with complex realities, human
societies have created stark divisions between the good and the bad, the safe and the
unsafe, the friend and the enemy. It is a curious fact that greater attention invariably is
paid to the negative poles of the dichotomy: to the bad, the unsafe, the enemy. This
pull toward the negative aspects of life has given a peculiar shape to human endeavors
and has, in the case of social work and other helping professions, created a profound
tilt toward the pathological. Because of the subtle ways in which this bias is expressed,
its contours and consequences must be examined to set the stage for a different per-
spective. The strengths perspective is an alternative to a preoccupation with negative
aspects of people and society and a more apt expression of some of the deepest values
of social work.

Tracing the Roots

Social work is not unique in its focus on the pathological. Throughout history, cultures
have been preoccupied with naming and conquering outsiders and waging battles
against the enemy in people’s souls. Judeo-Christian heritage has given rise to a clear
sense of human frailty through its concept of sin and has used that concept to limit or
punish those thought to transgress moral norms.
Social work’s origins are in the concept of moral deficiency. The Age of
Enlightenment created the philosophical backdrop against which to consider in a new
way the plight of the less fortunate; but, given the economic environment in the 1800s
and the religious convictions of those in the so-called charity organization society,
the strategy was one of moral conversion. Poverty was attributed to drunkenness,
intemperance, ignorance, and lack of moral will (Axinn & Levin, 1975, pp. 89–94).
Change was to come about not through provision of monetary assistance but through
persuasion and friendly influence. The emphasis on human failings as the cause of
difficulties established a conceptual thread with strands that are still found in practice
today.
The focus on moral frailty went through an evolution that both softened and dis-
guised its presence. Soon after the turn of the previous century, social workers began
calling for a more professional approach to the work of helping people (Leiby, 1978,
p. 181). The adoption of the empirical method used in the natural sciences was
the stimulus for the social sciences and for the emerging professions to define them-
selves not as crafts or philanthropic efforts but as organized disciplined sciences
 History, Critique, and Useful Conceptions ■ 5

(Leiby, 1978, p. 348). Mary Richmond was one of the earliest proponents of using a
logical evidence-based method for helping (Goldstein, 1943, p. 29). Through her and
others’ efforts, increasing attention was paid to defining the problems in people’s lives
so that a rational, rather than a moralistic, strategy of intervention could be pursued.
The development of this formulation of professional practice was intersected in
the 1930s by increasing interest in psychoanalytic theory as the theoretical structure
for defining individuals’ problems (Smalley, 1967, pp. ix–x). But the cost of this affilia-
tion with psychoanalytic theory and its derivatives was an ever more sophisticated
connection with human weakness as the critical variable in understanding human
problems.
These weaknesses became reified with the language of pathology. A complicated
clinical nomenclature grew up as a descriptive edifice for these new psychological
insights. The art of clinical diagnosis was born—an art far more complicated than
Richmond’s logical steps to assessment. In keeping with the scientific belief that a
cause must be found before a result could be achieved, attention was paid to all indi-
vidual behaviors that signified a diagnostic category. After a diagnosis was established,
treatment could proceed. In this process, every category of clinical diagnosis focuses
on a human lack or weakness, ranging from the relatively benign to the severe.

Recent Directions
The profession has not been oblivious to the importance of recognizing individual
strengths in practice encounters. Indeed, in 1958, the Commission on Social Work
Practice included as a main objective of the field to “seek out, identify, and strengthen
the maximum potential in individuals, groups and communities” (Bartlett, 1958, p. 6).
Later writers, such as Hepworth and Larsen (1986), Shulman (1979), and Germain
and Gitterman (1980), have given attention to the danger of focusing narrowly on
individual pathology while ignoring strengths.
However, a subtle and elusive focus on individual or environmental deficits and
personal or social problems remains in recent frameworks. The “ecological perspec-
tive” of social work practice, a model developed by Germain and Gitterman (1980),
illustrates this point.
Germain and Gitterman (1980) built on the social work tradition of focusing on
the interface between person and environment, introduced ecological concepts such
as adaptation, and suggested that attention should be focused on the transactions that
occur between people and their environments. They contended that it is in these com-
plex transactions between a person and the environment that “upsets in the usual
adaptive balance or goodness-of-fit often emerge” (p. 7). These “upsets,” from their
point of view, often are the result of “the stress generated by discrepancies between
needs and capacities on one hand and the environmental qualities on the other”
(p. 7). In short, it is either the characteristics of the individual or of the environment
that create the problem. Emphasis thus rests on the ability to assess adequately the
nature of the problem. Although Germain and Gitterman acknowledged the impor-
tance of “engaging positive forces in the person and the environment,” the goal is to
reduce “negative transactional features” (p. 19). In a subtle way, negative aspects still
dominate this view.
6 ■ the strengths model

A focus on the adequate assessment and diagnosis of the “problem” has deep roots
in the profession and remains a central tenet of modern practice tests. For example,
Compton and Galaway (1984) saw the focus of social work as “using a problem-solving
focus to resolve problems in the person-situation interaction” (p. 12). Hepworth and
Larsen (1986), who devoted an admirable amount of attention to the identification
and use of strengths, also considered the problem-solving process as essential to social
work practice and promoted the importance of “assessing human problems and locat-
ing and developing or utilizing appropriate resources systems” (p. 23).
Problem-solving models are closely tied to the notion of intervention. As Compton
and Galaway (1984) described it, “Intervention refers to deliberate, planned actions
undertaken by the client and the worker to resolve a problem” (p. 11). Although writ-
ers such as Shulman (1979) sense the need to identify the strengths of both the indi-
vidual and the environment, the focus of intervention is on the “blocks in the
individual—social engagement” (p. 9). Read closely, these views all suggest that accu-
rate diagnosis or assessment of a problem lead naturally to the selection of particular
“interventions” that, it is to be hoped, disrupt the natural course of individual or social
difficulty. The difficulty or problem is seen as the linchpin for assessment and action.
Charles Cowger (1992) claims that virtually all our professional attention and
assessment protocols are focused on deficits of the individual or environment. He
developed a grid to group the approaches:

Strengths

Environmental factors Personal factors

Deficits

He suggests, “A new theoretical interest in how environmental factors affect

practice has been increasingly evident in the literature since the early 1970s. However,
like renewed interest in client strengths, this interest has not been fully realized in
actual practice because practice guidelines and specific practice knowledge have
lagged” (pp. 142–143).
Maluccio (1979) found that social workers underestimated client strengths and
had more negative perceptions of clients than clients had of themselves. “Social work-
ers persist in formulating assessments that focus almost exclusively on the pathology
and dysfunction of clients—despite the time honored social work platitude that social
workers work with strengths, not weaknesses” (Hepworth & Larsen, 1986). As Cowger
(1992) states, “a library search for assessment tools that include client strengths is a
particularly unrewarding experience” (p. 140).

The Problem With Problem Focus

Attention to people’s inability to cope is a central expression of the prevailing

perspectives on helping. Approaches differ in the way the problem is defined, but
Another random document with
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 The Project Gutenberg eBook of
John Jasper: The unmatched Negro philosopher
and preacher
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
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Title: John Jasper: The unmatched Negro philosopher and

preacher

Author: William E. Hatcher

Release date: June 6, 2022 [eBook #68205]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Fleming H. Revell Company,

1908

Credits: Charlene Taylor, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file
was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN

JASPER: THE UNMATCHED NEGRO PHILOSOPHER AND
PREACHER ***
 Transcriber’s Note:

Obvious typographic errors have been

corrected.
JOHN JASPER
 JOHN JASPER

The Unmatched Negro

Philosopher and Preacher

By
WILLIAM E. HATCHER, LL. D.

New York Chicago Toronto

Fleming H. Revell Company
London and Edinburgh

Copyright, 1908, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

New York: 158 Fifth Avenue

Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street
 CONTENTS
Introduction 7
I. Jasper Presented 15
II. Jasper Has a Thrilling Conversion 23
III. How Jasper Got His Schooling 30
IV. The Slave Preacher 36
V. “Whar Sin Kum Frum?” 47
VI. Jasper Set Free 58
VII. The Picture-Maker 65
VIII. Jasper’s Star Witness 72
IX. Jasper’s Sermon on “Dem Sebun Wimmin” 89
X. Jasper Glimpsed Under Various Lights 94
XI. Sermon:—The Stone Cut Out of the Mountain 108
XII. Facts Concerning the Sermon on the Sun 121
XIII. The Sun Do Move 133
XIV. One Jasper Day in the Spring Time of 1878 150
XV. Jasper’s Picture of Heaven 174
 INTRODUCTION
Reader; stay a moment. A word with you before you begin to sample
this book. We will tell you some things in advance, which may help
you to decide whether it is worth while to read any further. These
pages deal with a negro, and are not designed either to help or to
hurt the negro race. They have only to do with one man. He was one
of a class,—without pedigree, and really without successors, except
that he was so dominant and infectious that numbers of people
affected his ways and dreamed that they were one of his sort. As a
fact, they were simply of another and of a baser sort.
The man in question was a negro, and if you cannot appreciate
greatness in a black skin you would do well to turn your thoughts into
some other channel. Moreover, he was a negro covered over with
ante bellum habits and ways of doing. He lived forty years before the
war and for about forty years after it. He grew wonderfully as a
freeman; but he never grew away from the tastes, dialects, and
manners of the bondage times. He was a man left over from the old
régime and never got infected with the new order. The air of the
educated negro preacher didn’t set well upon him. The raw
scholarship of the new “ish,” as he called it, was sounding brass to
him. As a fact, the new generation of negro preachers sent out by
the schools drew back from this man. They branded him as an
anachronism, and felt that his presence in the pulpit was a shock to
religion and an offense to the ministry; and yet not one of them ever
attained the celebrity or achieved the results which came to this
unlettered and grievously ungrammatical son of Africa.
But do not be afraid that you are to be fooled into the fanatical camp.
This story comes from the pen of a Virginian who claims no
exemption from Southern prejudices and feels no call to sound the
praises of the negro race. Indeed, he never intended to write what is
contained within the covers of this book. It grew up spontaneously
and most of the contents were written before the book was thought
of.
It is, perhaps, too much to expect that the meddlers with books will
take the ipse dixit of an unaccredited stranger. They ought not to do
it: they are not asked to do it. They can go on about their business, if
they prefer; but if they do, they will miss the story of the
incomparable negro of the South. This is said with sobriety and after
a half century spent in close observation of the negro race.
More than that, the writer of this never had any intention of bothering
with this man when he first loomed up into notoriety. He got drawn in
unexpectedly. He heard that there was a marvel of a man “over in
Africa,” a not too savoury portion of Richmond, Virginia,—and one
Sunday afternoon in company with a Scot-Irishman, who was a
scholar and a critic, with a strong leaning towards ridicule, he went to
hear him preach. Shades of our Anglo-Saxon fathers! Did mortal lips
ever gush with such torrents of horrible English! Hardly a word came
out clothed and in its right mind. And gestures! He circled around the
pulpit with his ankle in his hand; and laughed and sang and shouted
and acted about a dozen characters within the space of three
minutes. Meanwhile, in spite of these things, he was pouring out a
gospel sermon, red hot, full of love, full of invective, full of
tenderness, full of bitterness, full of tears, full of every passion that
ever flamed in the human breast. He was a theatre within himself,
with the stage crowded with actors. He was a battle-field;—himself
the general, the staff, the officers, the common soldiery, the
thundering artillery and the rattling musketry. He was the preacher;
likewise the church and the choir and the deacons and the
congregation. The Scot-Irishman surrendered in fifteen minutes after
the affair commenced, but the other man was hard-hearted and
stubborn and refused to commit himself. He preferred to wait until he
got out of doors and let the wind blow on him and see what was left.
He determined to go again; and he went and kept going, off and on,
for twenty years. That was before the negro became a national
figure. It was before he startled his race with his philosophy as to the
rotation of the sun. It was before he became a lecturer and a
sensation, sought after from all parts of the country. Then it was that
he captured the Scot-Irish and the other man also. What is written
here constitutes the gatherings of nearly a quarter of a century, and,
frankly speaking, is a tribute to the brother in black,—the one
unmatched, unapproachable, and wonderful brother.
But possibly the reader is of the practical sort. He would like to get
the worldly view of this African genius and to find out of what stuff he
was made. Very well; he will be gratified! Newspapers are
heartlessly practical. They are grudging of editorial commendation,
and in Richmond, at the period, they were sparing of references of
any kind to negroes. You could hardly expect them to say anything
commendatory of a negro, if he was a negro, with odd and
impossible notions. Now this man was of that very sort. He got it into
his big skull that the earth was flat, and that the sun rotated;—a
scientific absurdity! But you see he proved it by the Bible. He
ransacked the whole book and got up ever so many passages. He
took them just as he found them. It never occurred to him that the
Bible was not dealing with natural science, and that it was written in
an age and country when astronomy was unknown and therefore
written in the language of the time. Intelligent people understand this
very well, but this miracle of his race was behind his era. He took the
Bible literally, and, with it in hand, he fought his battles about the
sun. Literally, but not scientifically, he proved his position, and he
gave some of his devout antagonists a world of botheration by the
tenacity with which he held to his views and the power with which he
stated his case. Scientifically, he was one of the ancients, but that
did not interfere with his piety and did not at all eclipse his views. His
perfect honesty was most apparent in all of his contentions; and,
while some laughed at what they called his vagaries, those who
knew him best respected him none the less, but rather the more, for
his astronomical combat. There was something in his love of the
Bible, his faith in every letter of it, and his courage, that drew to him
the good will and lofty respect of uncounted thousands and,
probably, it might be said, of uncounted millions.
Now when this man died it was as the fall of a tower. It was a crash,
heard and felt farther than was the collapse of the famous tower at
Venice. If the dubious, undecided reader has not broken down on the
road but has come this far, he is invited to look at the subjoined
editorial from The Richmond Dispatch, the leading morning paper of
Richmond, Va., which published at the time an article on this lofty
figure, now national in its proportions and imperishable in its fame,
when it bowed to the solemn edict of death.

(From The Richmond Dispatch)

“It is a sad coincidence that the destruction of the Jefferson
Hotel and the death of the Rev. John Jasper should have fallen
upon the same day. John Jasper was a Richmond Institution, as
surely so as was Major Ginter’s fine hotel. He was a national
character, and he and his philosophy were known from one end
of the land to the other. Some people have the impression that
John Jasper was famous simply because he flew in the face of
the scientists and declared that the sun moved. In one sense,
that is true, but it is also true that his fame was due, in great
measure, to a strong personality, to a deep, earnest conviction,
as well as to a devout Christian character. Some preachers
might have made this assertion about the sun’s motion without
having attracted any special attention. The people would have
laughed over it, and the incident would have passed by as a
summer breeze. But John Jasper made an impression upon his
generation, because he was sincerely and deeply in earnest in
all that he said. No man could talk with him in private, or listen to
him from the pulpit, without being thoroughly convinced of that
fact. His implicit trust in the Bible and everything in it, was
beautiful and impressive. He had no other lamp by which his
feet were guided. He had no other science, no other philosophy.
He took the Bible in its literal significance; he accepted it as the
inspired word of God; he trusted it with all his heart and soul and
mind; he believed nothing that was in conflict with the teachings
of the Bible—scientists and philosophers and theologians to the
contrary notwithstanding.
“‘They tried to make it appear,’ said he, in the last talk we had
with him on the subject, ‘that John Jasper was a fool and a liar
when he said that the sun moved. I paid no attention to it at first,
because I did not believe that the so-called scientists were in
earnest. I did not think that there was any man in the world fool
enough to believe that the sun did not move, for everybody had
seen it move. But when I found that these so-called scientists
were in earnest I took down my old Bible and proved that they,
and not John Jasper, were the fools and the liars.’ And there
was no more doubt in his mind on that subject than there was of
his existence. John Jasper had the faith that removed
mountains. He knew the literal Bible as well as Bible scholars
did. He did not understand it from the scientific point of view, but
he knew its teachings and understood its spirit, and he believed
in it. He accepted it as the true word of God, and he preached it
with unction and with power.
“John Jasper became famous by accident, but he was a most
interesting man apart from his solar theory. He was a man of
deep convictions, a man with a purpose in life, a man who
earnestly desired to save souls for heaven. He followed his
divine calling with faithfulness, with a determination, as far as he
could, to make the ways of his God known unto men, His saving
health among all nations. And the Lord poured upon His
servant, Jasper, ‘the continual dew of His blessing.’”
 I
JASPER PRESENTED

John Jasper, the negro preacher of Richmond, Virginia, stands

preëminent among the preachers of the negro race in the South. He
was for fifty years a slave, and a preacher during twenty-five years of
his slavery, and distinctly of the old plantation type. Freedom came
full-handed to him, but it did not in any notable degree change him in
his style, language, or manner of preaching. He was the ante bellum
preacher until eighty-nine years of age, when he preached his last
sermon on “Regeneration,” and with quiet dignity laid off his mortal
coil and entered the world invisible. He was the last of his type, and
we shall not look upon his like again. It has been my cherished
purpose for some time to embalm the memory of this extraordinary
genius in some form that would preserve it from oblivion. I would
give to the American people a picture of the God-made preacher
who was great in his bondage and became immortal in his freedom.
This is not to be done in biographic form, but rather in vagrant
articles which find their kinship only in the fact that they present
some distinct view of a man, hampered by early limitations, denied
the graces of culture, and cut off even from the advantages of a
common education, but who was munificently endowed by nature,
filled with vigour and self-reliance, and who achieved greatness in
spite of almost limitless adversities. I account him genuinely great
among the sons of men, but I am quite sure that the public can never
apprehend the force and gist of his rare manhood without first being
made acquainted with certain facts appertaining to his early life.
Jasper was born a slave. He grew up on a plantation and was a
toiler in the fields up to his manhood. When he came to Richmond,
now grown to a man, he was untutored, full of dangerous energies,
almost gigantic in his muscle, set on pleasure, and without the fear
of God before his eyes. From his own account of himself, he was
fond of display, a gay coxcomb among the women of his race, a fun-
maker by nature, with a self-assertion that made him a leader within
the circles of his freedom.
We meet him first as one of the “hands” in the tobacco factory of Mr.
Samuel Hargrove, an enterprising and prosperous manufacturer in
the city of Richmond. Jasper occupied the obscure position of “a
stemmer,”—which means that his part was to take the well-cured
tobacco leaf and eliminate the stem, with a view to preparing what
was left to be worked into “the plug” which is the glory of the
tobacco-chewer. This position had one advantage for this quick-
witted and alert young slave. It threw him into contact with a
multitude of his own race, and as nature had made him a lover of his
kind his social qualities found ample scope for exercise. In his early
days he went at a perilous pace and found in the path of the sinful
many fountains of common joy. Indeed, he made evil things fearfully
fascinating by the zestful and remorseless way in which he indulged
them.
It was always a joy renewed for him to tell the story of his
conversion. As described by him, his initial religious experiences,
while awfully mystical and solemn to him, were grotesque and
ludicrous enough. They partook of the extravagances of the times,
yet were so honest in their nature, and so soundly Scriptural in their
doctrines, and so reverential in their tone, that not even the most
captious sceptic could hear him tell of them, in his moments of
exalted inspiration, without feeling profoundly moved by them.
It ought to be borne in mind that this odd and forcible man was a
preacher in Richmond for a half century, and that during all that time,
whether in slavery or in freedom, he lived up to his religion,
maintaining his integrity, defying the unscrupulous efforts of jealous
foes to destroy him, and walking the high path of spotless and
incorruptible honour. Not that he was always popular among his
race. He was too decided, too aggressive, too intolerant towards
meanness, and too unpitying in his castigation of vice, to be popular.
His life, in the nature of the case, had to be a warfare, and it may be
truly said that he slept with his sword buckled on.
Emancipation did not turn his head. He was the same high-minded,
isolated, thoughtful Jasper. His way of preaching became an offense
to the “edicated” preachers of the new order, and with their new
sense of power these double-breasted, Prince-Albert-coated, high
hat and kid-gloved clergymen needed telescopes to look as far down
as Jasper was, to get a sight of him. They verily thought that it would
be a simple process to transfix him with their sneers, and flaunt their
new grandeurs before him, in order to annihilate him. Many of these
new-fledged preachers, who came from the schools to be pastors in
Richmond, resented Jasper’s prominence and fame. They felt that
he was a reproach to the race, and they did not fail to fling at him
their flippant sneers.
But Jasper’s mountain stood strong. He looked this new tribe of his
adversaries over and marked them as a calcimined and fictitious
type of culture. To him they were shop-made and unworthy of
respect. They called forth the storm of his indignant wrath. He
opened his batteries upon them, and, for quite a while, the thunder of
his guns fairly shook the steeples on the other negro churches of
Richmond. And yet it will never do to think of him as the incarnation
of a vindictive and malevolent spirit. He dealt terrific blows, and it is
hardly too much to say that many of his adversaries found it
necessary to get out of the range of his guns. But, after all, there was
a predominant good nature about him. His humour was
inexhaustible, and irresistible as well. If by his fiery denunciations he
made his people ready to “fight Philip,” he was quite apt before he
finished to let fly some of his odd comparisons, his laughable stories,
or his humorous mimicries. He could laugh off his own grievances,
and could make his own people “take the same medicine.”
Jasper was something of a hermit, given to seclusion, imperturbably
calm in his manner, quite ascetic in his tastes, and a cormorant in his
devouring study of the Bible. Naturally, Jasper was as proud as
Lucifer,—too proud to be egotistic and too candid and self-assertive
to affect a humility which he did not feel. He walked heights where
company was scarce, and seemed to love his solitude. Jasper was
as brave as a lion and possibly not a little proud of his bravery. He
fought in the open and set no traps for his adversaries. He believed
in himself,—felt the dignity of his position, and never let himself down
to what was little or unseemly.
The most remarkable fact in Jasper’s history is connected with his
extraordinary performances in connection with his tersely expressed
theory,—THE SUN DO MOVE! We would think in advance that any man
who would come forward to champion that view would be hooted out
of court. It was not so with Jasper. His bearing through all that
excitement was so dignified, so sincere, so consistent and heroic,
that he actually did win the rank of a true philosopher. This result, so
surprising, is possibly the most handsome tribute to his inherent
excellence and nobility of character. One could not fail to see that his
fight on a technical question was so manifestly devout, so filled with
zeal for the honour of religion, and so courageous in the presence of
overwhelming odds, that those who did not agree with him learned to
love and honour him.
The sensation which he awakened fairly flew around the country. It is
said that he preached the sermon 250 times, and it would be hard to
estimate how many thousands of people heard him. The papers,
religious and secular, had much to say about him. Many of them
published his sermons, some of them at first plying him with derision,
but about all of them rounding up with the admission of a good deal
of faith in Jasper. So vast was his popularity that a mercenary
syndicate once undertook to traffic on his popularity by sending him
forth as a public lecturer. The movement proved weak on its feet,
and after a little travel he hobbled back richer in experience than in
purse.
As seen in the pulpit or in the street Jasper was an odd picture to
look upon. His figure was uncouth; he was rather loosely put
together; his limbs were fearfully long and his body strikingly short,—
a sort of nexus to hold his head and limbs in place. He was black,
but his face saved him. It was open, luminous, thoughtful, and in
moments of animation it glowed with a radiance and exultation that
was most attractive.
Jasper’s career as a preacher after the war was a poem. The story is
found later on and marks him as a man of rare originality, and of
patience born of a better world. He left a church almost entirely the
creation of his own productive life, that holds a high rank in
Richmond and that time will find it hard to estrange from his spirit
and influence. For quite a while he was hardly on coöperative terms
with the neighbouring churches, and it is possible that he ought to
share somewhat in the responsibility for the estrangement which so
long existed;—though it might be safely said that if they had left
Jasper alone he would not have bothered them. Let it be said that
the animosities of those days gradually gave away to the gracious
and softening influence of time, and, when his end came, all the
churches and ministers of the city most cordially and lovingly united
in honouring his memory.
It may betoken the regard in which Jasper was held by the white
people if I should be frank enough to say that I was the pastor of the
Grace Street Baptist Church, one of the largest ecclesiastical bodies
in the city at the time of Jasper’s death, and the simple
announcement in the morning papers that I would deliver an address
in honour of this negro preacher who had been carried to his grave
during the previous week brought together a representative and
deeply sympathetic audience which overflowed the largest church
auditorium in the city. With the utmost affection and warmth I put
forth my lofty appreciation of this wonderful prince of his tribe, and so
far as known there was never an adverse criticism offered as to the
propriety or justice of the tribute which was paid him.
It is of this unusual man, this prodigy of his race, and this eminent
type of the Christian negro, that the somewhat random articles of this
volume are to treat. His life jumped the common grooves and ran on
heights not often trod. His life went by bounds and gave surprises
with each succeeding leap.
 II
JASPER HAS A THRILLING CONVERSION

Let us bear in mind that at the time of his conversion John Jasper
was a slave, illiterate and working in a tobacco factory in Richmond.
It need hardly be said that he shared the superstitions and indulged
in the extravagances of his race, and these in many cases have
been so blatant and unreasonable that they have caused some to
doubt the negro’s capacity for true religion. But from the beginning
Jasper’s religious experiences showed forth the Lord Jesus as their
source and centre. His thoughts went to the Cross. His hope was
founded on the sacrificial blood, and his noisy and rhapsodic
demonstrations sounded a distinct note in honour of his Redeemer.
Jasper’s conviction as to his call to the ministry was clear-cut and
intense. He believed that his call came straight from God. His boast
and glory was that he was a God-made preacher. In his fierce
warfares with the educated preachers of his race—“the new issue,”
as he contemptuously called them—he rested his claim on the
ground that God had put him into the ministry; and so reverential, so
full of noble assertion and so irresistibly eloquent was he in setting
forth his ministerial authority that even his most sceptical critics were
constrained to admit that, like John the Baptist, he was “a man sent
from God.”
And yet Jasper knew the human side of his call. It was a part of his
greatness that he could see truth in its relations and completeness,
and while often he presented one side of a truth, as if it were all of it,
he also saw the other side. With him a paradox was not a
contradiction. He gratefully recognized the human influences which
helped him to enter the ministry. While preaching one Sunday
afternoon Jasper suddenly stopped, his face lighted as with a vision,
a rich laugh rippled from his lips while his eyes flashed with soulful
fire. He then said, in a manner never to be reported: “Mars Sam