Content area
Full text
Abstract
This is a review of some of the conflicts between traditional problem-based assessments and alternative, strengths-based approaches. it offers useful tools and strategies for Incorporating client-centered, strengths-based practice in settings where sodal workers are required to use assessment processes based on the medical model and deficit-based language of psychopathology and the DSM. It also promotes a process of infiltrating, influencing, and transforming the of assessment process so that it reflects a more holistic and strengths-based social work perspective. Examples are provided for incorporating the strengths perspective In practice.
IN THEIR DAILY WORK, many social workers experience a tension between conflicting paradigms. On one hand, there is a rich history of social work knowledge derived from understanding the complexities and resources of the bio-psycho-socio-spiritual environment (Cowger, 1994; Franklin, 1992; Gutheil, 1992; Rodwell, 1987), as well as the remarkable stories of those individuals and families that not only endure, but thrive in the face of great adversity (Bass & Thornton, 1983; Rothenberg, 1997; Rubin, 1994). There is also a growing emphasis on the strengths perspective, and the unique strengths, skills, and abilities of persons who surprise us by not fitting neatly into any category and who create solutions where none seem possible (Weick, Sullivan, & Kisthardt, 1989; Saleebey, 1992, 1996).
On the other hand, there is the dominant medical model world view, primarily based on the concept of disease process and a deficit-based understanding of human behavior as exemplified by psychopathology and the DSM (American Psychiatric Association, 1994; Hersen & Turner, 1991; Maxmen, 1986). This paradigm can influence one's view of all behavior, and have a profound effect on how services are provided, especially through the dichotomization of all behavior into medical and non-medical polarities, and through the mechanism of insurance coverage and reimbursement (Berlin, 1992; Kirk & Kutchins, 1992). It can control access to services, what services can be provided, and how both clients and service providers see themselves in the world, (Kutchins & Kirk, 1997).
The author finds that this tension is often either dismissed as unimportant, or avoided because of the disturbing or threatening consequences of addressing it. That is, the exigencies of getting work done, within the dominant paradigm, tend to reduce the attention paid to possible alternatives, leading to a...