Operation D: Funny partisans (operations 16, relationship 6)

A comic paradigm in social work

A comic element is as underrated in social work as is comedy in arts. Its value as a tool is not recognised. Common opinion is that social work is something “dead serious”, that it is about human tragedies or, that it is about something official. Yet, it is not uncommon that social workers relate jokes – funny anecdotes – about their users during their “unofficial” coffee breaks. Likewise, users often ridicule the social workers in their circles. Late Zoran Sedmak once commented: “Why don’t we laugh together?!” Would it give us hiccups?

Unfortunately, the tragedy was installed in our civilization to be a paradigm of understanding human nature and destiny. The comedy is there to make this easier to bear. It is the art of having fun, to forget and run.

Indeed, the tragedy is an appliance of remembering (false memories), and humour is a way of oblivion, forgetfulness. It is a way of subtle capture of a situation, laughing at it and then taking off. This is why it is difficult to remember jokes. Is this why one who tells the joke laughs the most?

Not only laugh transforms the unbearable situation into surpassable one; it makes it possible for us to intellect it.  To read between the lines of utterances and deeds. Unresolvable (tragic) contradictions transmute into witty paradoxes. You may need to be stupid to be clever or clever to be stupid (I do not know which), yet, you do not need to be Wittgeiststein to be witty,

Humour is overturning situation, yet you stay on your feet and walk away. The overturn of mind-frame and situation-frame. It allows staying in the situation while exiting it. Surprise is a welcome.

This is a good model for social work. The humour is not only a vent making it easy to sustain the hardship, it is also a good way of coming and being together, doing things in a different way, having fun while working seriously. It is not just a talent; it is also a skill – to be nurtured. It is not useful in breaking the ice, moving on, de-blocking the working of the situation; it is also an ethical statement – in itself.

The importance of being earnest

Classic posture of a professional (and a scientist) is to be impartial, neutral. Not only from social work perspective, have we known that this is not the case. No matter how hard they try to stage, and even to achieve this, at the end of the day, in the crucial moments the professionals will be on the side of the powerful.[1] On the other side, social work is by definition on the side of the (most) powerless.  Such a clear position and calling is rare for professionals and a luxury. Not only is it necessary for assuming the users perspective, foster empowerment and be an advocate - it enables social work to state the values clearly and decidedly, and act upon these values.  Nevertheless, like all the professionals, we need to stay impartial and nurture the professional discipline, which gives us credibility that we are not acting for some private reason.[2]

There are many tools and instances of practising social work as a partisan profession. However, just empathy[3], user and strength perspectives, and observing the ethical imperative of being on the side of the weakest, may not be enough.  Moreover, not only in anthropology[4], but also in social work, there is a whole history of becoming native[5], i.e. of relinquishing the appointed role and mandate and joining the users. Not only joining youth subcultures, also joining trade unions, activist groups and movements. And, this might not be just a fleeting jaunt, but a road of no return, ships might be burned and the bridges wrecked. Becoming the other is not just imagining how it is to be in shoes of the other, it not just provisional step out the role, it is relinquishing the power invested in it. The prince has to become a pauper, for real, in order for a synthesis to happen.

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[1]However, we do expect and respect this impartiality. If it is impossible to the absolute degree, although knowing this, we expect the judges to be as neutral as possible, to asymptotically approach the ideal. Even if their ruling will be on the average class, race, gender or any other way socially biased. However, there is also a general bias – in theory and practice of the law – on the orientation to retributive or restitutive justice. And a general bias of ruling against an individual even when the crime is structural. The jurisdiction does not have the guts to rule on the structural issues and perform the transformative justice – i.e. apply the power of the court to transform the social arrangements (Asja Hrvatin in personal communication, after the debate on the issue of social work and law, retributive and restitutive justice in social work symposia at IUC Dubrovnik).

[2] Classic definition of a professional equates personal and private. In social work, we need to make a distinction. It must be absolutely clear that we are not extracting any private gain from the social work situation, or if we do, apart from the fee, salary, that it is accidental and not intended result. A social worker who takes children on a summer camp, should enjoy the camping too, he or she should be motivated also by their own personal experience, however, there should not be any doubt about the overarching intention of the enterprise, that it is for common good of the participants and the camp is not organised for the benefit of the social worker (e.g. having holydays and being paid).  

[3] In social work, two kinds of empathy are important – interpersonal in the conversation in order to establish an emotional bridge between two people and a social or situational of experiencing the social situation that one is in. However, the concept and techniques of empathy are often used as a trick to fend off the feeling and intense involvement with users, to grasp and apprehend their feelings and situation but not get “caught” in them, get overwhelmed by emotions and drawn into the situation. Empathy in this way may be useful as a short cut in recognising the situation and identifying with people, when there is no time or urgency to enter the situation fully. However, making a principle out of it, is not necessary nor productive. There are many other ways of creating a reflective distance to a situation (e.g. writing a diary, poems, blogs or having reflective discussion in the whole collective experiencing the situation), and there are situations where it is not enough to understand the situation but to act in it, and to act personally with gusto. Often, the allegiance must be enacted, the trust created by actions of intense involvement, of a personal risk, that attest that we are truly on the side of our users.

[4] It could be claimed that in »going native« anthropologist becomes a social worker.

[5] The term “going native” is usually applied. I use becoming in deleuzeguattarian sense, to mark that it is not only about crossover, changing sides, but also a thorough metamorphosis affecting the whole being. Additionally, this imperfect verb denotes a process, transposition of existence and not just a Hdeed performed at a certain moment.  

Operation D: From fetishism of words to fetishism of relationship (operations 15, relationship 5)

In addition to the danger of being stuck in the fetishism of words, a social worker can get stuck in fetishism of relationships. This is a serious danger, since the relationships are important in social work. On one hand, as we contest, establishing the work relationship is a precondition for working together, therefore for social work by and large. On the other, the relationships are overrated. This is arises from the situation and the concrete dispositive – the perspective of the social worker since he or she, in order to perform his or her task, has to form a (working) relationship. Beyond the situation, it is a consequence of the long tradition of fetishizing relationships. The relationship was the main tool of social work in the psychodynamic tradition of social work until the seventies. Psychoanalytic assumption was the relationship of the user and the worker reflects primary relationship to one’s mother and father in early childhood (transference – which needs to be worked through). Even more, the guardian pattern of the professional relationship determines also the working relationship (historically preceding the psychoanalysis – forming its base). In this patronising relationship, rooted in feudalism, the relationship is not accidental, it is determined by the place a person has in the pyramidal network of relationships. A relationship of two free and equal people is always a priori accidental, only in time they can acquire the air of destiny – by working, fighting together or by love.

A trap we can fall in talking and interviewing is that we interpret what users say. By doing this we reveal that we do not believe in their words at a face value. We are not just pretending to be cleverer by doing this, but also take away the intended meaning, actually take the word away from the user and discredit. Her or his word are sequestered, seized. Such an expropriation is not pernicious only for the user by making him powerless in the talk exchange, expressly in agreements and pacts, it is deleterious also for the professional – who remains (alone) in the world of his or her own. Such perversion of words is in function of power and self-assurance of power and is a calculus differential of the guardian and custodian relations. In an equal relationship an oath is not needed, we enter them bona fide, trusting that the word uttered means what it means, and not something else – until this is proved otherwise. Interpretation is a vehicle of stigma – we assume a forehand that somebody is conveying something else; and of domination – one who has the power has the “last word”.^[1]

To avoid the pitfalls of fetishisation of relationships and words we need to be remindful that relationships and words are not the ends but only means of social work. Establishing a relationship is a precondition and a tool we need for other three operations.^[2] Words also a tool to do things, to create. Words in social work function as an invitation to dance. Dance is the way of doing things together, of complementing each other, exchanging places. It is the essential element of syntax of acts (also speech acts). Besides the awe of not falling under spell of these fetishes, we need to, in order to avoid the trap, design the talk and relationship carefully, be attentive to the diagram and distribution of power, dance the dance of a guardian and an advocate, give the word to the user and take the word on its face value. For this, and of enacting true comradeship, courage is needed.

To avoid such pitfalls we need to maintain partisanship, to remain consistently on the user’s side. It also helps to laugh at things and to – by not taking them too seriously, seriously deal with them.

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[1] Such a paranoid stance and operation is warranted in precisely opposite direction – against those who possess a surplus of power, who have hidden agenda and interests and want to use relationships or conversations for their private benefit, therefore against those who lie by definition – politicians, merchants and other stockbrokers of human souls.  

[2] As contended previously, the finalism of this operation beyond actual work, would be creating comradeship. If that can be considered as a contribution to the general social solidarity, seeing social workers and social work milieu as basic reference group for users, or even exclusive connector for social inclusion, would be next to capitulation of social work, certainly a destitution and poverty for users. Unfortunately, this is the case often. Sometimes even on the account of fetishisation of a relationship, more often because people get stranded in such a lonesome position, state, not having anyone left – having been deserted, their links departed, died, being in an institution etc. In such circumstances the relationships, bonds are of crucial importance, sometimes even the only tool of social work that is on disposal. Here too, a relationship, an attachment, bond should be considered as transitive. As a means that someone eventually expands his network again, enters into other meaningful relationships and social happenings. As with an infant, the parents are not the final destination.

Operation D: Words - From none to too many (operations 14, relationship 4)

Although the finality of this operation is working, doing, it may seem to involve much of talking. Not only are the words, talking and language significant, even essential^[1] part of human existence, it is also of virtual importance in establishing the contact, getting to know each other, formulating goals and planning, in monitoring and evaluating, reflecting the work, etc.

Working with no words

There are people among the users of social work that have no faculty of language. We are not referring to people who speak other language or people who cannot hear or vocalise the words, but about the people who do not understand the words in any language, who do not have this mental capacity. In such situations it is possible to have contact on body, movement, perception level, it is possible to get to know them by being together, by observing what they do and how they feel, by trying things out in action, learning by doing. It is possible to sense their desires and their will. It is possible to enter their Life-World, to sense it, and even reflect it – in a dance-like fashion. It is even possible to provide support in the world they live in without the words.

The absence of words and language is crucial in bridging their Life-World with others, and especially while bridging their Life-World to the institutional worlds – in making pronouncements about entitlements, plans, goals, arrangements and relationships. In these words there is a material power of action. Role of a social worker is similar to a translator or a loudspeaker, to convey the sensed desires to the audience that has no faculty of immediate presence, which is needed to understand such an utterance. This involves transforming or transposing the deeds, the feelings and material aspects of situation in the words by the means of logical deduction and induction, which has to be based on the common experience, empathy or even becoming the other (see above), of knowing the situation and the person in a way of praxis.

What has just been noted does not apply only to the situation with no words; it is the basic and generic underlying process of social work in this, and also other operations. The social work, even in the reconnaissance phase, is not only about the words and language but also about “being there”, observation and experimenting – trying out. On the other hand, there is always necessity of translation of such a-verbally gained knowledge and insight into the performative words of language of the entitlements and other formal languages that dominate the caring and helping (guardian) professions and their action.

Fetishism of words

Talking and words having such an importance generally and in the operation of establishing a work relationship especially there is a considerable possibility to get stuck in empty words – the words that have no practical meaning the words that do not yield any action, that bear no, at least indirectly, performative property. Empty words are the ones that are too abstract to have a operable meaning, but even more perilous are the speech acts that are taken as acts in the reality – that equate something said with something actually being done.

If we as social workers, practitioners, students or academics, which skills is most important in social work, they are likely to respond that it is the skill of talking, interviewing. Users, on other hand are more likely to respond differently. They are expecting form social workers to “sort out” something, to provide an access to resources needed, to help them to get a job, a flat etc. This divergence between value of deeds and things for users and of words for professionals, could be a consequence of a strong influence of the psychology and psychotherapy on the profession. Moreover, of a historical contingency that in the process of academisation of social work, psychologists who came to teach social work, often taught methods of social work, consequently turning them mainly towards counselling. The divergence can be attributed, perhaps, to the fact that just talking is the least intensive intervention into the Life-World. In this intensity, we remain on the level of representation of words. The virtual world of words is a safer place than the world of action and events. Or maybe because the ideological, indoctrinating function of social work is more important than the operative, functional. Certainly then because the words make it possible to “catch” the deeds and happenings^[2] - an important issue both for the professional and the user – especially from the control aspect of social  work. This is also, why it is important to “give the word”, to “let the users speak” and decode the utterances into a common action, why in recording them preserve their action charge, that stalks from their life situations.

“To be realistic”

When users express their desires or goals, professional are often concerned that these would not be too “unrealistic” (as if the professionals were the “Guardians of the reality”). The stupid worry of the powerful. Goals and desires are unreal by definition, when they get realised they cease to be. Their essential property is that they are about something that there is not yet, something to become. Realistically speaking, the reality is approached only when we act. If the concepts catch it in the thought, we touch it only with acts – by which we test the reality. Work and deeds are the membrane, the interface between what we think and the things. In them we realise ourselves, (while words can reify us – make things out of us amenable to action of others). The reality is powerful in its own right, it does not need an advocate – an advocate, a support is needed by the one who confronts the reality.

Specifically in social work, for instance in personal planning, we resolve this complication with the “method of first steps”. It is not important how unattainable a goals seems or not, important is to know what will be the first step in attaining it. With the steps that we make to approach the goal, we test the reality.  In terms of action, the desires and goals, provide the direction and the energy (motivation), real work is a series of deeds, actually performed – by which we transform the reality. The slogan of the sixties: “Be realistic and demand the impossible” has retained its special meaning in social work.

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[1] In the context of this discussion it is important to note that some thinkers put the work and some the language as a basic distinctive feature of humanity.

[2] Etymological root of word “concept” stems from Latin “capere” – “to take”, “to catch”.