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 Intensities of intervention (operations 13, relationship 3)

The goals, projects and plans are invitation of user to enter into his or her life. And should be taken as invitations are – politely and respectfully. However, this invitation may be issued for varying degrees of entering the Life-World, or to put it clearly – various degrees of social work intervention in one’s Life-World. The relationship can start and stop at level of just representing the Life-Worlds in a talking encounter, which is usually termed counselling. In this case, a social worker does not enter the realities of the user.

Next degree is to enter into world actually lived by user by providing support to user in specific activities (by informing, encouraging, assisting the activity materially and morally but in the real contexts of one’s Life-World, like it happens in what is called personal assistance or could be termed “support-work”. When this is a case, the “supporter” enters the Life-World of the user and for the moment of support becomes a part of it.

In the operation of “help” the “helper” acts from the position outside the Life-World and brings into the field force not only originating but being also anchored in the domain outside the user’s Life-World. This duplicity of the positions creates a power relationship, in which the “helper” does not only contribute to the activities of the “helped” but is “by doing things for or instead” of the “helped”, adding actions of his own and from his own position. In this action, a middle ground between the ordinary Life-World and the institutional world is being generated, in which the user is still embedded in his or her Life-World but is drawn into relationships where he or she loses a degree of the sovereignty characteristic of Life-World. This intensity of help is usually referred to as “casework”.

“Help” and “support” are essentially synonyms. Here we use the two terms to denote a difference that in everyday parlance is negligible. “Support” denotes an activity that upholds the activity of an actor by adding a force to it without altering the direction or intention of the activity. In this context, we define “help” as a force in the field that operates as a vector, thus contributing to the activity of the actor but introducing an extra dimension to it and thus, however slightly, changing its direction and adding to its intention. In the terms of mechanics, support is a “scalar” and help is a “vector”.

When things get more complex, and especially if more input of the institutional resources is needed, there is more organisation and coordination involved – there are more “helpers” and “supporters” needed, the intensity of intervention increases and reaches a new quality. This comprehensive taking care is often referred to as “care management” and brings the social work action onto a level of organising. It happens still mostly in the intermediate space between the Life-World and the institutional world, but it is tangential to the latter by virtue of spanning the whole arch of activities from the actors’ finalities of Life-World across the various degrees of intensity of the help.

The most intense social work intervention[1] into the Life-World is taking somebody from his or her environment and relocating it to some, usually readymade institutional space. This is usually called “institutional care” or in a post-institutional setting “residential care”. Here, the person is up-rooted from his or her Life-World and transferred to a simulacrum of it.

This progression of intensities of interventions can be seen as a series of non-corporeal transformations of space as well as relationships situated in it, and of respective professional and user roles. The space transforms from an ideatory space of Life-World representations, “theoretical context” in Freirean terms, created in an interpersonal encounter, into blending of the social worker with the user’s Life-World, bridging the institutional space with the personal, to making “a dome” of care to the artificial institutional space. The work relationships thus formed range from a free exchange of ideas that bear no immediate consequence in the Life-World with a usual goal of reflecting the Life-World, getting an insight and creating a new orientation to a relationship where the provider of care takes a person in charge and is basically, even if not legally a guardian relationship. In between, there are relationships of companionship in action in one’s Life-World, power relationship resulting in and out of help and a relationship of care brokerage between the Life-World and institutional realm.

Action	Level	Term	space	relationship	remedial action
Talking	Representation	Counselling	ideatory	reflective	reflexive thought + mutuality, symmetry of exchange
Supporting	Deeds (action)	Personal assistance (Support-work)	Life-World	companionship in action	user perspective
Helping	Power	Casework	Life-World – institutional space bridge		empowerment
Caring	Organisation	Care management	institutional “dome” over the Life-World	broker	self-management, re-appropriation of institutional resources
Placing	Shift in space	Residential care	institutional	guardian	temporary and personalisation of the space

In the progression of the intensity of intervention, we can observe two very strong tendencies. One is related to the power drop caused by power differential introduced by the professional and the very idea and process of help. The other, concurrent with losing power is one of losing ground, being uprooted from the Life-World. This de-territorialisation can have a productive result in increasing the capacity of improving one’s life – by expanding the view of reflection, by expanding manoeuvre space, gaining autonomy of everyday Life-World and by providing access to the goods of the institutional space. However, it may lead to progressive exclusion from meaningful relations, estrangement from one’s home and community. This upscaling of help stages a series of metamorphoses – non-corporeal mutations, that cease to be not merely situational (as they are usually in everyday life) and lead to progressive objectification into an institutional object. The path to hell is paved by good intentions.

The intentions, in social work, are good indeed. Even the results need not to be catastrophic, but quite benign. However, this is not enough to undo the underlying processes of losing power and ground. Good news is that social work has an arsenal of antidotes to these “iatrogenic” harms. Just as in everyday interaction there has to be a remedial action to each hazard of losing ground and power capacity.

One is the conscience of Life-World being the point of departure and return. Not only because it is a criteria of social work intervention, as described above, but also because of the basic finalism of support, in which the intervention takes place. We need to keep in mind that we are dealing with activity, which is by definition purposeful that has its goal (by default specific, in general, to improve one’s life conditions) and this is the point of common action. Therefore, acquiring and consistently applying the “user’s perspective” is the main way of fending of the negative corollaries of social work intervention.

There are diverse types of remedial action regarding the hazard of each degree of intensity. Even at the least intruding action of representation, since it takes off from the Life-World, is an act of de-territorialisation, there is a danger of skewing the vision by importing the ideas via representation into person’s living world (Freire – invasion). Dialogic precautions have to be made in order to eschew them by critical and reflexive stance, as well as with mutuality and symmetry of the exchange.

Empowerment is a general antidote to losing power immanent to different degrees in social work intervention. If helping diminishes the power of the help, the power must be “measured” at the completion of intervention to assure that “the patient is not dead after successful operation” and to design the remedial action to restore power beyond the side effects of helping.

In coordinated care, it is important to observe all the hazards being uprooted and not in control of one’s life that come up on the levels of lesser intensity and integrate them in specific of this intensity. Special concern must be made about symmetry, critical thought, user’s perspective and empowerment at all stages of planning and coordinating care. However, specific to this intensity is the imperative of “self-management”, being in charge of one’s care and the influx of the means from institutional resources should not be treated as a state charity but as an of re-appropriation of the public good.

Displacement should be omitted at all cost (and erased as a panergic and paramount response to distress). When necessary, as in family violence, or need for safe haven etc. it must be as short as possible temporary solution, preserving the connections to one’s usual Life-World, with intense work on lower intensities of intervention to enable the return to it. In the case when the return is not possible a maximum of personalisation of the new place (i.e. creating a new home) should be enabled, as it is the case when people move their home from one environment to the other in the ordinary life.

This five-gear shift of intensities in social work, inter alia, demonstrates the ability and necessity of social work to traverse and connect the Life-World (concrete) and institutional (abstract) planes. In doing so, it creates crevices into what would otherwise be solid construction with no interim space between the two. The “Life-World” of social work is in these cracks of the social construction. The critical moments of transitions induce the necessity of social work.

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[1] Of all the other social work interventions removal of legal capacity matches this intensity. As it happens these two interventions – displacement and disqualification – often take place simultaneously, as a part of the same combined operation. However, in principle they are two distinctive doings. In one, the subject of the operation can remain in his place, but is “deterritorialised” by inability to inscribe into meaningful dealings, in the other deterritorialisation is by necessity a physical one.