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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