Social Casework Ils 189 by Noel Timms

Author:Noel Timms [Timms, Noel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780415510417
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2011-11-11T00:00:00+00:00

This contact began well and some aspects of the situation can already be seen. The client is suffering considerable pain but this seems preferable to admittance to hospital which is associated with cutting open and thus exposing what is really (internally) wrong with him. This internal ‘badness’ seems to be equated with madness, and it is the realization of this which causes the worker to swerve away and mention the psychiatric services. This confirms the client’s fantasy that his ‘inside’ madness frightens people away when they see it. Mr. W. appears to lose some faith in the worker.

In the interviews that followed, however, the worker, who had been able to see the loss of rapport in a supervisory session on the case, began to help Mr. W. to face some of his fears. Mr. W. had a basic fear that he was a failure; he seemed to be highly intelligent, but he had failed his degree examinations and ever since had followed occupations that did no justice to his capacity. He was afraid of illness and sudden death and he felt abnormal because he was unmarried and because of his disability. The worker maintained a consistent interest in Mr. W. and was not alarmed by his increasing despondency. Mr. W. complained of his loneliness, but blamed himself for this: he would use his friends until they would give no more. He reacted to the worker in much the same way and the worker helped him by showing that, though he could only give Mr. W. an hour a fortnight, within that hour he used all his attention and ability to help him. Gradually Mr. W. responded to the worker’s concern and showed some relief that his pattern of using his friends had been broken without the loss of the worker’s regard. The worker encouraged Mr. W. to talk about and later to test out some of his intellectual capabilities and continually mirrored back to his client a confidence in his potentialities. At the end of the sixth visit Mr. W. himself introduced the subject of hospital treatment. He was later readmitted to hospital where he underwent a successful operation. He required a great deal of help after this, but both he and the worker could derive confidence in later discussions by looking back at this accomplishment and trying to assess what had made it possible despite all the obstacles.

NOTES

1 Gray, Dr. C., ‘Treatment of Phthisis: State or Charity?’, Charity Organisation Review, July 1902.

2 Quoted in Cummins, A. E., ‘The Selection and Training of Hospital Almoners’, Year Book of the Hospital Almoners Association, 1933.

3 Snelling, J., ‘Social Work Within Medical Care’, The Almoner, Vol. 15, No. 3, June 1962.

4 Rees, H., A Survey of Hospital Almoning, Institute of Almoners, 1941.

5 Parsons, T., The Social System, Tavistock, 1952, pp. 436–7.

6 Titmuss, R. M., ‘Science and the Sociology of Medical Care’, British Journal of Psychiatric Social Work, Vol. Ill, No. 4, 1956.

7 Menzies, I., ‘A Case-Study in the Functioning of Social Systems as

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.