Spirituality and Social Work Meaning Making | PDF | Spirituality | Psychological Trauma

Spirituality and Social Work Meaning Making | PDF | Spirituality | Psychological Trauma

                              

8 pages

Spirituality and Social Work Meaning Making

Original Title:spirituality and social work meaning making

Uploaded byapi-281339822 

Date uploadedon Apr 22, 2015

 

 SPIRITUALITY AND SOCIAL WORK 1

 

Religion, Spirituality and Social Work

Jerilyn J. Dressler

University of Calgary

SOWK 637

September 14, 2010

Read free for 30 days.

 

 SPIRITUALITY AND SOCIAL WORK 2

 

Religion, spirituality and social work are very much interwoven and interconnected, as isdemonstrated in a variety of articles contained in “Spirituality and Social Work: SelectedCanadian readings” (Coates, Graham & Swartzentruber, 2007). At the same time, a cleardistinction is made between religion and spirituality by a number of different authors in thecollection of readings. Michele Butot, for example, cites a distinction that struck a chord withme, “Baskin [2002] distinguishes between religion and spirituality, noting that religion is usuallystructured and group oriented, whereas spirituality ‘can include individual experiences with orwithout a structured belief system’ (p. 3)” (as cited in Coates et al., 2007, p. 144). The origins ofsocial work are rooted in religion and Christian charity, as Richard Allen describes in “TheSocial Gospel”, defined as “...an attempt to apply Christianity to the collective ills of anindustrializing society, ... a major force in Canadian religious, social, and political life from the1890s through the 1930s” (Coates et al., 2007, p. 65). Religious groups continue to contribute tothe field of social work in a variety of ways, obvious examples in Calgary being thecontributions of Catholic and Jewish Family Services, in addition to providing a sense ofcommunity and well-being to their members. Spirituality, in its many shapes and forms, can beutilized in social work practice in both individual client work as well as in groups. Both religionand spirituality have an important place in social work’s past, present, and future.In his introduction, John Coates makes reference to research linking spirituality to copingwith sexual abuse, physical and mental health, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, andaddictions (Coates et al., 2007). Many engaged in the helping professions have witnessed andexperienced anecdotal evidence of these connections, and would not find this research

 

 SPIRITUALITY AND SOCIAL WORK 3 

particularly surprising. What is it exactly that makes dealing with difficult, even traumatic, lifeevents spiritual in nature?In this collection of readings, the link between spirituality and individual and group workis described, in part, as “making-meaning”. Diana Coholic describes this phenomenon in herarticle “The Helpfulness of Spiritually Influenced Group Work”. She states that “The process ofmaking-meaning has been identified in the literature as a practice principle for spirituallysensitive practice, and has been described as a spiritual practice because spirituality itself is oftendefined as a process of making-meaning” (Coates et al., 2007, p. 124). In the article “Listening toOur Stillness: Giving voice to our spirituality (spirituality and clinical practice)”, Wanda Wagler-Martin states, “Essentially spirituality is about meaning-making. Spirituality is what grounds us.It frames our view of the world and our deepest beliefs” (Coates et al., 2007, p. 136).Furthermore, Cadell, Janzen & Haubrich write, “In order to cope with and recover from trauma,individuals must reconcile the event with their beliefs, by altering how they view the event,themselves, and/or the world” (Coates et al., 2007, p. 177). Coholic goes on to quote one groupmember as saying, “Everything I’ve done in my past makes me a better person for today and willhelp me in the future” (Coates et al., 2007, pp. 124-125).This is certainly something that validates both my personal and professional experiencewith trauma, and resonates in me deeply. It has been my experience that many people, myselfincluded, consider what has happened in their lives, examine how it has impacted them(negatively and positively), and ultimately become thankful for the positive impact the event hashad in their lives regardless of how negative the immediate consequences of the particular event

 

 SPIRITUALITY AND SOCIAL WORK 4

were. This perspective is reflected in such common phrases as, “What doesn’t kill you makesyou stronger”.If one doesn’t engage in this “making-meaning” process, it can have a detrimental impacton their recovery from the event. I have witnessed this in my experience with “frequent callers”on Distress Centre’s crisis lines, many of whom are unable to move past particular traumaticevents in their lives. Cadell, Janzen and Haubrich write in their article “Engaging withSpirituality: A qualitative study of grief and HIV/AIDS”:For one participant the struggle to make meaning was overwhelming. Andy remainedtrapped in his grief and he had not been able to move forward [from the loss of his partner to AIDS] in a positive manner. HIV-positive himself, Andy, at 31 years of age,had considered that his partner had been his reason for living. He had been unable to finda new purpose in life after the death of his partner. In the 4 years since he assisted in his partner’s death, Andy had attempted suicide and referred to himself as a ‘rudderless’ship. (Coates et al., 2007, p. 183) Not only is making-meaning significant to clients, it may be absolutely crucial to their well- being to reconcile what has happened with their understanding of themselves and their world.Spirituality is not only an important factor in individual client and group work, but inissues of social justice and social change as well. Before social work had emerged as a profession, religious organizations – primarily Christian churches – took on a large role inhelping the poor and disadvantaged. Churches gave women an opportunity to become engaged insocial justice issues such as poverty, as well as develop leadership skills within the Blackcommunity at a time when these groups were not permitted to participate in politics or

 

 SPIRITUALITY AND SOCIAL WORK 5

commerce. David Este describes the establishment of separate black churches as a positiveresponse to racism in his article “Black Churches in Canada: Vehicles for fostering communitydevelopment in African-Canadian communities – a historical analysis”. Este writes, “Accordingto Walker (1995) the churches offered blacks a positive identity, a sense of self-worth, andultimately a base of operations from which to launch attacks against the discriminatory nature ofCanadian society (p. 170)” (as cited in Coates et al., 2007, p. 302). Gord Bruyere describes howAboriginal spiritual beliefs have allowed the Anishnabe to externalize racism as a manifestationof “Windigo”, a cannibal spirit, in his article “Making Circles: Renewing First Nations ways ofhelping” (Coates et al., 2007).The collective nature of many groups and societies united by religion or spirituality provides an internal safety net for well-being. Graham, Coholic and Coates write, “there was along tradition of responding to social need amongst Indigenous communities prior to Europeancontact. That tradition, like the traditions that occurred on and after European contact, wouldhave had groundings that we now understand to be ‘spiritual’ in their relationship to self, aHigher Power(s), community, and, for some helpers too, the physical ecology (Miller, 2004)” (ascited in Coates et al., 2007, p. 25). In “Islamic Theology and Prayer”, Al-Krenawi and Grahamquote Islamic text, “The

 Hadith

 points out: ‘Every one of you is a shepherd and each one of youis responsible for his flock’ (Nagati, 1993)” (as cited in Coates et al., 2007, p. 327).Collectivism is being built into some areas of social work, and is viewed as having a basis in spirituality. This may be a response to the individualistic culture in which we live notcorresponding to our beliefs and values as social workers. Sarah Todd describes this

 

 SPIRITUALITY AND SOCIAL WORK 6 

phenomenon in her article “Feminist Community Organizing: The spectre of the sacred and thesecular”:Once we established some ‘faithful’ similarities between feminism and religion, weutilized religious metaphors to understand the ways in which feminism is taken up as anidentity and a practice of community organizing. We also began to rework communityorganizing as spirituality. While we drew on these religious narratives to understand ourrelationships with feminism, we simultaneously distanced ourselves from evangelical (or publicly spoken) religious practices.Diane: “You know this may sound really weird, but I was thinking about this after Sarahand I talked and in some respects being a feminist can be like being a Christian. It’s notnecessarily something that you have to talk about. To me it’s something that you are,that’s inside you, that means you have certain values and certain principles that you livewith and you bring that to the community work you do.” (Coates et al., 2007, p. 170)Industrialization, urbanization, and the move from collective to individualistic societieshave led people in developed nations to lose connection with each other, with the land, and withthe divine. Ancient and traditional “ways of knowing” and of surviving have been cast aside tomake way for modern ways of thinking and surviving. I find it interesting that spirituality ismaking a “comeback” in the field of social work. What is of particular interest to me is that itever left. Perhaps spirituality just had one foot out the door – there has likely always been

 some

 crossover between spirituality and social work due to a common interest in social welfare andsocial justice, and to the very personal nature of client work. The importance of this crossover,

 

 SPIRITUALITY AND SOCIAL WORK 7

however, is being re-examined and emphasized, much to the benefit of the social workcommunity and its clients.

 

 SPIRITUALITY AND SOCIAL WORK 8ReferenceCoates, J., Graham, J.R. & Swartzentruber B. (2007).

Spirituality and social work: SelectedCanadian readings.

Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press.