Don't already have an Oxford Academic account? Concern for other includes meanings expressed in concepts like understanding, warmth, unconditional respect, and liking etc., which is communicated through punctuality, taking consent before making home/ school visits, observing cultural norms for showing respects, attentive listening, questioning and commenting as and when desirable for helping the client. However social work, as it is a helping profession, has a major limitation in this area. Social case work deals with individual problems- individual in the total environment or as a part of it. Plagiarism Prevention 4. TOS 7. Informal (traditional and charismatic) authority grows out of respect for the caseworkers in the relationship. (viii) Give a sense of security to the client because of which he may respond better to casework treatment. They are what they ought to be because of their environment, capacities and other endowments. This article is also available for rental through DeepDyve. If we are genuinely interested in the client’s welfare, it is bound to show up in our behaviour. Value of relationship can be gauged from the fact that no help can be administered to a client of casework services without positive relationship. Acceptance is to express one’s goodwill towards the client in spite of his weaknesses or unhealthy behaviour. It can be learned and developed so that the therapist can understand the world of the client “as he sees it”. All institutions are built around relationship. The importance of the helping relationship and its complexity are well documented in social work scholarship. This article focuses on findings about social workers' self-disclosures to clients and colleagues and the effects of gender and marital status on the use of self-disclosure in practice. This perpetuates the social order and it is available to individuals and groups who inherit it from their predecessors like priests, father in the Indian family, etc. “The essence of the relationship has been called an interplay a mutual emotional exchange, an attitude, a dynamic interaction, a medium, a connection between two persons, a professional meeting, and a mutual process.”. Institutions minus relationship have no existence. “When we think of something sitting all alone in our room, it is in terms of our relationship with people, may be friends, family members, relatives, co-workers, or public in general. Persons frequently tend to anticipate what gains, losses or experiences will accrue to them out of a particular event or contact with a person. This is in addition to the normative purpose of all professional relationships, i.e., some kind of change in, or development of, human beings leading to a “personally satisfying and socially useful life”. An excellent research paper always begins with a good topic. It can be said to be a ‘transmission belt’ of communication, a set of attitudes and responses between the interacting units. Preservation Hall Studio 10 (New Orleans Marriott), PhD Candidate, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada. Authority, thus, gets vested in the worker because of his status in the agency (social or bureaucratic authority) and because of his knowledge and experience (psychological or professional authority). Professional relationship is formed with a particular purpose and it terminates once that purpose is served. We all experience how expectations of the future affect our behaviour in the present, and which, in turn, influences our future behaviour and our sense of security and well-being. In other words, effective use of authority can: (i) Serve as a starting point in getting the client engaged in the helping process. A comprehensive understanding of the helping relationship between workers and mothers is a significant step in enhancing practitioners’ and policy-makers’ ability to acknowledge the importance and meet the complexity of helping relationships between social workers and their core clientele of women who are mothers. These are rational and embody the society’s wider approval. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide, This PDF is available to Subscribers Only. Acceptance, as usually understood, is to accept (like) the person but not all his actions. Thus, relationship is a natural phenomenon occurring between persons interacting with each other singly or in groups. Keith-Lucas (1972) observes that concern implies serving the interest of the client. Also, while various challenges to the helping relationship have been explored, the ways in which the aggregation of the social, professional, organizational, and institutional challenges to the helping relationship affect the everyday experiences of social workers and clients have been neglected. Rogers (1966) explains empathy as “the perceiving of the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy, and with the emotional components which pertain thereto, as if one were the other person but without ever losing the ‘as if condition”. In such settings, the caseworker derives authority mainly from the agency. Authority is the power delegated to the practitioners by society (client and agency) because of his status and expertise in the field. (iii) Give to the client the satisfaction of identifying with a strong/adequate person. In fact, relationship is the channel of entire casework process. Power emanating from authority becomes apparent when the worker gives appointment, includes other members of the family in the treatment process, explains him the dynamics of various situations and questions his late arrival etc. These gaps in knowledge carry significant implications for social work practice, research and policy that will be unpacked in the presentation. Please check your email address / username and password and try again. Empathy communicates that the worker understands the depth of the feeling of the client and that he is with him. The third expectation is of positive results following the interaction with the worker. Relationship can be, then, shaped, manipulated or developed as we intend it to be. Social work literature is full of description of relationship from various angles only because of its great importance in a helping process. According to Fromm (1956), it consists of “sense of responsibility, care, respect, knowledge of other human beings and the wish to further their lives”. The Indian scriptures emphasise this when they exhort men to be consistent in their thinking, talking and acting upon. Register, Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. The client considers the worker a”; competent to help him, direct his activities and guide him in solution of his problems, thus, experience security in his relationship with the worker. Relevant scholarship was identified by using the main data bases in the social sciences: ProQuest Central, Social Work Abstracts, Social Services Abstracts (ProQuest), Sociological Abstracts (ProQuest), Campbell Collaboration Library of Systematic Reviews, Web of Science. Expectations are major determinants of behaviour. It means, then, that we must try to translate our inner feelings into behaviour if it does not show up properly. Indian masses are found to be more responsive to an approach based on use of authority probably because of its history of feudalistic pattern of society. The purpose of the professional relationship is described as creating an atmosphere, the development of personality, a better solution of the client’s problem, the means for carrying out function, stating and focusing reality and emotional problems, and helping the client make a more acceptable adjustment to a personal problem (Biestek, 1957). It is the medium through which knowledge of human nature and social interaction are used, and through which, they are given the opportunity to make choices, both about receiving and using the help. Self-disclosure, the process of making oneself known to others, determines the course of all interpersonal relationships, including the helping relationship. 5) Social welfare administration. Social caseworker’s focus should be on “skill in discovering the social relationships by which a given personality has been defined; an ability to get at the central core of the difficulty in these relationships; and power to utilise the direct action of mind upon mind in their adjustment”. Most social workers are engaged in practice with little time for developing theoretical perspectives. Whether this interaction creates a sense of union or of antagonism, the two persons are for the time being ‘connected’ or ‘related’ to each other. This notion of acceptance leaves enough scope for criticism of the client’s certain actions though out of goodwill only. Disclaimer 9. It emphasises the worker’s faith in the capacity of the clients for self-determination and self-direction. Acceptance implies that the worker considers the client as a person with feelings, thoughts and experiences unique to him. The conscious, purposive and deliberate efforts to develop a helping relationship contains elements of: (1) Purpose and concern for the client system; The purpose and concern for the client involves the worker’s care for everything that happens to the client in such a way that the client feels and realises the worker’s concern for him. The helping relationship is a fundamental pillar in social work practice, hence an important concept to be explored and unpacked. The more discrepancy between what the clients expects and what happens in the client-worker transactions, the lesser are the chances for the client to continue in the relationship. Image Guidelines 5. For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription. This also means, therefore, that worker-client relationship cannot be on equal terms. 6) Social Action. Communication plays a very vital role in establishing relationship and is most important of all. Search for other works by this author on: Copyright © 1978 by the National Association of Social Workers. This relationship in turn affects one’s thinking, feelings and action. Similarly, his claim to help the client must get expressed in his efforts. 4) Social work research. What is known about the relationship between social workers and clients who are mothers in the context of child welfare is organized into various themes: Challenges to the helping relationship; Power in the helping relationship; Workers’ skills, attitudes, and qualities that promote good helping relationships. Client cannot be effectively helped unless his expectations are met by the workers’ behaviour. Whether one is troubled or helped by someone, relationship does exist between them. Before publishing your articles on this site, please read the following pages: 1. Privacy Policy 8. (i) To persuade the client to use casework services; (ii) To instil confidence and build up self-esteem, and minimise guilt and anxiety in the clients. This is achieved easily when the caseworker is in position to exert more influence (authority) on the client. Acceptance assumes that people behave and act as they ought to because of the particular nature of the situation in which they are. Inclusion criteria included a description of an empirical study that examined any aspect of the helping relationship between social workers and parents in the context of child welfare. Social work is ultimately focused on practical application, hence, the ultimate goal of social work research is understanding the efficacy of various intervention methods aimed at alleviating the conditions of people suffering from social deprivation – this highlights the importance presented by both the field and its associated research. Help or troubles emanate from our relationship with the fellow human beings. “I can understand how perturbed you are because of…”, “It must be difficult for you to…” Empathy does not mean the loss of objectivity. (v) To inculcate appropriate values in the client so that he could substitute his socially undesirable values by the desirable ones for better life. Power denotes the inherent ability or the admitted right to rule, govern or determine. Thus, relationship is an ’emotional bond’ between people who interact with each other. It is evident that the ‘nature’ of the helping relationship is extremely complex and diverse, yet it plays a central role in promoting desired outcomes for the clients. It is characterised by “conscious purposiveness growing out of the knowledge of what must go into achieving its goal” (Perlman, 1957). To be genuine and congruent, the worker relies on his moment to moment felt experiences in his relationship with the client.