Narrative in Social Work Practice: The Power and Possibility of Story - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 023117361X ISBN 13: 9780231173612

Publisher: Columbia University Press, 2017

Synopsis

Narrative in Social Work Practice features first-person accounts by social workers who have successfully integrated narrative theory and approaches into their practice. Contributors describe innovative and effective interventions with a wide range of individuals, families, and groups facing a variety of life challenges. One author describes a family in crisis when a promising teenage girl suddenly takes to her bed for several years; another brings narrative practice to a Bronx trauma center; and another finds that poetry writing can enrich the lives of people living with dementia. In some chapters, the authors turn narrative techniques inward and use them as vehicles of self-discovery. Settings range from hospitals and clinics to a graduate school and a case management agency. Throughout, Narrative in Social Work Practice showcases the flexibility and appeal of narrative methods and demonstrates how they can be empowering and fulfilling for clients and social workers alike.

The differential use of narrative techniques fulfills the mission and core competencies of the social work profession in creative and surprising ways. Stories of clients and workers are, indeed, powerful.

About this title

About the Author:

Ann Burack-Weiss taught for thirty years at the Columbia University School of Social Work and is now associate faculty in Columbia’s Program in Narrative Medicine. She is the author of The Caregiver’s Tale: Loss and Renewal in Family Life (Columbia, 2006) and The Lioness in Winter: Writing an Old Woman’s Life (Columbia, 2015).

Lynn Sara Lawrence is a practicing psychotherapist in New York City. She has taught at the New York School for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, and has contributed to Smith College Studies in Social Work and Psychoanalytic Social Work.

Lynne Bamat Mijangos is practicum supervisor for the Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. She is the author of Baby Girl Mijangos (2004) and is a contributor to Virginia Woolf Miscellany.

Review:

Brava! I congratulate the editors and contributors for this spellbinding book. I became engrossed in the various narratives, each presenting its own portrait of courage, resilience, and professional and personal discovery. The authors give voice to the hidden social work heroes who make a difference in people’s everyday lives. Thank you for sharing your commitment, your creativity, and your humanity. This book is a magnificent read! (Alex Gitterman, University of Connecticut School of Social Work)

Within the context of the helping process, our stories, our clients’ stories, and the stories of our time and times past enlighten social work practice. The complexities of humanity cannot be adequately understood through a digitalized format―well-crafted narrative continues to be a cornerstone of the social work profession. Narrative in Social Work Practice is a thoughtfully edited collection, essential for any social worker who wants to better understand why, when, and how we address the human condition. (Thomas Sedgwick, vice-president, the Society for Social Work Leadership in Health Care)

This pathbreaking book is essential reading for social work practitioners, educators, supervisors, and researchers and their allies in related professions and disciplines who focus on human dialogue, interpretation, memory, and creativity as tools of their trade. (Barbara Levy Simon, Columbia University School of Social Work)

This beautifully written book illustrates a variety of narrative methods and how they can be personalized in practice to reflect the unique experiences and skills of the individual social worker. For social workers and other helping professionals, this book is just the ticket. (Martha Dore, Director of Social Work Research (ret.), Cambridge Child Guidance Center, Harvard University Department of Psychiatry)

A fascinating book that is clearly organized into sections and, I think, is best suited for postgraduate students,
educators, and practitioners. (Affilia)

The book is an essential reading for social work practitioners, educators, supervisors and researchers and other human service professionals who focus on human dialogue, interpretation and interventions. It equips social workers to understand better as to why, when and how to address human sufferings. (Journal of Social Work Values and Ethics)

If you want to be inspired and want to learn more about this innovative approach, then I recommend reading this book. (Rebecca Regler British Journal of Social Work)

About this edition

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 023117361X
• ISBN 13: 9780231173612
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 296
• Editor: Burack-Weiss Ann, Lawrence Lynn Sara, Mijangos Lynne Bamat