Reconstructing Meaningful Life Worlds: A New Approach to Social Work Practice

Contents

FOREWORD

PREFACE

PART 1

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

PART 2

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

EPILOGUE

APPENDICES

Appendix A: Framework for Assessment, Intervention and Measurement of Social Work Models

Appendix B: Measurement Method of Intervention Effect

REFERENCE

ENDNOTES

FOREWORD

I am delighted to be able to write on behalf of Reconstructing Meaningful Life Worlds, by Yumi Oshita, PhD & Kiyoshi Kamo, MSW, in Japan. Dr. Oshita was an eager student of mine of family therapy in the graduate program at Fukuoka University of Education. Together we developed the Clay Sculpture Technique and Family Image Technique (FIT) which represents a new approach to family therapy. Dr. Oshita also courageously conducted a cross cultural study which compares the power structure of the families of China and Japan with FIT.

In conjunction with Prof. Kamo, Dr. Oshita began joint research to further develop social work theory so as to be able to explain the dynamics of family interaction, as well as the development of corresponding clinical techniques to use in the client’s ecological situation. Reconstructing Meaningful Life Worlds is the fruitful product of their thoughtful research in social work theory and methodology. It will stimulate and inspire others in the field looking for a new and creative approach to social work practice.

Kenji Kameguchi, PhD, Professor, The University of Tokyo

President, International Academy of Family Psychology

PREFACE

Escape from the Stagnation of Theory and Practice in Social Work Today

Social work is roughly defined as the theoretical and practical system to intervene in mal-adaptive eco-systems, with the aim to improve the client’s adaptation level. However, what really is social work theory? Furthermore, what is social work practice? If one browses through the journals of social work in Japan one will be disappointed, because the concept of the eco-system is obscure and skills are not clearly defined in these journals. To our regret, the theoretical level of the discussion about social work in these journals is basically no different from the guide book of the welfare administration of the Japanese central and local government.

To provide a method aimed at clearing the stagnation of theory and practice of social work, we have published many books in Japanese on social work theory and practice, written in Japanese. In these writings, we presented the direction of the theorization, developing skills, and measurement of the intervention effect from the point of view of social constructionism. However, there were few social workers who understood these discussions in Japan, except for some social workers in the Hiroshima social work research group who were up-to-date with these theories.

The main aim of this particular work is to provide social workers with a method to escape from their theoretical straight jackets and practice bottlenecks. How can the social worker be liberated from their theoretical cages?

The first precondition to escape from the cage is to have a suitable social theory that can be used to assess the structure of the interconnectedness and transformations of the social system. Grand social theory, for example structural-functional social systems theory (Parsons, 1951) is not useful to give the micro level analysis of social life situations where rules of action and recognition arise. What we need is a social theory that has the explanatory power for the fundamental transactional situation in which social systems emerge. We chose CMM (Coordinated Management of Meaning) (Cronen and Pearce, 1985, Cronen, Pearce, and Tomm, 1985, Pearce, 1994, 2007) as the basic theory to analyze the micro, meso, and macro levels of the eco system. On one hand, CMM is a theory to help comprehend the dynamics of the occurrence of the meaning, as well as behavioral rules in transactions. On the other hand, it theorizes the dynamics of the over-determined structure of the social system. A problematic situation is defined as the maladaptive over-determined structure in which a pseudo-solution activity continues according to these rules. These behavioral and meaning construction rules operate as the context to select future new behavior, and the new behavior transforms the old rules. If we can change these problem maintenance rules, we can change the problem amplifying behaviors, and vice versa. As a social system consists of interconnected subsystems of these rules, minimum change of one subsystem expands to changing other systems. Consequently, the equilibrium of the entire problematic eco-system collapses. Moreover, the power of this theory for problem solving is seen in the intervention activities. In the following chapters, a social theory of social work based on this CMM theory is shown.

Although CMM’s explanation of meaning construction mechanism is very creative and its logic of explanation is precise, its explanation of behavior rule is much vaguer and imprecise than is the explanation of meaning construction mechanisms. Therefore we refined our act selection theory and added this theory to create a more holistic meaning construction theory. What is wholly original in our approach is a theoretical framework for social work practice which explains speech acts not only from the viewpoint of the receiver’s meaning construction, but from the point of view of the sender’s utterance selection. Our approach here also includes a new transformation and measurement theoretical framework. The resulting new theoretical model is a modified version of CMM (MCMM). The method of the problem solution is derived from MCMM theory as discussed below.

The second precondition of the new social work is to have clearly defined an effective problem solving skills set. Our discussion of problem solving skills starts from the definition of the problem. The problem of the client is not considered to be an objective entity. We define the problem as the system of the explanation constructed by the client through a range of transactions. Based on this social constructionist definition of the problem, we adopt client interviewing skills that reconstitute the amplified complaint of the problem according to a time series. Each of the elements in the transaction is changed as a result of the application of this special problem-solving method. These are the systems of mixed skills which consist of the skills of the circular questions and the skills of the solution focused approach. We have abandoned the traditional problem solving method of social work which searches for the invisible ultimate cause of the problem occurrence and tries to remove it. Examples of the use of our techniques are shown in the following chapters.

In addition, a systematized methodology to measure the intervention effect is presented as the third precondition of this new social work practice. Our method to measure the intervention effect is original. This measuring methodology is based on the perspective of social constructionism. It not only quantitatively compares the incidence of each of the elements of the transaction between pre- and post-interventions, but also represents a method for comparing the difference of the dynamism of reality construction between these interventions.

Personal History

This book presents a system of new theory and skills of social work based on social constructionist perspective which is not available in any academic journals in Japan at this time. We, the writers of this book, are teachers at a small provincial prefectural university in western Japan (Hiroshima).

For Prof. Kamo, his history of research and practice in social work started from 1970. He was employed by the hospital for autistic children as the social worker because he had psychoanalytic intervention skills. His first academic research about social work was concerned with the intervention for autistic children and their families, based on psychoanalytic theory. There were a lot of theorists who tried to explain the appearance of the autistic syndrome using object relations theory, but this psychoanalytic approach could not show any real positive therapeutic results.

On the other hand, structuralism was advocated as a basic theory of the behavioral science as a kind of counter at that time. Prof. Kamo designed a support model for the family of the autistic child. It was aimed at intervention in the transaction between parents and their children in daily life situations based on Piaget’s structuralist developmental theory. This Piagetian intervention model for the family of the autistic child has been proven to be effective through many social work practices. He obtained new knowledge not only about skills to change the behaviors of autistic children, but also skills to transform problematic family relationships.

However, as the main focus of intervention of this model was the relation between a mother and a autistic child, its ability to transform a whole family and its background system were low.

In the 1980’s Prof. Kamo shifted the object of the research from autism to family relationships. Structural family therapy encouraged his clinical research of the family, because he was strongly influenced by structuralism at that time.

Family centered social work practice model influenced by the knowledge of structural family therapy appeared in the 1980’s. Hartman and Laird’s social work practice models showed the system of the assessment and transformation skills of the life situation based on this structural family therapy. The concept of structure used there was not strictly defined and skills had not been integrated. However they were the precursors who showed the structural social work model which defined a family and its background system as a structure.

Prof. Kamo introduced the eco-map which was a basic tool for assessment; he refined the transformation technique and published his work in a domestic academic journal in the 1980’s. However, even this eco-map approach was not accepted by domestic social workers until the early 21st century. Moreover, social workers in Japan have little knowledge about transformation techniques which Hartman and Laird now provide.

Structuralist language theory became the popular scientific paradigm in 1980s. The narrative model of White (who was a social worker and a family therapist) emerged from this philosophical background. Hartman and Laird understood this model as an original postmodern model of family therapy and social work practice. They proposed a conversion of theory into the narrative model from their previous modern family-centered social work practice model.

Institutionalized level of story and the level of the speech act were connected directly without putting parameters in his clinical theory. The research that proved the effectiveness of practicing of this model was missing, though it had been actively advocated from the 1990’s to the early 21st century in Japan.

Prof. Kamo’s concern at this time was to correct White’s deterministic narrative model, and to restructure it to more useful clinical practice model.

It was the concept of a difference that he integrated in the new body of practice theory. The concept of difference was widespread in France and the United States, as the key concept to reconstruct the old epistemology and ontology in the 80’s. Fortunately, he found that the concept of this difference was used as the basic theory of clinical practice at Calgary University in Canada. The systemic approach of Karl Tomm based on the concept of difference was more impressive than structural family therapy. This approach showed a sophisticated concept of the family. It defined the family as a system in which difference flows circularly between family members and between embedded levels meaning structure of a person. Based on this refined post modernistic definition of a system, Tomm designed very useful clinical skills named as the circular questions which are used to activate the emergence of differences in the family system. In the 1990s he practiced these skills to solve problems of many clients and confirmed its usefulness.

Prof. Kamo tried to restructure the narrative model which lacked the ability to transform a maladaptive process in ecological situations based on the theory of the activation of difference, and clinical skills of circular questions. He published several books which showed the new body of the theory and skills of social constructionist social work in the early 21st century, however, these writings were unexpectedly criticized by many researchers and practitioners of social work. They criticized the method and the theoretical orientation as a kind of pedantry.

To our regret it is not easy to continue an academic discussion about the new theory construction of social work practice in Japan.

Prof. Oshita’s story begins from the end of 1980 when she met her teacher at Hiroshima Women’s University; that teacher was Professor Kamo who is a co-author of this book. She was very interested in systems theory, social constructionism and