GROUP WORK 1957 AND ON: PROFESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND

PRACTICE THEORY EXTENDED AT ADELPHI SCHOOL OF

SOCIAL WORK
How can I tell you about those 30 years at Adelphi? When we started, my
colleague and I did not know how to teach group work. In 1957, the continuing
commitment to the values of group work as a social work method was
powerful and there was extensive and exciting experience in the use of group
work as a helping method in many settings. There was also a growing body of
knowledge about the human group in the social sciences (Homans, 1950).
However the knowledge base to prepare a professional social group worker
and the conceptualization of practice principles and skill were scattered. The
method of teaching social work — the integration of theory and field
experience — was proudly accepted by the social work profession and
struggled for in the culture of universities, but not developed in the teaching of
group work to other than Group Work Majors. We decided that in teaching
group work to caseworkers, we would require the student to find a group to
lead, prepare a Process Record each week for 12 weeks and submit it to the
instructor. We read all those records, made educational comments for the
student (supervisory!!) and based our teaching on the experiences the
students were having.

With the support of Adelphi’s social work administration and faculty, field
work agencies were encouraged to provide group work opportunities for the
students. But being supervised by field instructors who were caseworkers
around group practice, then as now, was a problem for our case work students
and we continued for a number of years our primitive effort to have a practice
based learning experience for casework students by reading their group
process recordings, commenting on them and using the material in the class
sessions.

Gradually Beulah and I developed our course outlines and joined with social
group workers across the country that were moving into a period of creating
more formalized theory for group work practice. We developed the Group
Work Sequence, I teaching the first two semesters and Beulah teaching the 3rd
and 4th semesters. Beulah had been greatly influenced by Clara Kaiser with
whom she had studied at the New York School and I had been deeply
influenced by Helen Phillips who was my mentor at Penn. Probably Beulah
stressed group structure and techniques and I stressed process and
relationship and we learned from each other. We also learned from the
wonderful group work literature that was being developed in the 60s.
Let me identify some conceptual, theoretical and practice highlights for me in
those 30 years.

1. The Functional/Diagnostic Controversy. Personal history and

happenstance placed me clearly on the functional side of the paradigm that
was still blazing when I happily came upon the profession of social work. By
nature I am more existential than technical and the Pennsylvania School’s
approach to social work practice was congenial to me. Furthermore the
dynamics of group process and its essential concept of mutual aid necessitated
for group workers a bridging of the two contentious approaches to
professional helping. These approaches, Pennsylvania’s “functional” approach
and the New York School’s “diagnostic” approach, were spawned by the new
knowledge of the psyche that had become available to the early social case
workers when Sigmund Freud and his secretary, Otto Rank came to these
shores. It was ego-psychology – Heinz Hartmann (1958), Erik Erikson (1958),
and University of Chicago’s social work educator Helen Harris Perlman (1957)
that transcended the debate and moved social work practice theory to a new
level. I was thrilled by the new knowledge and its intellectual challenge for
group work and all social work.
2. The CSWE Curriculum Study: Werner Boehm published his curriculum
Study for CSWE (1959) and described the societal task of the Profession as the
“enhancement of social functioning when the need is individually or socially
perceived.” I remember the excitement I felt since the concept handled the
breadth of the profession to which I as a group worker was so committed. It
accommodated social reform as well as individual pain and tsoures. It also
allowed the group worker to be pro-active as well as responsive. Somehow it
solved an intellectual dilemma for me- encompassing such a range of human
reality, all elements so interrelated and each so necessary for understanding
the human condition. It continues to do so for me even now.
3. The Community Mental Health Centers Act: In 1963, President
Kennedy’s Community Mental Health Centers Act was signed into law
providing a new possible arena for group work services. The goal of mental
health services was being conceptualized as personal health and well being
rather than solely the diagnosis and treatment of pathology. The importance
of community resources was stressed. Clearly group work practice could be a
significant source for such a focus.
4. The Civil Rights Movement. The students organized to raise money to
send a member of their class, a group worker, to Selma, Alabama in 1963. The
Dean approved it as a part of the student’s fieldwork practicum.
5. President Johnson’s Great Society: Office of Economic Opportunity
and the War on Poverty. 1964-1968 were marvelous years for Social Work. The
Profession was finding further verification, with Federal support, of social
work’s continuing recognition of environmental reality as a profound
influence on people’s behavior. The Experimental Programs to create
“communities with opportunities for all” included (a) Mobilization for Youth
in New York and other similar efforts throughout the country; (b) Headstart;
(c) training programs for workers’ upward mobility in the human services,
moving into the BSW program; (d) Offices of Economic Opportunity, and on
and on.
6. Group work in the Tenement Social System: I wrote a proposal,
which was funded by NIMH, 1967-1971, “Group work in the Tenement Social
System “. The collaborating agency, the Educational Alliance, identified
tenements wherein lived several children whose behavior in the group
programs was problematic. Group work students were assigned to reach out to
the parents and residents in those building with the goal of helping them to do
collective problem solving of living conditions. It was a difficult assignment
but the spirit of the times supported the students in their efforts and the
learning was powerful. As an aside, in New York it was upsetting to note that
the group work method was by-passed by the Mobilization for Youth planning
group, acknowledged years later in their published report. (Weissman, 1969).
7. General Systems Theory. In 1966 I came upon a reference in the
Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic to Ludwig von Bertalannfy’s work on General
Systems Theory. I searched the material and gave the first lecture on this
subject at Adelphi. Adelphi shared with the profession and all human services
the intellectual excitement of systems thinking. Von Bertalannfy’s (1969) work
provided for us philosophical validation for our commitment to an
interactional and dialectical focus on assessing the human condition –to
viewing always the interrelatedness of communities, families, groups and
individuals. For group workers particularly it provided a philosophical base
for the skill of viewing the group as the unit of practice.
8. The Models Paper. In 1966, Beulah and I wrote our well received paper
on “Social Group Work Models: Possession and Heritage” (Papell & Rothman,
1966). We were struggling to find a way to accommodate the breadth and
diversity of the theoretical writing about group work practice that was being
produced by social workers. We wanted to hold together the several emerging
individual psychologies being recognized by group work theorists and group
work’s deep commitment to social reform, as well as the increasing knowledge
of how groups grow and function as their members seek to bring them into
existence – group process as a very human process. In 1997, I had an
opportunity to reflect again on how we had viewed group work early on and
how I now saw its theoretical development (Papell, 1997).
9. The Generic Movement: The generic movement at Adelphi from 1969-
1972 had enthusiastic group work leadership (Papell, 1969, 1973). I taught an
experimental first semester practice course – five students from each
sequence – Case Work, Group Work, Community Organization. There
followed a second experimental year with the first semester practice course
being taught by pairs of Practice Instructors. Thereafter the Foundation
Practice Course was taught throughout the first year to all students. Our first
year outline and title -Foundation Practice – was and still appears to be used
extensively throughout Social Work’s professional education.
10. Introduction of Family Therapy: Family therapy was introduced and
taught at both Masters and Doctoral levels in 1969 by another colleague,
Gerda Schulman. Several faculty members in the Practice Division, myself
included, attended Gerda’s Doctoral classses, in preparation for teaching and
practicing family work. In 1970, two members of the Practice Faculty, again
myself included, undertook a year of study with Salvatore Minuchin.
11. Yeshiva University for Doctoral Study: I pursued my doctoral study
at Yeshiva University from 1971–1977. My frustration because I did not quite
finish before my 60th birthday! The Practice Division Faculty and all the First
Semester Masters level students participated in the research: “Styles of
Learning for Social Work Practice” (1977). I later reported on this research at
the Annual Program Meeting of CSWE (1980). The measurement tool
continues to be utilized in preparing social workers to supervise students in
their fieldwork. (Hendricks, 2006).
12. Alcoholism and Addictions. In 1975, a group of Adelphi alumni, in a
presentation of their work at the Nassau County Commission on Drug and
Alcohol Addiction, said to us, “You did not teach us anything about this
subject and it is present in every social worker’s practice experience.” As the
Director of the Practice Division, I was greatly troubled, and humbly said,
“Tell us what to teach!” There followed a remarkable collaborative effort
between the University, Nassau County Commission on Drug and Alcohol
Addiction, and The Long Island Council on Alcoholism, which resulted in an
introductory day to educate the Faculty, then a first and annual Conference on
Alcohol and Substance Abuse for Long Island, and finally a course in the
Doctoral Program and Post MSW Addiction Specialist Certificate Program.
When I was retired in 1986 from Adelphi at the age of 70 I was able to
continue my relationship with the Commission where I worked (half time) as
Family Consultant and therapist until September 2000.
13. Adelphi’s Doctoral Program: From 1975-1987 I was a member of the
committee that designed the doctoral program, taught the Doctoral Seminar
on Social Work Practice Theory, and served as dissertation advisor, which was
always intellectually stimulating. I remember warmly many doctoral students
who have played critical professional roles following their doctoral study at
Adelphi.
14. Social Work with Groups: A Journal of Clinical and Community
Practice. This journal was published in 1978 by Haworth Press with Beulah
Rothman and myself as Co-Editors. We continued this assignment until 1991
when Beulah passed away (Papell, 1992). Before she died we resigned our co-
editorships and recommended Roselle Kurland and Andrew Malekoff who
carried the journal magnificently to 2005. Andy continues as sole editor today.
(Again I remember Roselle and thank Andy for continuing with such
commitment and creativity.)
15. Restoring group work’s identity. By 1979, group work seemed to have
given up its identity with the profession’s move in the 60’s and 70’s toward
what had become the Foundation Method. Group work educators, including
myself, began to recognize what were some unintended consequences of the
generic movement and what was happening to Social Group Work in the
professional curriculum (Tropp, 1978). We, and I include myself, had carried
leadership in the conceptual development of what had become the Foundation
Curriculum. For you who do not know the story, at the CSWE Annual Meeting
in Boston, three group workers, Beulah Rothman in the lead, with Ruth
Middleman and myself, put up a sign inviting all interested in Group work to
join us at a small meeting. So many came that it was necessary to open
another room. In October 1979 was held the first annual Group Work
Symposium. The first was held at Case Western Reserve University where
Grace Coyle had first taught Group Work as a part of the MSW curriculum.
16. The Association for the Advancement of Social Work with
Groups: In the 80’s, and ever since, social group workers have been striving
to regain identity, building the remarkable AASWG with Chapters and
Affiliates, and the Journal. Many hundreds of papers have been written
reporting the work of groups in creating empowerment for social change, for
members helping members, and for individual gaining of strength and
experience in reaching with others for the fulfillment of ones own needs. My
beloved friend, Beulah, and I wrote several papers and many comments about
group work in our ten years of preparing Editorials for the Journal. She and I,
and I alone, wrote many papers, and traveled to Vienna and Budapest, Israel,
London, Ireland, Canada and many Schools of Social Work throughout the
US, to share our knowledge and commitment to the meaning of group work in
the helping profession of Social Work.

GROUP WORK AND THE FUTURE: NOW AND ONWARD

Social workers, who are committed to being skilled in forming groups when
human situations suggest the professional value of doing so, continue to be
concerned about the excessive individualism of our society and the continuing
contemporary enchantment with absolute predictability, and its impact on our
profession (Papell, 1996). All too often, social workers who are leading groups
know more technically about the human problem that has brought members
of a group together than about the dynamic interactive processes created by
those members in the life of the group. It is in the processes of group life that
humans struggle for their essential humanity and health. It is my view that
therein lays our helping mission, now and into the future.

While preparing this paper I came across a paragraph in the new

journal, Qualitative Social Work: Research and Practice, that I find relevant
now:

The knowledge we gain, therefore, is not information that simply passes

through the central processors of our brains. It also arises from our hearts
and often our deeply held emotions. Understandings gained through an
engagement of heart and minds have an immediacy that potentially
connects to the hearts and minds of audiences. (Gilgan & Abrams, 2002,3)

We social workers are not alone in our professional commitment to the human
group. Other professions too are concerned about human relationship as it is
experienced and played out in the human group. New knowledge of the
human brain provides new understanding of the human condition. In the
most recent issue of The Networker, the author of an article exploring the
fundamentals of neurofeedback ended with these words:

As the 21st century advances and neurotherapeutic tools become more

powerful and efficient, we’ll depend more than ever on the great wisdom
traditions (my emphasis) to keep us away from the crossroads, where we
may be tempted to bargain our souls away, and to remind us of where we all
came from—hanging around the fire, telling stories. (Butler, 2005, 65)

As I have sat for these many hours reminiscing about 65 years of my life as a
social worker dedicated to helping people, I am moved all over again by the
words, insights, knowledge and skills, values, human beliefs, caring of our
colleagues throughout the 20th Century as social group work collectively
emerged. Is this “a great wisdom tradition”? I would say so.

I have tried to show you a pathway that our social group work has taken
through these sixty some years as I have personally experienced it and have
participated in it professional growth. This is only one view of social group
work history and there is much history for future scholars to claim and keep
vibrant for the future. Some aspects of that history are suggested for future
exploration:

• Group work’s struggle to affirm its purpose of social reform and community
and human development as professional social work skill;
• Group work’s history in recognizing and accepting the psychological interests
of social case workers and the clinical potential of groups;
• Social group work’s choosing Social Work as its professional home base from
its very early associates within education and recreation and the theoretical
routes of group work in other professions including psychiatry and
psychology;
• Group work’s finding a revitalization of its social reform commitment in the
societal environmental movement of the 60’s and its relationship with case
work;
• Group work’s finding its integrative role in a foundation method
representing the whole of social work and unintentionally minimizing its own
identity:
• Group work’s striving to restore its own identity as a social work helping
method with what I like to call the “breadth of our depth” and to develop our
methodology within the context of “mutual aid” and people helping people.

These are only a few suggestions for valid research that are warranted by the
history of social group work in the 20th century.

Recently, I prepared the following comments for the close of a conference,

representing my deep feelings about social group work (Papell, 2002).

A group represents human togetherness. It is not that the group creates the
togetherness for the members. Rather it is the other way around – its
members must create the group, and if they are unable to do this there is
nothing but a collection of individuals striving helplessly for the unknown.
Humane human relationship is group membership successfully created.
When people –even just two- try to create a group and fail, the search for
relationship – for togetherness – becomes tension, frustration, unfulfillment,
anger, conflict, failure and even violence.
Fulfillment in relationship does not come automatically to us humans. We
each bring our very selves to the process, each of us with the complexity of
our ever emerging needs. The human process of “grouping” constantly calls
upon us to participate in meeting the needs of others in their yearning for
connectedness. Of course grouping is difficult, and always will be, as it will
always be a fundamental human process that can be misused or fail.
…The skills of leadership of…humans in their groups is not technique alone;
there is much knowledge but it is not technology. It requires our own eternal
efforts at togetherness…our own engagement with humanity.

This is how I have experienced group work in our social work profession and
have perceived it and taught it. I have been a modest part of its splendid
professional development in our helping history since 1940. I leave to you who
are gathered here the struggle with the profound human forces that are our
very essence and are so needful to our tormented social world. And I leave to
you also the task of boldly carrying the priceless professional knowledge,
values and skills of social work with groups on in the 21st Century and into the
future.