THE TAO OF SOCIAL WORK
Philip Wooldridge
Smashwords Edition 1.0, October 2011
Copyright 2011 Philip Wooldridge
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It's Social Work, Not Social Whine
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To say I'm an expert social worker, or an expert on all things Taoist, would be a great disservice to you, the reader. At the time of this writing, I'm just about a month shy of my forty-second birthday, and I've only taken the first baby steps towards some sort of inner peace and understanding of myself and the things around me. To say I know absolutely nothing about the way things work in life, and in my work, would be much more accurate. However, when you're a blank slate like myself, the world is open, and can be a much more beautiful place. We can be wiser for the lack of knowledge. Any social worker who's been in service to children can attest to the fact that kids actually know more than adults give them credit for. They're not jaded by the experiences of the world, and certainly not by the things we have seen and heard as social workers. And that's a pretty good place to start in my book.
I'll give you a little background about myself and my career. I grew up the only son of divorced parents, who separated when I was about nine years old. I spent a very chaotic two years with my mother, a functional alcoholic, who knew that my father wanted custody of me. She agreed to give me over to him as long as she didn't have to pay child support, and so, eventually I went to reside with my dad, who was an Episcopal priest. My father was committed to the ideal of parenthood insomuch as he supported my basic needs, but he was a man of the cloth, dedicated to God and Church first, before anything. Needless to say, social work wasn't completely out of the question considering my upbringing.
Following high school, I served in the military for about five and a half years, two of those in the Army Reserve's Signal Corps, and the rest of the time as a medic in the Air Force, during which time I was deployed overseas in support of Operation Desert Storm, where I worked in a British contingency hospital. I left the military about a year after the conflict ended, and began my college studies.
I actually started out as a pre-medicine major, thinking I wanted to attend physician assistant's school. I loved science, and longed to be back in the medical field. However, when I encountered microbiology, and worked tirelessly for a “D” that semester, I figured that it would only get tougher from there. At the same time, I started taking my required psychology and sociology courses, and my interest went from the body to the mind.
I declared a Psychology major the start of my junior year, but quickly had my doubts, although Abnormal Psychology was, and remained, my favorite course of all. I thought about my life, and spending more and more time in school, something I absolutely did not look forward to. I wanted to have a degree that would allow me to finish my education in four years and give me a shot at landing a job where I could help others, and I wanted to get back to the real world as soon as possible. Enter the world of social work.
I started the program, interned at a local hospice during my senior year, and upon graduation, started as a social worker in a small, rural nursing home. About half a year after that, a position became available with another hospice, and I worked as a caseworker and volunteer coordinator there. I began to sense my first bout with burnout, and a friend of a friend knew about positions with a pharmaceutical company, and so I left hospice, and started in medical supply sales to a series of nursing homes in West Texas.
The travel requirements were long, about eight-hundred to one thousand miles per week in my truck, and I quickly saw I was not cut out for the life of a marketer. I felt horrid trying to push supplies on already cash-strapped facilities and their residents. I wanted to get back to doing what I did best, and yet, I didn't know if I belonged in long-term care. The company I worked for was “reorganizing” - late 1990's business-speak for “get your resume up to par”, and I felt the time for my departure was present. I searched for jobs in social work, and found the one I'd spent the most time at.
In February 2000, I went to work for Protective Services in Texas, as an intake specialist for a child/adult abuse hotline. I stayed there for the better part of ten years, taking only a year's leave to pursue a job as a medic at a local cardiac unit when I felt the sting of burnout once again. I missed the job, and the trauma that came along with it, odd as it may sound, so I returned to the hotline until I could do no more, and left Texas all together for my wife's home state of Michigan.
I quickly found work back in long-term care as a social worker, and I was in charge of a long-term wing as well as a rehab wing. I liked being back in my original setting, and I genuinely liked working with the elderly. I felt their presence taught me more than I could possibly give them in return. I did not, however, care for the corporation I worked for, one who chose meetings over actually letting social workers spend time with residents, paperwork over conversations, and interior design schemes over residents' individual choices in room decoration (no, I'm not kidding). I became increasingly stressed with this company, who believed their social workers should spend as much time on marketing and admitting as they did on making the lives of their residents better, and eventually, I became physically ill, and had chest pains. I took a couple of weeks off, only to return to a lay-off. So much for the “take care of your employees, and they'll take care of you” slogan I read when I first arrived.
I spent about four months unemployed, and I did a variety of things. First and foremost, I felt sorry for myself, and dived head first into disconnection from those around me. Didn't work out very well at all, though looking back, it was probably a necessary step in my rejuvenation process. Then I looked for work, primarily in social work or a related field, and then anywhere that had any type of lead. I worked for a couple of contractors doing interior and exterior painting. One was nice and patient with my learning, the other not so much. I also worked selling produce at a local farmer's market. Both these experiences allowed me to view life without the opportunity of a formal education, and I know they made me not only a better social worker, but a better person as well.
I came back to the field, back into long-term care, as the social worker of a small nursing home and assisted living facility in an urban area, and I've been there ever since. So while I definitely feel that I'm not an expert social worker or sage of any kind, I've gathered enough experience in life, and in this career path, that I can speak to the things we go through as social workers with some validity. I hope you find this book inspirational and encouraging, thought provoking and useful, fun and entertaining. And if you don't, as my grandmother once said, “No experience is ever wasted, even if all you learn from it is that you never want to do it again.” Now she was a sage.
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One of my favorite stories in regards to Taoism is the description of the work of art known as The Vinegar Tasters, and I think it's a wonderful place to start this book. I first came across it as a teenager while reading "The Tao Of Pooh" by Benjamin Hoff, probably the best and most widely read publication dealing with Taoism – I highly recommend it. Since I've never found an explanation of the painting quite as simple and beautiful as his, I'll use the following excerpt from his book.
In the painting, we see three men standing around a vat of vinegar. Each has dipped his finger into the vinegar and has tasted it. The expression on each man's face shows his individual reaction. Since the painting is allegorical, we are to understand that these are no ordinary vinegar tasters, but are instead representatives of the "Three Teachings" of China, and that the vinegar they are sampling represents the Essence of Life. The three masters are K'ung Fu-tse (Confucius), Buddha, and Lao-tse, author of the oldest existing book of Taoism. The first has a sour look on his face, the second wears a bitter expression, but the third man is smiling.
To Kung Fu-tse, life seemed rather sour. He believed that the present was out step with the past, and that the government of man on earth was out of harmony with the Way of Heaven, the government of, the universe. Therefore, he emphasized reverence for the Ancestors, as well as for the ancient rituals and ceremonies in which the emperor, as the Son of Heaven, acted as intermediary between limitless heaven and limited earth. Under Confucianism, the use of precisely measured court music, prescribed steps, actions, and phrases all added up to an extremely complex system of rituals, each used for a particular purpose at a particular time. A saying was recorded about K'ung Fu-tse: "If the mat was not straight, the Master would not sit." This ought to give an indication of the extent to which things were carried out under Confucianism.
To Buddha, the second figure in the painting, life on earth was bitter, filled with attachments and desires that led to suffering. The world was seen as a setter of traps, a generator of illusions, a revolving wheel of pain for all creatures. In order to find peace, the Buddhist considered it necessary to transcend "the world of dust" and reach Nirvana, literally a state of "no wind." Although the essentially optimistic attitude of the Chinese altered Buddhism considerably after it was brought in from its native India, the devout Buddhist often saw the way to Nirvana interrupted all the same by the bitter wind of everyday existence.
To Lao-tse, the harmony that naturally existed between heaven and earth from the very beginning could be found by anyone at any time, but not by following the rules of the Confucianists. As he stated in his Tao Te Ching, the "Tao Virtue Book," earth was in essence a reflection of heaven, run by the same laws - not by the laws of men. These laws affected not only the spinning of distant planets, but the activities of the birds in the forest and the fish in the sea. According to Lao-tse, the more man interfered with the natural balance produced and governed by the universal laws, the further away the harmony retreated into the distance. The more forcing, the more trouble. Whether heavy or fight, wet or dry, fast or slow, everything had its own nature already within it, which could not be violated without causing difficulties. When abstract and arbitrary rules were imposed from the outside, struggle was inevitable. Only then did life become sour.
To Lao-tse, the world was not a setter of traps but a teacher of valuable lessons. Its lessons needed to be learned, just as its laws needed to be followed; then all would go well. Rather than turn away from "the world of dust," Lao-tse advised others to "join the dust of the world." What he saw operating behind everything in heaven and earth he called Tao, "the Way."
A basic principle of Lao-tse's teaching was that this Way of the Universe could not be adequately described in words, and that it would be insulting both to its unlimited power and to the intelligent human mind to attempt to do so. Still, its nature could be understood, and those who cared the most about it, and the life from which it was inseparable, understood it best.
In the painting, why is Lao-tse smiling? After all, that vinegar that represents life must certainly have an unpleasant taste, as the expressions on the faces of the other two men indicate. But, through working in harmony with life's circumstances, Taoist understanding changes what others may perceive as negative into something positive. From the Taoist point of view, sourness and bitterness come from the interfering and unappreciative mind. Life itself, when understood and utilized for what it is, is sweet. That is the message of The Vinegar Tasters. (Hoff, 1982)
How then, can we as social workers apply the message of The Vinegar Tasters to our own lives and careers? We must ask ourselves these questions: What kind of social work are we going to practice, and what kind of workers will we be to those who depend upon us?
If we follow Kung Fu-tse's lead, and see the world as soured, we may not only desire that those entrusted to us follow a very rigid, step by step process, but we risk imposition of a "my way or the highway" approach to others, and to their lives. We are the masters, after all, and we know what is best. That is why we are social workers, and do not have them. This is a particularly dangerous way to view others, especially in the realm of protective services, where the attitude is not only accepted, it's often celebrated.
The problem with this line of thinking is that for as many societies have tried, no person or family can be punished into caring or doing the right thing. If this were the case, court ordered social workers would only have to work with a family once, and then all would be well. Instead, social workers often see the same families over and over again, and even get to know them as clients through generations. If Kung Fu-tse had been a successful social worker, criminals would only serve one sentence for their transgressions, and then get out and lead fulfilling lives. We know that's not the case, as we can see the high recidivism rate in our penal institutions.
What about Buddha's view of the world as it relates to our profession? The world is a bitter place, almost hopeless. Clients are in the situation they are in because of bad karma, or because they are attached to the desires that lead them back to troubling places. It's not necessarily our fault; it's theirs, and it's their mess to work themselves out of. We can try and make suggestions, but it's probably an effort in vain. When they're willing to better themselves, they will do so. And there's not much we can do to help them, speaking from a bird's eye view.
You already know the problem in this mindset, and you've probably had experience with it, either within yourself, or seeing it in colleagues. Clients are hopeless, the work we do is futile, and there's nothing we can do to change anything. It's called burnout, something I've dealt with myself, as I'm sure most of you reading this have as well.
So how can Taoism assist us? Because it can give us some sense of hope. Lao-tse believed that the Tao, the Way of Heaven, was available to any person at any time. Anyone - no matter who they are or what they've done - could work on a fresh start whenever they chose to. It's sort of like the Christian idea of being absolved of one's trespasses and told "Go, and sin no more". We can start over, and our clients can start over. Does this mean that nothing bad will happen? No, certainly not. But Taoism doesn't necessarily label things in the world as "good" or "bad". Things are what they are.
When something bad happens to one of our clients, instead of approaching the problem at hand as a complete failure, one which will take rigidity to correct, or just another step in the spiral staircase downward into further despair, we can let our clients know that perhaps this even horrible things can be valuable teachers, thus turning a negative into a positive, and fostering goodwill from this point forward. Bad things have happened, do happen, and will likely continue to occur, however, when one approaches life's difficulties with the thought of “what can I learn from this experience”, one tends to begin life again on the good foot. And many good steps eventually lead to more pleasant pathways.
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It's Social Work, Not Social Whine
A young social worker who graduated with honors quickly found employment in a nursing facility a week after receiving her degree. As the months went on, she began to feel bitter about both her place of employment and chosen career path, and one day she visited her former professor, whose opinion she respected very much, for some advice.
As they conversed, she began to complain about her job. "My administrator has no respect for my talents," she said. "The nurses look down on me as if my opinion has no value, the aides look at me as if I'm a snob, and the business office people are only concerned about the bottom line. I'm tired of this treatment. Monday morning, I'm going to tell them all what I think, and then quit!"
The professor asked, "How much do you really know about long term care? Are you aware of what they health providers actually do? Do you know how the administrator manages the entire facility? Are you familiar with the concepts of profit and loss?"
"Not really, no. Why do you ask?"
"Well," continued the professor, "If you quit now, your facility won't see your departure as a loss, because you don't possess any valuable knowledge. A much better plan for revenge is to learn everything about this facility before you leave. Take advantage of those who work there and used them as sources of training. When you do leave, it will come as a crushing blow to those who have slighted you, and you'll walk away with their medical and business secrets."
"What a great idea," replied the social worker. "I'll make them pay for looking down on me!"
So the social worker put this plan into action. She used moments throughout the day to read through patient charts and learn about the nursing aspect of the facility. She cut her breaks short, and lent a hand to the aides when the floors were short-staffed, and she stayed after hours to help with the ledgers and learn more about the business end of the facility, waiting for the day when her skills were sharply honed and she could have her day of glory.
About a year later, the professor visited his former student at the facility. "I just wanted to check on your plan for revenge," he said. "Have you learned enough to quit?"
"Yes, I have," replied the social worker, "But the thing is, work has changed completely! The administrator values my work and frequently compliments me. In the past few months, I've been asked to make presentations to other facilities, have been given more important assignments, and I even got a raise! Things are really different now, and .... well, I don't want to quit anymore."
Do you remember when you first got out of college, the first morning at your new job as a social worker? You were ready to take on the injustices of society, you were prepared to bear any burden for your clients, you were going to be the one – perhaps the only one – that really made a difference.