WEBVTT 00:00:00.006 --> 00:00:07.280 So Dr. Edward Canda is a professor at the School of Social Welfare 00:00:07.280 --> 00:00:11.210 at the University of Kansas and he's been specializing in the theory and 00:00:11.210 --> 00:00:15.570 practice of spirituality in a sense of its social work. 00:00:15.570 --> 00:00:21.640 And he has a master's degree in From the University of Denver of religious studies, 00:00:21.640 --> 00:00:27.550 1979 and the MSW Ph.D Degree and Social work from the Ohio State University. 00:00:29.110 --> 00:00:32.549 Where he incorporated a lot of various spirituality and 00:00:32.549 --> 00:00:37.000 anthropology and religious studies into social work. 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:41.230 He's working with CSWE as a part of their religious and 00:00:41.230 --> 00:00:44.830 spirituality clearing house for educational resources. 00:00:44.830 --> 00:00:49.666 His focus on spirituality, focuses a lot on Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, 00:00:49.666 --> 00:00:51.930 South Korea, Japan. 00:00:51.930 --> 00:00:53.618 More than 150 publications. 00:00:53.618 --> 00:00:58.345 And actually the thing that I have to be amazing, and I didn't know this 00:00:58.345 --> 00:01:02.861 until last night it's in Cleveland, Ohio, which is also where I'm from. 00:01:02.861 --> 00:01:03.381 [LAUGH]. 00:01:03.381 --> 00:01:07.245 So, until we're both from the home town. 00:01:07.245 --> 00:01:12.265 So we had a chance chat a little bit about the unique things about Cleveland, Ohio. 00:01:12.265 --> 00:01:13.580 Would know what I mean. 00:01:15.020 --> 00:01:18.672 So I'm really pleased to have you here and look forward, the title of this talk is 00:01:18.672 --> 00:01:22.326 Spirituality and spiritual Diversity in Social Work, the Heart of Helping, so 00:01:22.326 --> 00:01:25.090 Doctor Canda welcome to the graduate school of social work. 00:01:25.090 --> 00:01:28.383 >> Thank you very much, [INAUDIBLE]. 00:01:28.383 --> 00:01:31.670 >> [APPLAUSE] >> And I want to thank Eugene Williams for 00:01:31.670 --> 00:01:36.470 your invitation and your hospitality, as well as for setting things up, 00:01:36.470 --> 00:01:37.840 everything has gone very smoothly. 00:01:37.840 --> 00:01:42.210 And Professor Benson has set up an evening event for me too, 00:01:42.210 --> 00:01:43.609 and I appreciate that as well. 00:01:45.020 --> 00:01:49.645 Coming back to DU is very significant to me. 00:01:49.645 --> 00:01:53.540 Ike as you've heard I got my first master's degree here in religious studies 00:01:53.540 --> 00:01:57.680 which used to be over in the building right over here I think, wasn't it? 00:01:57.680 --> 00:02:01.525 And that was a big turning point for me because I was coming back from, 00:02:01.525 --> 00:02:06.576 I'd come back from studying East Asian philosophy in South Korea. 00:02:06.576 --> 00:02:10.400 And not quite sure where to go from there and 00:02:10.400 --> 00:02:14.520 made a very fortunate connection with religious studies here. 00:02:14.520 --> 00:02:18.910 That gave me a wonderful background for my career in social work, actually. 00:02:18.910 --> 00:02:23.930 So after that when I went into the MSW and doctoral programs at Ohio State, 00:02:23.930 --> 00:02:27.130 I was able to bring that religious studies background into social work and 00:02:27.130 --> 00:02:31.600 that really helped me to fill a niche that was largely open in the profession. 00:02:31.600 --> 00:02:34.750 So that's what I'm gonna talk about today, how to converge 00:02:34.750 --> 00:02:37.970 understanding of spirituality and religion with social work. 00:02:39.420 --> 00:02:44.810 And especially I wanted to also thank professor Will Gravelly who's here. 00:02:44.810 --> 00:02:48.110 He was my teacher in the 70's and has been my friend and mentor since then so 00:02:48.110 --> 00:02:51.900 it's really wonderful to have you here in the audience, so thanks. 00:02:51.900 --> 00:02:54.560 As well as Doug Carrol who was a student with me back then. 00:02:54.560 --> 00:02:56.860 So I have a good connection. 00:02:56.860 --> 00:02:58.170 He's a social worker too. 00:02:58.170 --> 00:03:01.070 So another religious studies social work connection. 00:03:03.110 --> 00:03:09.350 So in this presentation I'm covering a huge topic area, really. 00:03:09.350 --> 00:03:13.180 Literally for me it's been a lifelong, pursuit of study, but 00:03:13.180 --> 00:03:16.690 I am going to do this in about 50 minutes, and then have discussion. 00:03:16.690 --> 00:03:20.520 So this is the brief capsule version. 00:03:20.520 --> 00:03:26.530 The way I want to do it then is give you an overview of major values, perspectives, 00:03:26.530 --> 00:03:31.895 some practice implications, and touch on a lot of things quickly. 00:03:31.895 --> 00:03:35.350 Today in the context of a large perspective to kind of expand awareness 00:03:35.350 --> 00:03:37.560 around spiritually sensitive practice. 00:03:37.560 --> 00:03:41.172 And hopefully that'll touch various different interests for you and 00:03:41.172 --> 00:03:45.370 then in the question and answer period please bring up whatever you would like. 00:03:45.370 --> 00:03:47.320 I can talk more about that. 00:03:47.320 --> 00:03:51.160 For those who are in the evening session that'll be more of a workshop. 00:03:51.160 --> 00:03:56.810 We'll have some discussion and exercises around dealing with stress and 00:03:56.810 --> 00:04:02.839 personal growth through meditation and related practices for that session. 00:04:07.661 --> 00:04:12.340 So, in the background of this slide, I have a mandala. 00:04:13.970 --> 00:04:19.450 I like to compose mandala sometimes just because I enjoy the designs but mandalas 00:04:19.450 --> 00:04:27.180 are very helpful to portray insights in more than just a linear thinking way. 00:04:27.180 --> 00:04:31.840 In a nutshell, literally mandala is from Sanskrit, it means circle. 00:04:31.840 --> 00:04:34.480 So it represents wholeness in connection 00:04:34.480 --> 00:04:37.610 among many different aspects of the self or the universe. 00:04:37.610 --> 00:04:42.470 Comes originally out of Hinduism and Buddhism but mandalas were, 00:04:42.470 --> 00:04:45.713 have been adapted widely even in therapeutic contexts. 00:04:45.713 --> 00:04:49.046 Carl, you'll like to use mandalas therapeutically. 00:04:49.046 --> 00:04:54.370 So I used mandalas as a way of helping to represent the bringing together of 00:04:54.370 --> 00:04:58.740 diverse aspects of oneself or different theoretical ideas and 00:04:58.740 --> 00:05:00.890 how to converge them in a holistic way. 00:05:00.890 --> 00:05:05.880 So you'll see some mandala diagrams that I have spread out through the presentation. 00:05:07.230 --> 00:05:10.020 Especially around this topic I think it's important 00:05:10.020 --> 00:05:12.440 not to be limited to only linear thinking. 00:05:14.030 --> 00:05:16.940 Linear thinking and rationality are really important, they're crucial, 00:05:16.940 --> 00:05:20.070 but they're necessary but not sufficient. 00:05:20.070 --> 00:05:24.155 So using artistic ways of communicating also I think is very helpful. 00:05:24.155 --> 00:05:29.500 [COUGH] So I'd like to start 00:05:29.500 --> 00:05:34.549 out by clarifying how this topic relates to basic professional purposes and values. 00:05:35.940 --> 00:05:40.050 My approach to the topic isn't theological, it's not religion specific. 00:05:40.050 --> 00:05:44.205 It's attempting to provide a framework so that people of diverse religious and 00:05:44.205 --> 00:05:47.090 non-religious perspectives can relate to it. 00:05:47.090 --> 00:05:50.120 And also so social workers can connect with clients and 00:05:50.120 --> 00:05:54.380 communities of diverse religious and non-religious perspectives. 00:05:54.380 --> 00:05:57.760 So here's some ideas that we talk about commonly in social work but 00:05:57.760 --> 00:05:59.260 I'm gonna link it to spirituality. 00:06:00.730 --> 00:06:06.390 We often say the mission of the profession is to advance human fulfillment and 00:06:06.390 --> 00:06:08.050 social justice for everyone. 00:06:09.390 --> 00:06:13.163 That's in common with spiritually sensitive social work [COUGH]. 00:06:13.163 --> 00:06:17.620 The differences It's taking it a little farther, it's expanding that notion 00:06:17.620 --> 00:06:21.390 beyond what has been common in conventional social work in the past. 00:06:23.240 --> 00:06:28.630 So when we talk about fulfillment of the person it's common in social work to 00:06:28.630 --> 00:06:32.490 say we want a holistic view, we wanna deal with the whole person in the environment. 00:06:32.490 --> 00:06:37.655 Spirituality highlights the aspects of the person 00:06:37.655 --> 00:06:42.730 that goes beyond just the bio/psycho/social. 00:06:42.730 --> 00:06:45.410 And we'll talk about that some more later. 00:06:45.410 --> 00:06:50.520 It also considers the whole person in relation with all people and all beings. 00:06:50.520 --> 00:06:57.605 Of course, social work is dedicated to work with people, that makes sense. 00:06:57.605 --> 00:07:03.540 But people exist of course in the total web of life on this planet. 00:07:04.850 --> 00:07:10.610 So, more and more, spiritually sensitive social work is attending to 00:07:10.610 --> 00:07:16.170 the ecological connections of all beings and the total planetary ecosystem. 00:07:16.170 --> 00:07:19.856 Deep ecology and ecofeminism are good examples of that. 00:07:22.482 --> 00:07:26.149 We also are very much concerned as a field with appreciating and 00:07:26.149 --> 00:07:30.520 respecting diversity and engaging in culturally appropriate practice. 00:07:31.550 --> 00:07:36.170 So spiritual diversity intersects with all other kinds of diversity. 00:07:36.170 --> 00:07:38.300 That brings up many wonderful opportunities, and 00:07:38.300 --> 00:07:43.100 also sometimes, complexities, ambiguities and conflicts. 00:07:43.100 --> 00:07:47.890 So, this is a lot of what we deal with in spiritually sensitive practice as well. 00:07:51.794 --> 00:07:57.230 Finally, I'm coming from the standpoint of our codes of ethics. 00:07:57.230 --> 00:08:02.840 Any SW code of ethics expects us to work culturally competently. 00:08:02.840 --> 00:08:08.060 It requires us to respect religious diversity and our CSWE educational 00:08:08.060 --> 00:08:12.790 guidelines include those two principles but 00:08:12.790 --> 00:08:17.320 also it says that students need to learn about spiritual development. 00:08:18.640 --> 00:08:22.410 So this movement has really paid more attention 00:08:22.410 --> 00:08:25.760 to those things than has been done in the past. 00:08:25.760 --> 00:08:29.390 On an international level there's a lot of movements 00:08:31.220 --> 00:08:34.799 to address spirituality and social work around the world now. 00:08:34.799 --> 00:08:41.559 It started primarily in North America but there are movements in many countries now. 00:08:41.559 --> 00:08:44.039 So I'll touch on that a little bit and 00:08:44.039 --> 00:08:46.620 if you're interested I can give you more information later. 00:08:46.620 --> 00:08:51.660 But the International Association of Schools of Social Work and 00:08:51.660 --> 00:08:53.970 the International Federation of Social Workers. 00:08:53.970 --> 00:08:57.666 Their statement of principals also includes respect for 00:08:57.666 --> 00:09:01.673 cultural diversity and spiritual and religious diversity. 00:09:01.673 --> 00:09:05.965 So the way I'm approaching this topic based 00:09:05.965 --> 00:09:09.681 on all of those kinds of commitments. 00:09:15.916 --> 00:09:20.216 [COUGH] When I started in social work, my MSW program in 1980, 00:09:20.216 --> 00:09:23.265 coming out of the religion studies program and 00:09:23.265 --> 00:09:26.960 previously my background was cultural anthropology. 00:09:28.210 --> 00:09:31.000 I was taught that we wanted to look at the whole person in the environment, 00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:32.860 which sounded great to me. 00:09:32.860 --> 00:09:36.350 But there was no mention about religion or spirituality. 00:09:36.350 --> 00:09:37.360 I mean literally zero. 00:09:38.380 --> 00:09:42.240 If I looked hard enough I could find some articles here and 00:09:42.240 --> 00:09:45.850 there in some important historical documents. 00:09:45.850 --> 00:09:50.800 But I couldn't figure out why is it if we say we're looking at the whole person in 00:09:50.800 --> 00:09:55.300 the environment, this area of human experience was omitted? 00:09:55.300 --> 00:10:01.130 Especially because all human cultures include religious and spiritual features 00:10:01.130 --> 00:10:06.920 in every person, is engaged in some way in a search for meaning and purpose. 00:10:06.920 --> 00:10:12.140 So that's when I began to shift to advocate for 00:10:12.140 --> 00:10:16.620 more attention to that, in effect I decided later, 00:10:16.620 --> 00:10:21.790 when I was a doctoral student, that I would apply 00:10:21.790 --> 00:10:27.970 social work principles of social change to advocating with the profession. 00:10:27.970 --> 00:10:30.740 To help change the profession, and 00:10:30.740 --> 00:10:36.280 so compared from then til now there's a tremendous difference. 00:10:36.280 --> 00:10:40.680 We have in our accreditation standards recognition of spirituality and religion. 00:10:40.680 --> 00:10:43.840 Now textbooks usually, at least briefly, mention it. 00:10:43.840 --> 00:10:47.090 We have textbooks dedicated to the topic. 00:10:47.090 --> 00:10:51.140 There's at least 40 graduate programs around the country 00:10:51.140 --> 00:10:53.630 that have specialized courses on this topic. 00:10:53.630 --> 00:10:56.850 There's a lot of movement around it now. 00:10:56.850 --> 00:11:01.490 Not due simply to me, but as you know a major social work practice skill 00:11:01.490 --> 00:11:05.810 is to network and create organizations so really building 00:11:05.810 --> 00:11:10.150 a set of enthusiastic people around the country and around the world. 00:11:10.150 --> 00:11:12.290 So there's a lot going on. 00:11:12.290 --> 00:11:16.140 So spiritually sensitive practice 00:11:19.050 --> 00:11:23.040 addresses the ways that practitioners, clients or consumers, and 00:11:23.040 --> 00:11:27.200 their communities seek a sense of meaning, purpose, and connectedness. 00:11:29.080 --> 00:11:34.130 As they strive toward their highest aspirations, maximize their strengths and 00:11:34.130 --> 00:11:38.640 resources, and work to overcome personal obstacles and environmental blocks and 00:11:38.640 --> 00:11:39.419 gaps in resources. 00:11:42.940 --> 00:11:47.400 If that sounds a lot like typical social work, it is. 00:11:47.400 --> 00:11:49.980 That's good. 00:11:49.980 --> 00:11:54.516 But it's highlighting things that aren't so commonly addressed. 00:11:54.516 --> 00:11:59.119 For example, the themes of meaning, purpose and connectedness. 00:12:02.010 --> 00:12:07.410 There have been, for a long time, certain strands of social work that focus on that. 00:12:07.410 --> 00:12:10.690 A major one being existential social work, and Don Krill, 00:12:10.690 --> 00:12:13.280 who teaches a course here still, he's taught for 00:12:13.280 --> 00:12:17.235 many many years, existential social work, is a good example of that. 00:12:17.235 --> 00:12:22.920 [COUGH] But sometimes social work is delivered in a way that's focused on 00:12:23.970 --> 00:12:30.220 practical goods and services or measurable outcomes. 00:12:30.220 --> 00:12:34.200 That doesn't look at what is the meaning, purpose, context of that. 00:12:34.200 --> 00:12:39.950 So if we're not careful even the delivery of needed services the worst 00:12:39.950 --> 00:12:44.390 case is if we ignore this quality of meaning and purpose and connection. 00:12:44.390 --> 00:12:48.360 People actually feel objectified and dehumanized in the process. 00:12:50.760 --> 00:12:54.380 It also has to do with helping people strive to their highest aspirations. 00:12:55.550 --> 00:12:58.360 In this case, highest aspirations can include, 00:12:58.360 --> 00:13:02.210 what are their most compelling and significant life goals? 00:13:02.210 --> 00:13:06.030 What conserve as transformative ideals in their life. 00:13:06.030 --> 00:13:10.100 What kinds of spiritual practices and 00:13:10.100 --> 00:13:13.195 community connections can help them deal with adversity. 00:13:13.195 --> 00:13:16.620 [COUGH] Personal adversity, social injustice, oppression. 00:13:16.620 --> 00:13:23.850 And this can even include people's experience of states of consciousness 00:13:23.850 --> 00:13:28.260 that go well beyond an ego-centered understanding of self and world. 00:13:30.480 --> 00:13:33.560 What helps people maximize their strengths and resources and 00:13:33.560 --> 00:13:38.040 pay special attention to religiously and spiritually based strengths and resources. 00:13:38.040 --> 00:13:42.489 Those can be internal and external in the community and the larger world. 00:13:44.070 --> 00:13:48.280 And all of this to work to overcome personal obstacles environmental blocks, 00:13:48.280 --> 00:13:50.470 and gaps in resources. 00:13:50.470 --> 00:13:55.600 Another feature of social work that is congruent with the strengths perspective, 00:13:55.600 --> 00:13:58.880 as it happens the strengths perspective was originally developed 00:13:58.880 --> 00:14:02.070 at my university in the mid to late 80s, at KU. 00:14:03.760 --> 00:14:09.710 So the strengths perspective doesn't look at clients in terms of 00:14:12.280 --> 00:14:16.780 pathologies, deficits, diagnostic labels. 00:14:16.780 --> 00:14:20.000 Of course those things can be pertinent to their situation but 00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:22.290 it never reduces people to those things. 00:14:22.290 --> 00:14:28.670 Instead it focuses on goals, solutions, possibilities, talents, skills, 00:14:28.670 --> 00:14:34.070 resources and never limits the possibility for clients. 00:14:34.070 --> 00:14:39.010 Always considers at any point in time no matter what the person's situation 00:14:39.010 --> 00:14:43.419 there could always be an opportunity for something far more than what it appears. 00:14:45.290 --> 00:14:49.597 So for many people, spirituality is a way to open up those unexpected and 00:14:49.597 --> 00:14:51.657 transformative possibilities. 00:14:59.468 --> 00:15:04.990 So before I go on too much farther with these kind of abstract ideas. 00:15:04.990 --> 00:15:11.140 I wanna tell you a story that puts in a nutshell some of the main points. 00:15:12.510 --> 00:15:15.600 In the 1980s, a lot of my social work 00:15:15.600 --> 00:15:19.559 practice in research related to Southeast Asian refugees. 00:15:21.460 --> 00:15:24.210 So one time, when I was at the university of Iowa I 00:15:25.250 --> 00:15:28.436 was working with the refugee resettlement program for the state. 00:15:28.436 --> 00:15:33.190 And a Methodist minister 00:15:33.190 --> 00:15:38.890 gave me a call and said, there's an issue going on with two loud roommates. 00:15:38.890 --> 00:15:44.730 Would you come to meet them and me, and talk through what's going on. 00:15:44.730 --> 00:15:46.550 Okay, what's the situation. 00:15:46.550 --> 00:15:49.700 He said well, they've been having a lot of arguments. 00:15:49.700 --> 00:15:51.020 It's getting heated. 00:15:51.020 --> 00:15:54.130 One of the roommates has a knife and has been threatening to stab the other one. 00:15:55.180 --> 00:15:57.400 I'm thinking to myself that sounds like a lot fun. 00:15:57.400 --> 00:15:58.966 Sure, I'll go right over there. 00:15:58.966 --> 00:16:03.070 [LAUGH] See if, I've never learned martial arts so 00:16:03.070 --> 00:16:06.456 I wasn't too confident [LAUGH] while I was dealing with possible knife play. 00:16:06.456 --> 00:16:12.330 But, all right so, I was working with a Thai international student who 00:16:14.050 --> 00:16:20.320 also spoke Lao, and then we had Lao interpreters who joined us. 00:16:20.320 --> 00:16:23.660 So we had a team there, the two roommates, the Methodist minister, 00:16:23.660 --> 00:16:25.310 myself, my assistant. 00:16:26.460 --> 00:16:30.910 So as a group, we started talking through what were the issues. 00:16:30.910 --> 00:16:35.920 We found out that the disagreements were 00:16:35.920 --> 00:16:40.460 not really that significant but they were becoming just agitated with each other. 00:16:40.460 --> 00:16:42.970 And a lot of it had to do with their post-traumatic stress. 00:16:44.200 --> 00:16:47.040 So keep in mind the context [COUGH] they 00:16:48.730 --> 00:16:52.378 had to escape Laos under conditions of grave danger, 00:16:52.378 --> 00:16:57.750 genocide, mass killings. 00:16:57.750 --> 00:17:01.630 Escaping on boats that were very difficult, dangerous. 00:17:02.720 --> 00:17:05.300 Spent a long time in refugee camps 00:17:05.300 --> 00:17:06.859 not knowing when they were gonna get out of it. 00:17:07.920 --> 00:17:10.079 Finally, resettled in the US. 00:17:10.079 --> 00:17:11.609 In the US, they encountered language and 00:17:11.609 --> 00:17:15.020 cultural differences that brought about further stress. 00:17:15.020 --> 00:17:17.329 Sometimes they experienced discrimination and racism. 00:17:18.700 --> 00:17:20.030 And then in addition to that well, 00:17:20.030 --> 00:17:24.140 it was great that there was this community based support system. 00:17:24.140 --> 00:17:28.830 Once they were settled this Methodist congregation provided helped 00:17:28.830 --> 00:17:31.000 them get housing. 00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:33.720 Invited them to their worship services. 00:17:33.720 --> 00:17:35.800 Helped with material needs. 00:17:35.800 --> 00:17:36.960 Provided emotional support. 00:17:36.960 --> 00:17:43.540 All that was great but some members of the congregation have the idea that if 00:17:43.540 --> 00:17:47.790 they have come here and we're sponsoring them, they should become Methodists too. 00:17:49.220 --> 00:17:51.250 So there was a further tension. 00:17:51.250 --> 00:17:56.100 This was very common I found with Southeast Asian refugees who 00:17:56.100 --> 00:17:57.079 frequently were Buddhist. 00:17:58.700 --> 00:18:00.975 They were very grateful to the Christian sponsors. 00:18:00.975 --> 00:18:04.190 And they were comfortable going to Christian services, but 00:18:04.190 --> 00:18:07.790 they also wanted to maintain their Buddhist practices, 00:18:07.790 --> 00:18:11.320 go to the Lao Buddhist temple, preserve their language. 00:18:11.320 --> 00:18:14.761 So in other words, they wanted to construct a bi-cultural, 00:18:14.761 --> 00:18:16.185 bi-religious system. 00:18:16.185 --> 00:18:19.090 But some of the sponsors weren't cool with that. 00:18:19.090 --> 00:18:21.050 It's one or the other. 00:18:21.050 --> 00:18:24.230 So that brought about a further level of stress. 00:18:24.230 --> 00:18:27.660 In the case of this minister, he did not have that attitude. 00:18:27.660 --> 00:18:29.320 He had a both/and perspective. 00:18:30.950 --> 00:18:35.890 So the minister was quite comfortable with this idea that the Lao roommates, 00:18:35.890 --> 00:18:38.980 if they want to tap the Buddhist support systems, they can do that, 00:18:38.980 --> 00:18:44.190 as well as connect with the Methodist support system and maximize both of them. 00:18:44.190 --> 00:18:49.250 So with further conversation [COUGH] at one point it got pretty intense actually. 00:18:49.250 --> 00:18:50.350 I was getting worried and 00:18:50.350 --> 00:18:53.700 I realized I made one big mistake, if you do safety training and 00:18:53.700 --> 00:18:58.547 you make a home visit, you don't sit the farthest place from the exit [LAUGH]. 00:18:58.547 --> 00:19:04.060 And that's where I and my assistant where I'm thinking that was a bad choice. 00:19:04.060 --> 00:19:08.940 And so you could feel the emotional tone getting more intense, more agitated, 00:19:08.940 --> 00:19:12.310 and I could tell there was a change in me. 00:19:12.310 --> 00:19:16.800 As I became more anxious, my breathing changed, it was becoming more tight and 00:19:16.800 --> 00:19:20.540 becoming a little bit scanning as to where was the exit. 00:19:21.620 --> 00:19:27.010 Well, once I realized that, it occurred to me that if I let 00:19:27.010 --> 00:19:32.730 this communication intensity escalate, and my internal 00:19:32.730 --> 00:19:36.390 anxiety symptoms escalate, the combination was not gonna be good for anybody. 00:19:37.610 --> 00:19:41.109 So and my assistant, who was mediating a lot of this, 00:19:42.410 --> 00:19:45.110 linguistically, she was bearing the brunt of it. 00:19:45.110 --> 00:19:47.670 Cuz it's not just the words going in between, 00:19:47.670 --> 00:19:50.120 it's the emotional energy going through. 00:19:52.120 --> 00:19:57.230 So it occurred to me I had to some way politely stop that dynamic. 00:19:57.230 --> 00:19:59.180 And I was running out of water. 00:19:59.180 --> 00:20:04.140 It's very polite in [COUGH] Southeast Asian cultures to offer 00:20:04.140 --> 00:20:08.330 people food or drink when you visit so I asked for some more water. 00:20:08.330 --> 00:20:13.250 Well that simple thing, asking for water, the roommate went out to the kitchen and 00:20:13.250 --> 00:20:16.990 filled up the glass, brought it back, it interrupted that escalation. 00:20:16.990 --> 00:20:21.830 Plus it showed instead of this escalating hostility, 00:20:21.830 --> 00:20:24.850 it made a little occasion of friendliness and politeness. 00:20:24.850 --> 00:20:28.450 So it shifted, and then I could also pay attention internally. 00:20:28.450 --> 00:20:32.980 I could watch my breathing, I could let it flow more smoothly, I could 00:20:32.980 --> 00:20:36.880 restore a kind of mindful awareness of what was going on in the moment [COUGH]. 00:20:36.880 --> 00:20:40.060 Once that happened, everything de-escalated. 00:20:40.060 --> 00:20:44.070 We're able to talk through the issues, and 00:20:44.070 --> 00:20:47.340 one of the big conclusions was there was one roommate who wanted to 00:20:47.340 --> 00:20:51.420 go spend some time in retreat at the Lao Buddhist monastery nearby. 00:20:51.420 --> 00:20:56.710 And actually, at that time these community Buddhist centers were very small and 00:20:56.710 --> 00:20:59.488 informal because they didn't have a lot of money. 00:20:59.488 --> 00:21:04.260 And so like this was set up in house and they set up an alter room. 00:21:04.260 --> 00:21:08.700 But the way it's set up, it provides a symbolically protective space. 00:21:08.700 --> 00:21:14.820 The monks have a routine out of ritual and meditation that he could participate in. 00:21:14.820 --> 00:21:20.320 So he went there, that helped him into get re-centered. 00:21:20.320 --> 00:21:22.375 We broke the conflict with the roommate. 00:21:22.375 --> 00:21:28.310 [COUGH] And it affirmed a positive mutual respective relationship with 00:21:28.310 --> 00:21:33.710 the Methodist minister as well because the minister was very comfortable with that. 00:21:33.710 --> 00:21:37.820 So that to me a good example of spiritually sensitive practice 00:21:37.820 --> 00:21:39.150 that respects diversity. 00:21:39.150 --> 00:21:43.520 It shifts from an either or competitive approach to the differences towards 00:21:43.520 --> 00:21:47.650 a both and complementary mutually respectful approach. 00:21:47.650 --> 00:21:50.580 It taps the resources and insights on both sides. 00:21:50.580 --> 00:21:52.099 It respects everybody involved. 00:21:53.890 --> 00:21:57.680 But it's not only an external process at that, it's also internal. 00:21:57.680 --> 00:22:02.960 What I said about having to become aware of my own anxiety and 00:22:02.960 --> 00:22:08.208 the change of my breathing, and to intervene on that level too. 00:22:08.208 --> 00:22:12.778 So spiritual sensitive practice is both internal work and 00:22:12.778 --> 00:22:16.049 external in weaving those two together. 00:22:33.920 --> 00:22:37.597 Here's a few other broad ethical principles to think about drawing on 00:22:37.597 --> 00:22:41.160 spirituality and religion which by the way I haven't defined yet. 00:22:41.160 --> 00:22:43.170 So you might be wondering what is he really talking about. 00:22:43.170 --> 00:22:44.619 I'm gonna get to that in a minute. 00:22:47.844 --> 00:22:51.302 So first of all, just like social practice in general, 00:22:51.302 --> 00:22:53.590 we have to start where the client is. 00:22:54.800 --> 00:22:58.350 So we focus on the consumer client's beliefs, goals, interests and 00:22:58.350 --> 00:22:59.560 comfort level. 00:22:59.560 --> 00:23:03.170 This isn't about the social worker's own agenda. 00:23:04.470 --> 00:23:07.540 I think meditation is really great, I'm gonna make sure all the clients do that. 00:23:07.540 --> 00:23:11.010 Or I think prayer is the best thing, I'm gonna make sure they all do that. 00:23:11.010 --> 00:23:16.190 That's not the point, it's assessing understanding the clients 00:23:16.190 --> 00:23:19.880 interest goals, resources, where they're at, what they would like to tap and 00:23:19.880 --> 00:23:23.920 then you facilitate it [COUGH]. 00:23:23.920 --> 00:23:27.190 So as I said before it also means working in a culturally appropriate manner. 00:23:29.190 --> 00:23:33.490 If we're engaging direct spiritually based helping practices, 00:23:33.490 --> 00:23:36.680 such as meditation, or prayer, or ritual. 00:23:38.020 --> 00:23:39.890 As I said, we have to start with assessment. 00:23:41.040 --> 00:23:45.290 So even with assessment it's wise, just like in ethnography or 00:23:45.290 --> 00:23:50.339 cultural anthropology, to begin with the least intrusive open ended assessment. 00:23:51.480 --> 00:23:54.210 We have to be careful if the way we do assessment 00:23:54.210 --> 00:23:57.950 isn't either steering people in a certain direction or cutting off possibility. 00:23:57.950 --> 00:23:59.150 Place. 00:23:59.150 --> 00:24:03.020 Many agencies don't even have guidelines for the practitioners how to do 00:24:03.020 --> 00:24:08.010 basic assessment around spirituality and religion of the clients. 00:24:08.010 --> 00:24:12.140 That's one problem, and if you don't inquire at all, that can be a message 00:24:12.140 --> 00:24:15.160 to the client implicitly, you're not interested and you don't care. 00:24:16.990 --> 00:24:19.140 But if you ask about it in a certain way, 00:24:19.140 --> 00:24:22.990 it can be another message that you're imposing some assumptions. 00:24:22.990 --> 00:24:27.947 Like some agencies will have an intake form that'll say something like here 00:24:27.947 --> 00:24:34.880 are some options, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, other. 00:24:36.080 --> 00:24:36.770 Find that out. 00:24:36.770 --> 00:24:40.419 To tell you the truth, that is useless. 00:24:41.520 --> 00:24:42.840 If that's what you asked someone, 00:24:42.840 --> 00:24:46.610 by the way what it's saying is we're not really very interested. 00:24:46.610 --> 00:24:50.180 We're asking very broad questions and a lot of agencies will collect that 00:24:50.180 --> 00:24:53.380 information it's checked off, it goes in a file somewhere and nothing happens. 00:24:55.300 --> 00:24:57.770 Well what if the person is Buddhist or Hindu? 00:24:59.170 --> 00:25:02.278 And among Christians, there are tremendous variation of denominations and 00:25:02.278 --> 00:25:05.710 within that, then there's non-denominational Christians. 00:25:05.710 --> 00:25:09.330 Similarly in Judaism, there's many different styles of Judaism. 00:25:09.330 --> 00:25:11.480 So, Islam. 00:25:11.480 --> 00:25:16.950 This kind of question is really narrowing and excluding. 00:25:16.950 --> 00:25:20.640 Besides that, it doesn't yield much helpful information anyway. 00:25:20.640 --> 00:25:22.280 Even if someone says, yeah, I'm a Christian. 00:25:22.280 --> 00:25:25.545 Well, there's more than 900 Christian denominations in the United States and 00:25:25.545 --> 00:25:29.510 many non-denominational Christian communities. 00:25:29.510 --> 00:25:33.000 And even if you know, I'm a Roman Catholic, that's what the person says. 00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:35.120 Within Catholicism there's tremendous variety, 00:25:36.390 --> 00:25:41.050 including on some basic social justice and theological issues. 00:25:42.680 --> 00:25:46.560 On the other hand, I don't mean with assessment we should be too intrusive. 00:25:46.560 --> 00:25:50.160 So we start with a open ended, non-threatening, 00:25:50.160 --> 00:25:54.128 exploratory question and then the client will cue us. 00:25:54.128 --> 00:25:57.330 Is this relevant to them, do they want to pursue it or not, and 00:25:57.330 --> 00:25:59.900 then we follow their cues to go further. 00:26:01.392 --> 00:26:04.680 [COUGH] So, I could talk more about that later, if you want. 00:26:04.680 --> 00:26:09.970 But the basic principle is starting with the least intrusive, open-ended approach, 00:26:09.970 --> 00:26:14.650 identify the consumer's level of interest, and then move to a more 00:26:14.650 --> 00:26:20.070 explicit spiritually based practices only if the consumer prefers. 00:26:20.070 --> 00:26:23.710 And sometimes that means within the helping relationship with a social worker, 00:26:23.710 --> 00:26:25.810 sometimes it means referral and collaboration. 00:26:27.770 --> 00:26:32.730 Another issue that I think is a big one, much neglected, 00:26:32.730 --> 00:26:35.330 is spiritually sensitive organizational culture. 00:26:37.270 --> 00:26:40.930 Actually, it's kind of interesting to me, if you look at business research 00:26:40.930 --> 00:26:45.600 literature, about the factors that reduced the likelihood of burn out and 00:26:45.600 --> 00:26:49.310 turnover, and increase employee satisfaction. 00:26:49.310 --> 00:26:53.450 Those businesses that attend to the spiritual qualities of the work 00:26:53.450 --> 00:26:58.570 environment and the relationships there, tend to have lower burnout, turnover, and 00:26:58.570 --> 00:27:00.490 higher employee satisfaction. 00:27:00.490 --> 00:27:04.790 So there's more discussion about that in the business sector than I see in 00:27:04.790 --> 00:27:07.180 the social literature which a little bit boggles me. 00:27:08.250 --> 00:27:12.860 So in human service organizations the optimal would be a congruence 00:27:12.860 --> 00:27:17.260 between spiritually sensitive administrative style and policies, 00:27:17.260 --> 00:27:21.550 and the practitioners engaging in that way with the clients. 00:27:21.550 --> 00:27:26.167 When there's a misfit between those, even if the practitioners are interested and 00:27:26.167 --> 00:27:29.158 committed to doing this, they might have no support or 00:27:29.158 --> 00:27:31.579 even find obstacles from administration. 00:27:34.779 --> 00:27:38.035 Or the workers themselves are getting burnt out, 00:27:38.035 --> 00:27:42.180 because their full human growth needs are being dealt with. 00:27:42.180 --> 00:27:45.352 And so then it's hard to work well with the clients. 00:27:45.352 --> 00:27:52.566 [COUGH] I'm 00:27:52.566 --> 00:27:54.895 finally going to tell you what I mean by spirituality. 00:27:54.895 --> 00:27:58.960 [LAUGH] I think you can get the sense of it from what I've said already but 00:27:58.960 --> 00:28:01.200 this is a more formal definition. 00:28:01.200 --> 00:28:04.430 I'm first gonna tell you what I mean by spirituality as an aspect, and 00:28:04.430 --> 00:28:06.753 then give you more holistic ways of looking at it. 00:28:06.753 --> 00:28:12.248 But what I'm going to describe now is the most common way it's looked 00:28:12.248 --> 00:28:17.660 at in social work medicine, nursing, psychology, psychiatry. 00:28:17.660 --> 00:28:20.240 By the way all of those fields have parallel movements to social work around 00:28:20.240 --> 00:28:21.340 this now, and 00:28:21.340 --> 00:28:25.740 there's a lot of interdisciplinary stuff happening around it. 00:28:25.740 --> 00:28:29.360 So spirituality is a process of human life and development. 00:28:30.390 --> 00:28:34.969 Spirituality isn't just a thing or an affiliation, it's a life process. 00:28:36.950 --> 00:28:40.910 It focuses on the search for a sense of meaning, purpose, morality and 00:28:40.910 --> 00:28:44.460 well being in relationship with oneself, 00:28:44.460 --> 00:28:48.530 other people, other beings of the universe and ultimate reality, however understood. 00:28:49.870 --> 00:28:53.340 It orients around centrally significant priorities. 00:28:53.340 --> 00:28:58.010 It engages a sense of transcendence, experienced as deeply profound, sacred, or 00:28:58.010 --> 00:28:58.830 transpersonal. 00:29:00.270 --> 00:29:03.060 So some of these keywords here that I bolded, 00:29:03.060 --> 00:29:07.730 you find across disciplines around the term spirituality. 00:29:07.730 --> 00:29:11.330 There's no uniformly accepted definition actually. 00:29:11.330 --> 00:29:14.525 But these themes are very common, meaning relationship, 00:29:14.525 --> 00:29:19.245 centrally significant priorities, our ultimate concern, and transcendence. 00:29:19.245 --> 00:29:25.060 [COUGH] With the concept of transcendence, 00:29:25.060 --> 00:29:30.070 I've added a few possibilities there, because if you look at spiritual 00:29:30.070 --> 00:29:35.960 traditions around the world, there's a great deal of variety about this. 00:29:35.960 --> 00:29:41.230 For theistic traditions, transcendence is, can be, 00:29:41.230 --> 00:29:45.660 often relate in terms of experiencing relationship with a personal God. 00:29:47.490 --> 00:29:51.660 And sometimes that can be very deep, very transforming and consciousness changing. 00:29:52.890 --> 00:29:55.460 But many religious traditions are not theistic. 00:29:59.730 --> 00:30:05.820 Even the concept of the sacred is widespread, but it's not universal. 00:30:05.820 --> 00:30:08.860 And for some traditions, the sacred and the profane are not a dichotomy at all. 00:30:08.860 --> 00:30:12.500 That ordinary daily life itself can all become sacred. 00:30:14.980 --> 00:30:19.640 And for many nonreligious people, even using words like holy, 00:30:19.640 --> 00:30:24.010 sacred, divine, it just doesn't work. 00:30:25.860 --> 00:30:30.840 I have a friend who describes himself, he's a social work professor, 00:30:30.840 --> 00:30:35.580 he describes himself as a secular, scientific, humanist, Jew. 00:30:37.170 --> 00:30:40.690 So, and we participated in some spirituality conferences. 00:30:40.690 --> 00:30:44.808 And he would explain to people as a nonreligious, non-theistic, 00:30:44.808 --> 00:30:47.855 cultural Jew, what is spirituality mean to him. 00:30:51.908 --> 00:30:55.429 One time my wife and I were invited to his home for 00:30:55.429 --> 00:31:00.420 a Sabbath meal and I was kinda wondering, how's this gonna work? 00:31:00.420 --> 00:31:07.990 [LAUGH] Well, they had the Sabbath style prayers 00:31:07.990 --> 00:31:13.050 and welcoming of people but the wording was, you might say, edited. 00:31:13.050 --> 00:31:16.900 It was changed to remove any theistic references. 00:31:16.900 --> 00:31:20.670 But it emphasized the community connectedness, caring, and 00:31:20.670 --> 00:31:22.050 love and sharing. 00:31:22.050 --> 00:31:27.160 And afterwards he had a gathering of other secular Jews and 00:31:28.380 --> 00:31:32.550 they had hymns and prayers and told stories and talked. 00:31:32.550 --> 00:31:37.140 All of those didn't have any theistic frame to them. 00:31:37.140 --> 00:31:41.390 But they created an informal spiritual support group around these common 00:31:42.460 --> 00:31:44.150 beliefs and styles. 00:31:44.150 --> 00:31:47.070 So they were preserving Jewish heritage and concerns. 00:31:47.070 --> 00:31:49.520 One of the main themes for them was social justice and 00:31:49.520 --> 00:31:52.470 how to link your personal life to justice. 00:31:52.470 --> 00:31:55.690 So that [COUGH], to him, made perfect sense. 00:31:55.690 --> 00:32:01.740 But if I were to approach someone with his point of view with words like Religion or 00:32:01.740 --> 00:32:08.630 sacred or god, it wouldn't connect, so we have to be careful about that. 00:32:08.630 --> 00:32:12.030 Give another example, in the same town, I had another Jewish friend. 00:32:12.030 --> 00:32:17.950 She was an Orthodox, a very devout Orthodox Jew. 00:32:17.950 --> 00:32:19.620 So she was very observant. 00:32:19.620 --> 00:32:22.750 Even to the point where when we went to lunch with her. 00:32:22.750 --> 00:32:26.030 We had to find a restaurant that didn't just have kosher, but 00:32:26.030 --> 00:32:27.930 kosher food approved by her rabbi. 00:32:30.830 --> 00:32:35.520 And so she had a very different style from my other friend. 00:32:35.520 --> 00:32:39.349 Both identify as Jewish, but quite different styles. 00:32:40.720 --> 00:32:42.500 And she was also very open. 00:32:42.500 --> 00:32:45.410 So she participated in many of our national spirituality and 00:32:45.410 --> 00:32:47.360 social conferences. 00:32:47.360 --> 00:32:48.900 Was very interested in outreach and 00:32:48.900 --> 00:32:51.840 connecting with people of many different perspectives. 00:32:51.840 --> 00:32:53.140 And that was a nice lesson, too. 00:32:53.140 --> 00:32:58.920 Because it showed me that [COUGH] whatever the person's perspective. 00:32:58.920 --> 00:33:02.670 If they have both a clear commitment to where they're at and 00:33:02.670 --> 00:33:05.010 an openness to where others are at. 00:33:05.010 --> 00:33:09.440 We can join and connect and collaborate and support each other. 00:33:09.440 --> 00:33:12.430 The trouble comes in when people who are highly committed 00:33:12.430 --> 00:33:16.370 to their own view see those as exclusive of others. 00:33:16.370 --> 00:33:19.610 Or hostile to others and promote conflict. 00:33:19.610 --> 00:33:21.789 And in the worst cases even violence. 00:33:32.042 --> 00:33:37.289 So religion. 00:33:37.289 --> 00:33:42.067 Will, forgive me if my definition doesn't measure up to religious studies' standards 00:33:42.067 --> 00:33:43.955 but I'm gonna give it a shot here. 00:33:43.955 --> 00:33:49.500 [LAUGH] Within social work, given our professional context. 00:33:49.500 --> 00:33:52.640 By the way since the early 80s 00:33:52.640 --> 00:33:56.099 there has been a tendency to distinguish the term spirituality and religion. 00:33:57.160 --> 00:34:01.370 For a lot of reasons, but one is because in our profession there was so 00:34:01.370 --> 00:34:04.428 much allergic reaction to the topic of religion. 00:34:04.428 --> 00:34:09.085 It's like pushing people's alarm buttons when you even say it in many settings. 00:34:09.085 --> 00:34:11.480 [LAUGH] And they're worried, what does it mean? 00:34:11.480 --> 00:34:18.594 Is this person gonna be trying to proselytize or to manipulate, or etc. 00:34:18.594 --> 00:34:23.150 So it became common to distinguish between spirituality and religion. 00:34:23.150 --> 00:34:27.920 And you find this in many other helping professions nowadays, by the way. 00:34:27.920 --> 00:34:32.620 So religion is an institutionalized, I mean formally structured. 00:34:32.620 --> 00:34:37.469 Systematic pattern of beliefs, values, symbols, 00:34:37.469 --> 00:34:40.399 behaviors, and experiences that involves spirituality. 00:34:41.610 --> 00:34:43.139 But, not limited to that. 00:34:43.139 --> 00:34:45.620 It involves a community of adherents. 00:34:45.620 --> 00:34:47.230 You can't have a religion of one person. 00:34:48.810 --> 00:34:52.460 It involves transmission of traditions over time, and 00:34:52.460 --> 00:34:54.020 community support functions. 00:34:55.030 --> 00:34:57.990 For example, through organizational structure, material assistance, 00:34:57.990 --> 00:35:00.380 emotional support, political advocacy. 00:35:00.380 --> 00:35:03.500 So religious groups engage in many kinds of activities, 00:35:03.500 --> 00:35:06.950 some of which are clearly explicitly spiritual and others are not. 00:35:06.950 --> 00:35:10.430 But everything has a connection to their spiritual frame. 00:35:12.230 --> 00:35:18.050 So spirituality can express through religious settings, 00:35:18.050 --> 00:35:20.430 and outside of religious settings. 00:35:20.430 --> 00:35:24.975 And for some people their spiritual way includes both religious and 00:35:24.975 --> 00:35:27.730 non-religious expressions. 00:35:27.730 --> 00:35:30.710 If you think about it like a Venn diagram, 00:35:30.710 --> 00:35:35.810 spirituality is a large circle and religion is a circle within it. 00:35:35.810 --> 00:35:40.531 And some people identify as simply their religious perspective is 00:35:40.531 --> 00:35:42.148 their spirituality. 00:35:42.148 --> 00:35:45.508 Others are non-religious but they're spiritual, 00:35:45.508 --> 00:35:48.200 others are both religious and spiritual. 00:35:49.460 --> 00:35:54.220 And actually surveys of clients in the US show that many people are identifying in 00:35:54.220 --> 00:35:55.940 this variety of ways. 00:35:55.940 --> 00:35:59.562 And in American popular culture this distinction has become common. 00:35:59.562 --> 00:36:03.308 It's become more and more common for baby boomers and younger to say, 00:36:03.308 --> 00:36:05.223 I'm spiritual but not religious. 00:36:10.826 --> 00:36:15.276 So, in this slide, I wanna move towards a more holistic view. 00:36:18.761 --> 00:36:19.624 If we start, 00:36:19.624 --> 00:36:25.220 the definition I just gave you that spirituality is an aspect of the person. 00:36:25.220 --> 00:36:28.660 Bio, Psycho, Social, and now many people add Spiritual. 00:36:28.660 --> 00:36:30.070 Bio, Psycho, Social, Spiritual. 00:36:31.800 --> 00:36:32.510 It's like a pie. 00:36:33.810 --> 00:36:36.430 The person has four slices now. 00:36:36.430 --> 00:36:38.110 Including the spiritual slice. 00:36:38.110 --> 00:36:40.240 Some people don't include the spiritual slice. 00:36:40.240 --> 00:36:41.723 I like pie so I want all four slices. 00:36:41.723 --> 00:36:48.320 [LAUGH] But one very peculiar special thing about the spiritual aspect. 00:36:49.360 --> 00:36:52.490 Since it focuses on the theme of meaning and purpose. 00:36:52.490 --> 00:36:54.832 And the possibility of moving towards transcendent, 00:36:54.832 --> 00:36:57.930 connecting modes of consciousness. 00:36:57.930 --> 00:37:01.045 Spirituality can pay attention to and 00:37:01.045 --> 00:37:03.129 infuse all of these aspects around the circle. 00:37:04.510 --> 00:37:07.450 It's not an isolate, none of these are actually isolated, 00:37:07.450 --> 00:37:10.620 this is just a simplification, to separate them out. 00:37:10.620 --> 00:37:13.680 But, let me give you an example of how spirituality can connect 00:37:14.760 --> 00:37:15.500 all the way around. 00:37:15.500 --> 00:37:20.310 If you think about one of the most basic, 00:37:20.310 --> 00:37:23.219 fundamental, universal things about human experience. 00:37:24.770 --> 00:37:26.508 Hope this doesn't come as a surprise to anybody. 00:37:26.508 --> 00:37:28.592 Death. 00:37:28.592 --> 00:37:31.930 All right. 00:37:31.930 --> 00:37:33.270 Everybody alive dies. 00:37:34.890 --> 00:37:36.580 Because it's inescapable. 00:37:38.370 --> 00:37:42.300 We know from practice when we work in medical settings or 00:37:43.890 --> 00:37:47.400 hospice or palliative care or grief and bereavement. 00:37:47.400 --> 00:37:51.870 We know that often when people are more closely 00:37:51.870 --> 00:37:55.150 aware of their own mortality or their loved one's mortality. 00:37:55.150 --> 00:37:57.600 It raises these big questions of meaning and purpose. 00:37:59.020 --> 00:38:00.160 Maybe it's even why? 00:38:01.990 --> 00:38:02.960 Why is that happening? 00:38:04.100 --> 00:38:11.670 I had a friend whose four year old daughter developed a serious cancer. 00:38:13.990 --> 00:38:17.020 He was very spiritual in a kind of alternative religious group 00:38:18.510 --> 00:38:21.170 practice dealing meditation and healing visualizations. 00:38:22.300 --> 00:38:25.120 So he brought all that to bear for his child. 00:38:26.470 --> 00:38:30.220 But this was of course a terrible shock, and she didn't recover either. 00:38:31.940 --> 00:38:35.310 So he would sit with his daughter and they wold meditate together. 00:38:37.380 --> 00:38:39.670 In fact I had a quartz crystal that she liked. 00:38:39.670 --> 00:38:40.750 I gave it to her. 00:38:40.750 --> 00:38:44.070 And she said, I'd like to sit with my daddy and 00:38:44.070 --> 00:38:46.700 mediate with this crystal and watch it. 00:38:46.700 --> 00:38:50.340 And actually, she said a lot of really profound things at four years old 00:38:50.340 --> 00:38:55.330 by her own facing her situation of illness and mortality. 00:38:55.330 --> 00:38:56.880 She was, in many ways, very profound. 00:38:58.300 --> 00:39:06.739 So the physical event of death evokes these deep spiritual questions. 00:39:08.050 --> 00:39:11.677 And also beliefs like is there an afterlife. 00:39:11.677 --> 00:39:14.790 If so what is it, where is it? 00:39:14.790 --> 00:39:18.500 Is there even anything that exists, is there a separate ego, or should there be? 00:39:20.090 --> 00:39:24.735 An ultimate goal in Buddhism is to transcend attachment to 00:39:24.735 --> 00:39:27.119 a separate individual self. 00:39:27.119 --> 00:39:30.018 So just being a kind of soul hanging around for 00:39:30.018 --> 00:39:33.795 all eternity isn't really an optimal ideal in Buddhism. 00:39:33.795 --> 00:39:36.662 [LAUGH] So there's all these different ideas. 00:39:36.662 --> 00:39:39.595 And what the client's belief is is going to have a big effect 00:39:39.595 --> 00:39:41.830 on how they prepare for death. 00:39:41.830 --> 00:39:45.552 Their level of anxiety or hope about death. 00:39:45.552 --> 00:39:51.630 And how that may affect their connection with their loved ones. 00:39:54.410 --> 00:40:00.340 So in fact by engaging in spirituality, even death itself can be transformed 00:40:01.760 --> 00:40:05.835 As an experience of growth and 00:40:05.835 --> 00:40:09.914 [COUGH] further possibility. 00:40:09.914 --> 00:40:13.234 Even for someone who doesn't believe there's any afterlife. 00:40:13.234 --> 00:40:18.090 By living, dying, to its best way. 00:40:19.150 --> 00:40:22.310 It can enhance the relationship with others and 00:40:22.310 --> 00:40:26.263 the sense of how precious even the last moments of life are. 00:40:29.803 --> 00:40:33.363 [COUGH] Well here's another way of looking at spirituality, 00:40:33.363 --> 00:40:36.100 this is a different metaphor. 00:40:36.100 --> 00:40:38.340 Spirituality as the center of the person. 00:40:40.192 --> 00:40:43.370 In idiomatic English we have this expression to be centered. 00:40:44.380 --> 00:40:48.762 For you, here's a little bit of audience participation, 00:40:48.762 --> 00:40:52.187 when you feel centered what does it feel like? 00:40:52.187 --> 00:40:54.323 >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Calming. 00:40:54.323 --> 00:40:57.765 >> [INAUDIBLE] >> In control. 00:40:57.765 --> 00:41:01.625 >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Peace. 00:41:01.625 --> 00:41:04.366 >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Balance. 00:41:04.366 --> 00:41:08.031 Okay, those are good, those are like feeling qualities. 00:41:08.031 --> 00:41:09.157 What's happening in your body? 00:41:12.858 --> 00:41:13.555 Yes? 00:41:13.555 --> 00:41:17.258 >> Relaxed breathing. 00:41:17.258 --> 00:41:18.396 >> Okay. 00:41:18.396 --> 00:41:23.420 >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Relaxed breathing, calm mind. 00:41:23.420 --> 00:41:27.530 Right, so if you, when you feel centered and you're paying attention to that, 00:41:27.530 --> 00:41:29.320 you're aware. 00:41:29.320 --> 00:41:32.360 Your breathing is usually, it's a kind of smooth flow. 00:41:32.360 --> 00:41:35.340 But even if you're centered while you're jogging or 00:41:35.340 --> 00:41:39.990 doing athletics, your breathing might be accelerated but it's also smooth. 00:41:41.430 --> 00:41:45.390 And your breath moves through your center, literally. 00:41:45.390 --> 00:41:47.660 So many meditation practices, and 00:41:47.660 --> 00:41:50.780 prayer practices involve paying attention to the breath. 00:41:52.000 --> 00:41:54.250 Letting it move smoothly and 00:41:54.250 --> 00:41:59.470 freely through your central chamber, and having your awareness focused. 00:41:59.470 --> 00:42:04.650 Some traditions on the heart, some on the energy point below the navel. 00:42:06.240 --> 00:42:08.990 So across many traditions it's recognized 00:42:08.990 --> 00:42:11.440 that there's a physical component to centering. 00:42:11.440 --> 00:42:14.350 There's an emotional intellectual component to it. 00:42:14.350 --> 00:42:19.480 And when we feel more centered it's not egocentric actually. 00:42:20.620 --> 00:42:22.465 It's opening to others. 00:42:22.465 --> 00:42:24.566 So in social practice if you're talking with a client. 00:42:28.152 --> 00:42:32.184 What happens if you're not centered and the client is telling you some story 00:42:32.184 --> 00:42:36.230 that's kind of shocking, or upsetting to you, and you're not centered? 00:42:36.230 --> 00:42:38.301 What's going on in your mind and body then? 00:42:41.376 --> 00:42:41.906 Yes? 00:42:41.906 --> 00:42:42.973 >> [INAUDIBLE] separate? 00:42:42.973 --> 00:42:44.099 >> You're feel, okay, separating? 00:42:44.099 --> 00:42:44.920 >> Yes. 00:42:44.920 --> 00:42:48.350 >> And you might even be separating inside yourself. 00:42:49.750 --> 00:42:52.350 Your thoughts are starting to run, my gosh. 00:42:52.350 --> 00:42:55.850 Like when I was in that situation with the roommate who, 00:42:55.850 --> 00:42:57.830 there was the threat of knife play. 00:42:57.830 --> 00:43:01.520 My mind is starting to what's gonna happen, what's gonna happen? 00:43:01.520 --> 00:43:02.560 So then to get 00:43:04.120 --> 00:43:08.970 lost down that train of thinking can pull you away from the moment. 00:43:11.400 --> 00:43:17.149 Your breathing might become too tight, or in panicky situations hyperventilating. 00:43:18.810 --> 00:43:24.600 So when we're centered it actually enhances our sense of interconnectedness. 00:43:25.770 --> 00:43:26.960 And when it's very deep, 00:43:26.960 --> 00:43:31.980 when we go to a sense of our very deep most profound true center. 00:43:31.980 --> 00:43:35.380 We might even have an experience of consciousness, which is joined or 00:43:35.380 --> 00:43:38.530 unified with others, or with God, or with the universe. 00:43:39.780 --> 00:43:43.940 So, all traditions have ways of talking about that as well. 00:43:43.940 --> 00:43:48.659 Within Native American traditions, many people including 00:43:48.659 --> 00:43:53.610 some Native social workers use medicine wheel diagrams. 00:43:53.610 --> 00:43:55.540 Similar to the mandalas I'm talking about. 00:43:55.540 --> 00:43:57.600 To help look at all these the connections. 00:43:57.600 --> 00:44:02.150 And the center point Is sometimes referred to 00:44:02.150 --> 00:44:07.050 as a sacred center in which all these aspects are joined and connected. 00:44:07.050 --> 00:44:09.509 So when we can connect to that center within us, 00:44:09.509 --> 00:44:13.387 it helps us connect with everyone else's and everything else's center. 00:44:16.080 --> 00:44:19.537 I have up on there, on the left, 00:44:19.537 --> 00:44:24.670 a depiction of the Chinese character for mind. 00:44:26.220 --> 00:44:28.340 This is another good way of thinking about the center. 00:44:30.080 --> 00:44:36.030 The Chinese character for mind is composed of an ideograph for the heart actually. 00:44:36.030 --> 00:44:38.999 So in traditional East Asian thought the mind isn't up here. 00:44:40.881 --> 00:44:45.848 [COUGH] Many years ago one of the first times I met a practicing Buddhist 00:44:45.848 --> 00:44:46.970 monk in Korea. 00:44:49.855 --> 00:44:53.930 At that time [COUGH] I was still in my hippie days. 00:44:53.930 --> 00:44:57.750 I had long shoulder length hair and I met this monk who was bald. 00:44:59.570 --> 00:45:03.200 And in conversation, and we were similar ages. 00:45:03.200 --> 00:45:08.060 And I said it's really interesting about your shaving your head. 00:45:08.060 --> 00:45:10.660 And he was remarking about my long hair. 00:45:10.660 --> 00:45:13.750 So we were talking to, what is this no hair and long hair mean? 00:45:13.750 --> 00:45:16.649 And we found out it meant very similar things to us. 00:45:16.649 --> 00:45:21.030 [LAUGH] Both counter-cultural, and engaged in a search, and not wanting to conform. 00:45:21.030 --> 00:45:24.190 And so in the course of that, we were talking about the mind. 00:45:25.230 --> 00:45:26.440 In Korean the world is maeum. 00:45:26.440 --> 00:45:33.280 So when he used the word maeum, he was gesturing like this, automatically. 00:45:33.280 --> 00:45:36.340 When I was using the word mind, I was going like this. 00:45:36.340 --> 00:45:39.810 And after awhile I thought wait a minute, we're pointing different places. 00:45:39.810 --> 00:45:40.700 What does that mean? 00:45:42.140 --> 00:45:47.160 So then I learned that the mind is understood as centered here. 00:45:47.160 --> 00:45:54.080 Actually that's true in Europe, in the Middle Ages and earlier as well. 00:45:54.080 --> 00:45:58.947 So that is recognizing that kind of the root of our 00:45:58.947 --> 00:46:02.760 feelings and thoughts arise here. 00:46:02.760 --> 00:46:05.430 We process through thinking up here. 00:46:05.430 --> 00:46:08.913 But there is a deeper level of connection in here. 00:46:13.109 --> 00:46:16.057 This logo, by the way, is from the Center for 00:46:16.057 --> 00:46:19.690 Behavioral Health at the University of Hong Kong. 00:46:19.690 --> 00:46:26.610 This is one of the most creative centers for holistic social work that I think. 00:46:26.610 --> 00:46:31.520 They incorporate eastern and western approaches to therapy and 00:46:31.520 --> 00:46:37.410 social work as well as evidence based practice research in a very creative way. 00:46:37.410 --> 00:46:43.070 So if you're interested to find out about that you can check out their website. 00:46:43.070 --> 00:46:47.370 This last metaphor is spirituality as wholeness of the person. 00:46:48.820 --> 00:46:50.610 That's the outer circle. 00:46:50.610 --> 00:46:54.859 This is the metaphor that Carl Jung emphasized, the Swiss depth psychologist. 00:46:55.890 --> 00:46:59.300 So he talked about the lifespan, especially in adulthood, 00:46:59.300 --> 00:47:02.960 as potentially being a process of movement towards wholeness. 00:47:02.960 --> 00:47:05.480 In which we connect up our different aspects of ourselves and 00:47:05.480 --> 00:47:09.240 our relationships so that they're all brought into a kind of harmony. 00:47:09.240 --> 00:47:13.590 And we have a sense of ourself that encompasses all of that. 00:47:13.590 --> 00:47:17.100 So when that kind of developmental path is diagrammed 00:47:17.100 --> 00:47:18.630 you could think of it like a spiral. 00:47:18.630 --> 00:47:23.100 Moving towards a whole circle that ends up including all of yourself and 00:47:23.100 --> 00:47:24.150 your relationships. 00:47:25.710 --> 00:47:28.680 This earlier way I mentioned of spirituality of center, 00:47:28.680 --> 00:47:32.750 if you think theologically, it's a more eminental way of looking at it. 00:47:32.750 --> 00:47:37.980 The experience of the sacred or the ultimate within. 00:47:39.430 --> 00:47:42.220 This is more of a transcendent way of looking at it. 00:47:42.220 --> 00:47:46.986 Through expansion of consciousness, you can come to a point where 00:47:46.986 --> 00:47:51.370 your experience of who you are embraces all of your components, 00:47:51.370 --> 00:47:54.380 all of your relationships, even the entire world or universe. 00:47:54.380 --> 00:47:55.860 But it's not limited to any part. 00:47:57.590 --> 00:48:01.750 So transpersonal theory addresses These kinds of experiences a lot. 00:48:01.750 --> 00:48:04.584 Transpersonal theory developed in the 60's, and 00:48:04.584 --> 00:48:08.190 has began influencing social works since the 70's. 00:48:08.190 --> 00:48:10.640 It's became more prominent in the 90's. 00:48:12.350 --> 00:48:17.710 It looks at how people are, may have powerful experiences of changes of 00:48:17.710 --> 00:48:25.040 levels of consciousness in world view, that become more embracing of diversity. 00:48:25.040 --> 00:48:29.220 So we're no longer the little ego-body limited self. 00:48:29.220 --> 00:48:31.020 That's one aspect. 00:48:31.020 --> 00:48:35.875 But the total, or whole self includes and transcends that. 00:48:45.050 --> 00:48:51.760 So many spiritual perspectives emphasize compassion as a key cardinal virtue. 00:48:51.760 --> 00:48:53.499 And I think it's very significant for social work. 00:48:55.830 --> 00:49:00.600 Compassion very simply can mean engaging with self, and 00:49:00.600 --> 00:49:03.320 others, and with life with passion. 00:49:03.320 --> 00:49:05.980 So from Latin literally means with passion. 00:49:07.940 --> 00:49:11.380 Spiritual traditions that talk about the way of cultivating compassion, 00:49:11.380 --> 00:49:16.080 especially in a helping process, emphasize that real compassion, or 00:49:16.080 --> 00:49:18.607 the most helpful kind compassion is not egotistical compassion. 00:49:19.660 --> 00:49:20.750 It's not pity. 00:49:20.750 --> 00:49:21.770 It's not sympathy. 00:49:21.770 --> 00:49:25.540 It's not projecting your own ideas about how it should be for the other person. 00:49:25.540 --> 00:49:29.780 It's a capacity to really engage empathetically and 00:49:29.780 --> 00:49:33.285 genuinely with the other in their situation. 00:49:33.285 --> 00:49:37.740 [COUGH] It's engagement empathetically but it's not enmeshment. 00:49:39.110 --> 00:49:44.280 That's a really tricky distinction, but that is important for social workers. 00:49:44.280 --> 00:49:50.130 Because when we get enmeshed in the social workers sense of anxiety, life problems, 00:49:50.130 --> 00:49:55.260 or hopelessness and helplessness, it's easy for us to get pulled down that way. 00:49:55.260 --> 00:49:57.515 It's like emotionally going down a drain. 00:49:58.810 --> 00:50:00.400 So we have to be really careful about that. 00:50:00.400 --> 00:50:03.410 And we'll talk more about that sort of thing in the afternoon. 00:50:04.450 --> 00:50:07.260 So it's also non-judgmental clear awareness. 00:50:09.550 --> 00:50:10.840 And a skill for reaching out. 00:50:12.330 --> 00:50:17.070 It's a careful, caring, non-attachment to the fruits of actions. 00:50:18.220 --> 00:50:21.930 If any of you have read the Bhagavad Gita from the Hindu tradition, 00:50:21.930 --> 00:50:24.326 it's really powerful about this lesson. 00:50:27.241 --> 00:50:35.190 Arjuna is on the battlefield with the chariot ready to go into battle. 00:50:35.190 --> 00:50:38.160 Unfortunately, the enemies are his relatives. 00:50:38.160 --> 00:50:42.520 Lucky for him Krishna, incarnation of God, happens to be the charioteer. 00:50:42.520 --> 00:50:45.320 Wow, that's lucky, I can ask you some questions. 00:50:45.320 --> 00:50:47.270 At this terrible situation what do I do about it. 00:50:47.270 --> 00:50:53.090 So the book is conversations between Krishna and Arjuna. 00:50:53.090 --> 00:50:57.425 So, one of the messages that comes out of that is, 00:50:57.425 --> 00:51:04.566 engaging in necessary action with clarity and with non-attachment to results. 00:51:04.566 --> 00:51:06.000 And that's hard. 00:51:06.000 --> 00:51:11.080 And, by the way, in social work nowadays, evidence-based practice is all the rage. 00:51:12.670 --> 00:51:17.070 Does this mean we shouldn't care about the results of our actions? 00:51:17.070 --> 00:51:18.320 No, I don't mean that. 00:51:18.320 --> 00:51:21.210 That's why I added caring on attachment. 00:51:21.210 --> 00:51:26.050 But of course we don't wanna injure people, and we wanna help them. 00:51:26.050 --> 00:51:30.139 But even in that we don't wanna be egoistically attached to the result. 00:51:32.040 --> 00:51:37.200 My wife is a medical social worker, and for 00:51:37.200 --> 00:51:39.300 recent years she's been working mainly in the emergency room. 00:51:39.300 --> 00:51:45.487 So every day she's encountering people with disasters. 00:51:45.487 --> 00:51:49.389 Maybe decades long patterns of self destructive behavior. 00:51:50.570 --> 00:51:51.910 Inadequate resources. 00:51:53.230 --> 00:51:58.070 If she was attached to the idea that somehow she's gonna fix or cure everything 00:51:58.070 --> 00:52:01.450 or she knows how it should be for that person and she's gonna make sure they get 00:52:01.450 --> 00:52:05.130 there and if they don't she's gonna be upset, she would be devastated. 00:52:06.660 --> 00:52:08.210 So it doesn't make sense for the client, 00:52:08.210 --> 00:52:09.629 it doesn't make sense to the social worker. 00:52:10.650 --> 00:52:15.040 So, this kind of caring non-attachment is very important but 00:52:15.040 --> 00:52:17.300 a little tricky to cultivate. 00:52:17.300 --> 00:52:20.440 I'd like to give a couple images to symbolize that. 00:52:25.122 --> 00:52:28.260 On the right is the sacred heart of Jesus. 00:52:28.260 --> 00:52:33.602 This is a kind of informal street mural I ran across in Chicago once. 00:52:33.602 --> 00:52:34.864 I grew up with this, my tradition is Catholic. 00:52:34.864 --> 00:52:41.010 So I grew up with portraits 00:52:41.010 --> 00:52:46.350 of Jesus with this exposed heart on fire, 00:52:46.350 --> 00:52:50.230 and drops of blood coming from it, it's pretty intense [LAUGH] actually. 00:52:51.780 --> 00:52:58.850 But what that means is Jesus lived and 00:52:58.850 --> 00:53:05.620 died with compassion and is committed to love and care and help for others. 00:53:05.620 --> 00:53:09.590 So when I learned the expression bleeding heart liberal, 00:53:09.590 --> 00:53:12.200 I thought that's what they're talking about. 00:53:12.200 --> 00:53:14.830 Although people often use that in disparaging meaning, 00:53:14.830 --> 00:53:19.080 this kind of bleeding heart liberal I think is a positive ideal. 00:53:19.080 --> 00:53:21.530 But it suggests some difficult things. 00:53:21.530 --> 00:53:27.129 It means sometimes compassion carries you into some dangerous situations. 00:53:28.300 --> 00:53:31.995 It means stretching beyond your own self 00:53:31.995 --> 00:53:38.310 comfort and your own personal goals. 00:53:38.310 --> 00:53:40.140 It can involve sacrifice. 00:53:40.140 --> 00:53:41.280 Some people don't like that word. 00:53:41.280 --> 00:53:45.119 But actually from Latin, sacrifice means to make sacred. 00:53:47.490 --> 00:53:51.830 So being able to engage in helping in a way that connects with the other and 00:53:51.830 --> 00:53:57.000 transcends egotism can be very powerful in the helping process. 00:53:57.000 --> 00:53:57.860 And notice again, 00:53:57.860 --> 00:54:02.690 like the concept of the center in Maum as rooted here in the heart. 00:54:02.690 --> 00:54:05.330 I think that's depicted very strongly there. 00:54:05.330 --> 00:54:10.840 On the left side this is a Korean Buddhist painting of Kwan Seum Bosal in Korean. 00:54:10.840 --> 00:54:13.220 You may have also heard of this as Kwan Yin, 00:54:13.220 --> 00:54:16.700 is common word representing the Chinese. 00:54:16.700 --> 00:54:20.832 So Kwan Yin is the bodhisattva of compassion. 00:54:20.832 --> 00:54:26.250 A bodhisattva is an enlightened being who chooses to stay in the realm 00:54:26.250 --> 00:54:30.140 of existence rather than simply dissipating into Nirvana, 00:54:31.400 --> 00:54:35.480 in order to continue working for the benefit of all beings. 00:54:35.480 --> 00:54:40.819 And in particular, Kwan Yin is the bodhisattva of compassion. 00:54:40.819 --> 00:54:47.020 Kwan Yin has such profound compassion that it reaches out to all beings everywhere. 00:54:48.410 --> 00:54:51.830 That's why in this depiction, it might be a little hard for 00:54:51.830 --> 00:54:55.480 you to discern on the picture, but there are hands and 00:54:55.480 --> 00:54:58.270 arms coming out all the way around in all directions, reaching out. 00:55:00.840 --> 00:55:04.670 Every hand has a tool, different kind of tool. 00:55:05.780 --> 00:55:10.020 On top of the main head there are 11 other heads looking in all directions. 00:55:11.020 --> 00:55:13.930 Actually each face has a different expression. 00:55:13.930 --> 00:55:17.920 That means with compassionate awareness of other beings 00:55:19.250 --> 00:55:22.160 there are many different compassionate responses that you may have. 00:55:23.850 --> 00:55:28.050 Love, commiseration, anger, even anger. 00:55:28.050 --> 00:55:33.280 But compassionate anger is anger for the benefit of the other. 00:55:33.280 --> 00:55:36.600 Not anger because you're trying to impose your will on the other. 00:55:36.600 --> 00:55:41.886 [COUGH] So the different tools in hands, 00:55:41.886 --> 00:55:46.110 [COUGH] means that with the compassionate vantage, 00:55:46.110 --> 00:55:50.020 you reach out skillfully, adapting to whatever the situations, 00:55:50.020 --> 00:55:52.420 whatever the person or the being needs to help. 00:55:54.330 --> 00:55:57.430 And on top of the main head there's another 00:55:58.630 --> 00:56:00.960 figure that represents Amitabha Buddha. 00:56:00.960 --> 00:56:02.180 The Buddha of infinite light. 00:56:03.930 --> 00:56:07.630 That means this kind of compassion is coming out of a kind of universal 00:56:07.630 --> 00:56:12.470 consciousness, not egoistic consciousness, but it's connected with each moment, 00:56:12.470 --> 00:56:15.690 each person, each situation, and reaches out with skill. 00:56:15.690 --> 00:56:20.682 So some Buddhist social workers in East Asia use Guanyin as a kind of symbol of 00:56:20.682 --> 00:56:21.935 good social work. 00:56:21.935 --> 00:56:26.885 Well, actually that would be like a super social worker if you can achieve that. 00:56:26.885 --> 00:56:30.419 >> [LAUGH] >> Wow, that once I was, 00:56:35.132 --> 00:56:39.599 When I was teaching in Japan on this topic, 00:56:39.599 --> 00:56:47.330 I had visited a famous Japanese shrine in Kyoto called Sanjusangen-do. 00:56:47.330 --> 00:56:54.060 In that shrine, there's a huge statue of [FOREIGN] kinda like this form. 00:56:55.170 --> 00:57:02.230 On this side 500 [FOREIGN] statues, on that side 500 more. 00:57:02.230 --> 00:57:07.760 So it was literally a thousand golden statues in this huge expanse. 00:57:07.760 --> 00:57:08.977 It was very peaceful, but very powerful. 00:57:08.977 --> 00:57:14.360 In fact, when I was there, it happened that a typhoon moved through. 00:57:14.360 --> 00:57:16.160 Outside it was windy like crazy. 00:57:16.160 --> 00:57:19.950 Luckily, we got into the building just before the typhoon and we got out just 00:57:19.950 --> 00:57:26.652 after the typhoon, so I thought, that was very fortunate thanks to Guanyin. 00:57:26.652 --> 00:57:31.899 But then it occurred to me, in social workers and community members and 00:57:31.899 --> 00:57:38.558 other disciplines, when we all connect and cooperate we're all collectively Guanyin. 00:57:38.558 --> 00:57:44.120 When we put all of our compassionate caring and skill together, 00:57:44.120 --> 00:57:48.549 that's when we really can be like this enlightened 00:57:48.549 --> 00:57:53.082 powerful being that reaches out to help all beings. 00:57:55.486 --> 00:58:00.267 So this is just a couple of minutes, as I talk, think about these questions for 00:58:00.267 --> 00:58:03.818 yourself, [COUGH] some of you maybe recent to social work, 00:58:03.818 --> 00:58:07.090 some of you may have been in the field a very long time. 00:58:08.230 --> 00:58:14.420 But if you, sometimes need to regenerate your sense of why are you doing this, 00:58:14.420 --> 00:58:19.240 it can help to go back to your personal development roots in the profession. 00:58:19.240 --> 00:58:22.400 So think back to why you decided to become a social worker. 00:58:22.400 --> 00:58:23.350 What motivated you? 00:58:23.350 --> 00:58:24.078 What compelled you? 00:58:24.078 --> 00:58:28.090 Were there certain relatives or mentors or friends or 00:58:28.090 --> 00:58:31.380 exemplars of spiritual ideals that motivated you to do this? 00:58:31.380 --> 00:58:35.200 And most of us don't go into social work because we think we're gonna become rich. 00:58:35.200 --> 00:58:37.385 Hopefully we can subsist on the salary, but 00:58:37.385 --> 00:58:41.294 that's not a really good occupation if your goal is simply to become wealthy. 00:58:41.294 --> 00:58:45.852 And we're often working in stressful and difficult situations. 00:58:45.852 --> 00:58:49.010 So why would we do that? 00:58:49.010 --> 00:58:49.940 What motivates you? 00:58:49.940 --> 00:58:53.090 What's your kind of core life purpose for doing that? 00:58:55.410 --> 00:58:58.840 Was there any key event that triggered your sense of compassion and a dedication 00:58:58.840 --> 00:59:04.300 to serve, and how can you keep that sense of inspiration and motivation now? 00:59:04.300 --> 00:59:05.640 How can you re-enliven it? 00:59:07.410 --> 00:59:10.205 So we'll talk more about this sort of thing in the afternoon with 00:59:10.205 --> 00:59:11.098 the student group. 00:59:14.419 --> 00:59:19.891 Okay, I'm gonna finish up the last part of this without too much longer so 00:59:19.891 --> 00:59:22.906 that we can have questions and answers. 00:59:28.525 --> 00:59:30.330 I mentioned evidence based practice. 00:59:32.210 --> 00:59:34.160 Actually, this area of spirituality and 00:59:34.160 --> 00:59:40.090 religion has exploded as a research topic in the last 15 years. 00:59:41.340 --> 00:59:44.931 Within social work, there was very little 20 years ago, but 00:59:44.931 --> 00:59:48.001 the pace of work on it has accelerated tremendously. 00:59:48.001 --> 00:59:52.480 So there are dedicated journals, there are many articles in mainstream journals. 00:59:52.480 --> 00:59:55.030 National, international conferences, all kinds of stuff going on. 00:59:56.260 --> 01:00:00.060 And if you look beyond that to medicine and psychology and 01:00:00.060 --> 01:00:02.110 psychiatry and nursing, it's just huge. 01:00:02.110 --> 01:00:03.140 I can't even keep up with it. 01:00:04.400 --> 01:00:07.719 So I'm just mentioning a few key findings. 01:00:09.870 --> 01:00:13.056 One thing that fits very well with social perspective, 01:00:13.056 --> 01:00:17.259 if you look across at all different kinds of therapeutic modalities, and 01:00:17.259 --> 01:00:21.075 what factors contribute to clients' sense of positive outcome. 01:00:21.075 --> 01:00:24.912 One of the biggest is the quality of the therapeutic or 01:00:24.912 --> 01:00:30.211 helping relationship, not just the skill used or the theory frame used. 01:00:30.211 --> 01:00:35.430 But was the relationship one of empathy, rapport, trust, caring and hope? 01:00:35.430 --> 01:00:40.596 When that's there, the outcomes are more often report as favorable and 01:00:40.596 --> 01:00:43.060 there's a higher satisfaction. 01:00:43.060 --> 01:00:48.410 Instillation of hope and sense of meaning has also been found to very important. 01:00:49.770 --> 01:00:53.890 Referral and collaboration for support of effects of religious involvement, 01:00:53.890 --> 01:00:55.350 if that fits the client's point of view. 01:00:55.350 --> 01:00:59.380 So these are like big surveys of religious populations into looking 01:00:59.380 --> 01:01:01.990 at impacts on health outcomes. 01:01:03.830 --> 01:01:07.789 One that's very popular in social work and mental health field is mindfulness. 01:01:09.360 --> 01:01:12.940 So, there's two versions that are kinda common in social work, 01:01:12.940 --> 01:01:17.900 one is from Marsha Linehan's Dialectical Behavior Therapy. 01:01:17.900 --> 01:01:21.790 Mindfulness is a major component of that, which originally came out of Buddhist, 01:01:22.860 --> 01:01:26.560 some Buddhist meditation techniques and became extracted from that and 01:01:26.560 --> 01:01:31.750 kind of turned into a method without a religious frame 01:01:31.750 --> 01:01:36.600 that anyone can learn to practice centering mindful awareness of the moment. 01:01:37.690 --> 01:01:41.010 And the point of that is to reduce suicidal ideation, 01:01:41.010 --> 01:01:43.850 symptoms of anxiety and depression and such. 01:01:43.850 --> 01:01:47.890 It's been shown to have a lot of positive impact for 01:01:47.890 --> 01:01:51.050 many people at mental health diagnoses. 01:01:52.880 --> 01:01:55.660 There's also in the health field dialectical behavior, I'm sorry, 01:01:55.660 --> 01:01:59.630 mindfulness based stress reduction from John Kabat Zinn. 01:02:00.640 --> 01:02:04.360 There's a lot of medical research around this. 01:02:07.170 --> 01:02:10.640 So meditation has to do with intentionally focusing our attention, 01:02:11.990 --> 01:02:16.500 letting go of ordinary preoccupations and ruminative thinking, deepening insight and 01:02:16.500 --> 01:02:18.890 experience of consciousness. 01:02:18.890 --> 01:02:23.310 That's critical for social workers in some way, even if it's not formal meditation 01:02:23.310 --> 01:02:27.460 but some way to keep ourselves centered and focus in the helping process. 01:02:27.460 --> 01:02:31.632 And for some clients, benefit from learning to practice meditation. 01:02:34.985 --> 01:02:38.948 But actually there are many, many different types of and techniques of 01:02:38.948 --> 01:02:43.250 meditation that have important differences, so you have to be sure. 01:02:43.250 --> 01:02:47.470 If you're using it, first of all, that you are well-qualified and experienced in it. 01:02:47.470 --> 01:02:51.700 And that whatever particular technique matches the beliefs and comfort and 01:02:51.700 --> 01:02:53.160 interests of the client. 01:02:54.990 --> 01:02:57.640 Mindfulness is paying attention in the present 01:02:57.640 --> 01:03:00.540 moment with a clear mind that acknowledges but doesn't judge. 01:03:02.880 --> 01:03:04.689 I've given examples of that already today. 01:03:07.981 --> 01:03:12.373 We'll be talking about this more later for people who are coming to the afternoon or 01:03:12.373 --> 01:03:13.260 evening event. 01:03:14.590 --> 01:03:19.240 But so we have to pay attention to our own situation, our own personal experience and 01:03:19.240 --> 01:03:21.090 development as social workers. 01:03:23.336 --> 01:03:28.145 On one side so that our engagement in social work itself could 01:03:28.145 --> 01:03:31.929 be part of our spiritual development process. 01:03:33.570 --> 01:03:36.830 And by the way, there are some religious traditions that make that explicit. 01:03:36.830 --> 01:03:39.940 A good example is karma yoga in Hinduism. 01:03:41.510 --> 01:03:43.660 Karma literally means action. 01:03:43.660 --> 01:03:48.010 Karma yoga means the yoga of social action, of helping. 01:03:48.010 --> 01:03:54.570 So in that type of social service, people are conscious and clear that 01:03:54.570 --> 01:03:59.780 the process of helping is also the process of engaging in their spiritual growth. 01:04:01.420 --> 01:04:05.482 But even without a formal religious frame to it, anybody, if they want to, 01:04:05.482 --> 01:04:08.781 can link their professional lives and their personal lives so 01:04:08.781 --> 01:04:11.082 that everything is fueling their growth. 01:04:15.075 --> 01:04:19.920 So, on the other hand, we have to worry about our own stress level. 01:04:21.220 --> 01:04:23.940 So we know that social workers and other helping professionals, 01:04:23.940 --> 01:04:27.670 unfortunately, were more at risk for 01:04:27.670 --> 01:04:32.720 stress related physical and metal disorders and suicide. 01:04:34.260 --> 01:04:39.450 So if we're not paying attention to ourselves, we can place ourselves at risk, 01:04:39.450 --> 01:04:41.567 which isn't good for ourselves, but also not good for clients. 01:04:41.567 --> 01:04:46.380 In the Confucian tradition, it said that the noble minded 01:04:46.380 --> 01:04:51.170 person takes care of oneself in order to be of service of others. 01:04:51.170 --> 01:04:54.966 If you are not taking care of yourself, you can't help others. 01:05:01.157 --> 01:05:04.625 But, stress can become eustress. 01:05:04.625 --> 01:05:07.725 Often when we say stress, what we really mean is distress. 01:05:08.895 --> 01:05:13.960 The kind of stress that involves harm, 01:05:13.960 --> 01:05:17.630 discomfort, depression, anxiety, frustration. 01:05:17.630 --> 01:05:21.580 But stress can be positive. 01:05:21.580 --> 01:05:26.820 Like there's the stress of engaging in an intense activity that you really like. 01:05:26.820 --> 01:05:31.150 If somebody loves to jog, there's stress involved in jogging, but 01:05:31.150 --> 01:05:36.550 the stress is a free-flowing energy that actually strengthens the body. 01:05:36.550 --> 01:05:42.250 If somebody's a musician and is involved in a very intense kind of performance, 01:05:42.250 --> 01:05:46.380 that performance is stressful, but it's eustress. 01:05:46.380 --> 01:05:50.830 So eustress, from Greek, eu means good, or good or positive stress. 01:05:50.830 --> 01:05:54.180 If we pay attention to the nature of our stress and what's behind it, 01:05:54.180 --> 01:05:56.049 we can convert distress into eustress. 01:05:58.710 --> 01:06:03.750 So, I'd like to ask you to think about for later, maybe after this, 01:06:03.750 --> 01:06:08.500 reflect on yourself, what activities do you engage in regularly 01:06:09.770 --> 01:06:15.820 to decrease your stress, increase your eustress, and keep 01:06:15.820 --> 01:06:21.480 yourself centered in your personal lives, and in your work as a social worker. 01:06:21.480 --> 01:06:22.560 If you think about that and 01:06:22.560 --> 01:06:28.161 can't come up with any, I'd like to suggest you [LAUGH] find something. 01:06:29.540 --> 01:06:35.975 Or maybe you say, I used to do this thing back five years ago, that was wonderful. 01:06:35.975 --> 01:06:40.740 But I got so busy, my caseload is so high, or my teaching load is so heavy, or 01:06:40.740 --> 01:06:42.030 I'm trying to publish so much. 01:06:42.030 --> 01:06:45.190 I could then next week [LAUGH] go through these stress things too. 01:06:45.190 --> 01:06:51.160 And I forgot about that, I stopped doing it, so then it can become like a battery. 01:06:51.160 --> 01:06:53.460 A battery is a closed energy system. 01:06:53.460 --> 01:06:56.130 If you just keep draining the energy out of that battery, 01:06:56.130 --> 01:06:58.130 at some point that's gone. 01:06:58.130 --> 01:07:00.988 So how do we keep recharging our batteries? 01:07:03.435 --> 01:07:05.240 I just wanna mention this. 01:07:06.360 --> 01:07:09.128 I focused more on a micro-level in my examples so far, but 01:07:09.128 --> 01:07:10.832 this has many macro implications. 01:07:10.832 --> 01:07:14.732 One of them is the importance of social work going through faith based 01:07:14.732 --> 01:07:15.775 organizations. 01:07:15.775 --> 01:07:17.590 .And of course that's always happened. 01:07:18.760 --> 01:07:20.900 But in the, [COUGH], since the Bush and 01:07:20.900 --> 01:07:25.610 Clinton administrations, there's formal policy around trying to increase and 01:07:25.610 --> 01:07:28.820 encourage social services to the faith based organizations. 01:07:28.820 --> 01:07:32.480 So NASW has a policy recommendation around that. 01:07:33.820 --> 01:07:36.600 So on the constructive side, 01:07:36.600 --> 01:07:40.630 NASW recognizes that those kind of partnerships with community organizations 01:07:40.630 --> 01:07:45.650 can be very powerful, very helpful, and that's encouraged. 01:07:45.650 --> 01:07:50.780 But if that means that the state simply 01:07:50.780 --> 01:07:55.994 passes its responsibility onto non-government organizations and 01:07:55.994 --> 01:08:00.640 expects them to take up the slack, that's not realistic. 01:08:00.640 --> 01:08:04.530 In fact many faith based organizations have protested against this trend. 01:08:06.420 --> 01:08:11.022 Rather than it simply being, this is a nice partnership, if it really means 01:08:11.022 --> 01:08:16.066 dumping work on organizations already with scarce resources, that's not so good. 01:08:16.066 --> 01:08:19.294 The other problem is that if volunteers and 01:08:19.294 --> 01:08:25.122 other workers within faith based organizations are not properly trained and 01:08:25.122 --> 01:08:29.697 prepared to deal with serious issues like substance abuse or 01:08:29.697 --> 01:08:33.410 family violence, just to mention two. 01:08:33.410 --> 01:08:37.319 It can be very dangerous if they're meddling wIth it. 01:08:37.319 --> 01:08:39.636 So this is a tremendous opportunity for collaboration. 01:08:39.636 --> 01:08:42.787 But if it's not done right, it can be a risky. 01:08:48.371 --> 01:08:52.631 So, one of our major ethical manages for cultural competence. 01:08:54.908 --> 01:08:57.316 [COUGH] This is pretty much my last piece here. 01:08:57.316 --> 01:09:01.490 If we re-envision 01:09:01.490 --> 01:09:06.460 cultural competence from the framework of spiritually sensitive practice, 01:09:06.460 --> 01:09:08.490 it can open up some other way of looking at it, I think. 01:09:10.189 --> 01:09:15.000 So if these four colored circles represent four different cultural contexts, or 01:09:15.000 --> 01:09:16.380 they could be religious contexts or 01:09:16.380 --> 01:09:19.580 spiritual perspective contexts just to make it simple. 01:09:20.740 --> 01:09:27.630 If a social worker is originally from the red circle, that's their culture or 01:09:27.630 --> 01:09:32.720 religion of origin, and they learn to connect with the blue circle. 01:09:32.720 --> 01:09:38.760 If they learn to do that in a way where their comfort, their value of respect, 01:09:38.760 --> 01:09:44.180 and their skill becomes fluid to move between both, 01:09:44.180 --> 01:09:48.290 and to work within both, and to live within both, that's a bi-cultural. 01:09:48.290 --> 01:09:51.700 If it's moving across the four, that's multicultural. 01:09:51.700 --> 01:09:53.950 Now that's already a big task. 01:09:53.950 --> 01:09:59.857 That even means basic things like multlinguilasm So 01:09:59.857 --> 01:10:04.800 we are advocating for bi-cultural, multicultural competence in social work. 01:10:05.870 --> 01:10:10.240 To do that requires not just skill training, but 01:10:10.240 --> 01:10:14.599 consciousness in lifestyle transformation, I think. 01:10:16.180 --> 01:10:19.050 If we're really meaningfully engaged with people from different worldviews and 01:10:19.050 --> 01:10:24.690 cultures and spiritual perspectives, it means we're gonna be changed through that. 01:10:24.690 --> 01:10:27.640 Mutually, we're transforming each other. 01:10:27.640 --> 01:10:32.540 That means our perspective, our worldview, has to become open and fluid. 01:10:32.540 --> 01:10:38.180 So this may be still respecting our roots, but also being able to 01:10:38.180 --> 01:10:42.750 be comfortable in other contexts, then we can become bridges and mediators. 01:10:44.490 --> 01:10:45.870 But as I said, that's difficult. 01:10:47.030 --> 01:10:51.330 If you go to the center point, like centering as I talked before, 01:10:51.330 --> 01:10:54.886 when you have that sense and that's the basis you're relating. 01:10:54.886 --> 01:10:58.670 You're aware of both differences in the client systems you're working with and 01:10:58.670 --> 01:11:00.680 yourself, and the commonalities. 01:11:00.680 --> 01:11:02.720 The common connection as human beings. 01:11:04.110 --> 01:11:06.730 And [COUGH] so if you're from that center point, 01:11:06.730 --> 01:11:12.370 that is the one spot in which all of the diversities are connected. 01:11:12.370 --> 01:11:14.750 So how can we train ourselves in centering? 01:11:14.750 --> 01:11:18.250 That kind of awareness to enhance cultural competence. 01:11:18.250 --> 01:11:22.520 If he go to the outer circle it's like the outer circle of the spirituality 01:11:22.520 --> 01:11:24.340 model I gave before. 01:11:24.340 --> 01:11:29.622 When our consciousness, And our behavior, 01:11:29.622 --> 01:11:34.043 and our teamwork, include diversity and 01:11:34.043 --> 01:11:38.716 transcend each of the different contexts, 01:11:38.716 --> 01:11:42.140 then we can embrace all of that. 01:11:43.200 --> 01:11:45.970 So like I said before, I don't mean it's realistic for 01:11:45.970 --> 01:11:49.170 one social worker to become fully multicultural, 01:11:49.170 --> 01:11:53.520 multilingual, multi-religious, multi-spiritual, and everything else. 01:11:53.520 --> 01:11:57.750 But when we're working together with others, we form teams, 01:11:57.750 --> 01:12:00.300 partnerships, inter-agency collaborations. 01:12:00.300 --> 01:12:03.530 Network with community support systems, with spiritual leaders and 01:12:03.530 --> 01:12:07.422 mentor all together that becomes trans-cultural. 01:12:07.422 --> 01:12:11.967 So by trans-cultural I don't mean ignoring culture, or any differences. 01:12:11.967 --> 01:12:16.801 It means embracing them, connecting them, recognizing common connections and 01:12:16.801 --> 01:12:19.683 a perspective that embraces all of that as well. 01:12:24.544 --> 01:12:29.370 Well that's my last, [LAUGH] my last point. 01:12:29.370 --> 01:12:32.210 If you're interested in additional resources, 01:12:32.210 --> 01:12:37.420 a lot of stuff can be accessed free through my web site, which I put up there. 01:12:37.420 --> 01:12:40.080 Also, CSWE has a new clearing house on religion and 01:12:40.080 --> 01:12:44.990 spirituality in social work with some teaching resources, and that's expanding. 01:12:47.080 --> 01:12:48.970 So, questions, comments. 01:12:48.970 --> 01:12:50.650 I kind of covered a huge territory. 01:12:50.650 --> 01:12:53.750 I feel like I flew around the globe, and so 01:12:53.750 --> 01:12:56.980 I'd like to hear particular things you're interested in and wondering about. 01:12:59.740 --> 01:13:00.411 Yes. 01:13:00.411 --> 01:13:03.640 >> Talking about organizational culture? 01:13:03.640 --> 01:13:04.140 >> Yes. 01:13:05.550 --> 01:13:11.205 >> And I think that social work so 01:13:11.205 --> 01:13:15.700 hard for so long to not be spiritual or 01:13:15.700 --> 01:13:20.785 religious showing preference. 01:13:20.785 --> 01:13:21.319 >> Mm-hm. 01:13:21.319 --> 01:13:26.377 >> That we have have any [INAUDIBLE] sign of spirituality really, 01:13:26.377 --> 01:13:29.782 within [INAUDIBLE] educational process or 01:13:29.782 --> 01:13:33.389 [INAUDIBLE] organizations that [INAUDIBLE]. 01:13:33.389 --> 01:13:37.943 So I'm wondering if you say an organizational culture 01:13:37.943 --> 01:13:40.518 that supports spirituality. 01:13:40.518 --> 01:13:44.450 What does it look like? 01:13:44.450 --> 01:13:46.345 >> I wish we had more examples to know. 01:13:46.345 --> 01:13:53.270 [LAUGH] But, well, let's start with very concrete. 01:13:53.270 --> 01:13:58.310 You've mentioned there might not be signs of spirituality within our organizations. 01:13:58.310 --> 01:13:59.200 That can be literal. 01:14:00.680 --> 01:14:06.140 I remember talking to some social workers in a state based agency, and 01:14:06.140 --> 01:14:09.690 they were instructed, you're not permitted to wear any kind of religious symbol. 01:14:09.690 --> 01:14:13.192 Even in your own personal desk you're not allowed to have anything that's 01:14:13.192 --> 01:14:14.720 religiously explicit. 01:14:14.720 --> 01:14:16.960 Well, I understand the caution of that. 01:14:18.080 --> 01:14:22.800 Because especially if you're in a place where clients are entering, 01:14:22.800 --> 01:14:24.750 if you have a particular religious symbol, 01:14:24.750 --> 01:14:30.380 say, someone who resonates with that, that might help with a connection. 01:14:30.380 --> 01:14:33.370 But somebody else for whom that doesn't, that could really turn them off, 01:14:33.370 --> 01:14:34.680 it could alienate them. 01:14:34.680 --> 01:14:37.300 So, there needs to be some caution about that, but 01:14:37.300 --> 01:14:39.480 that would depend on the setting. 01:14:39.480 --> 01:14:44.650 Let's say if I was, when I was doing work with the southeast Asian communities, we 01:14:44.650 --> 01:14:49.520 did referral and collaboration with monks, with shamans, with traditional healers. 01:14:49.520 --> 01:14:53.570 Of course, they were fully expressive of their 01:14:53.570 --> 01:14:56.590 particular religious practices and symbols. 01:14:56.590 --> 01:15:01.150 So I wasn't taking out, okay, here's I'm gonna put my Buddha statue over here so 01:15:01.150 --> 01:15:06.150 the client sees that and know, but they could tell from our interaction that 01:15:07.430 --> 01:15:11.320 I was very interested and open, and make those links. 01:15:11.320 --> 01:15:12.410 If you think about it, 01:15:12.410 --> 01:15:16.420 let's say if you have a situation where clients come to an office. 01:15:16.420 --> 01:15:17.640 What's sitting in your office? 01:15:17.640 --> 01:15:18.259 What kinda books? 01:15:19.320 --> 01:15:21.030 What kind of paintings? 01:15:21.030 --> 01:15:25.570 You can choose those in such a way that they're giving messages 01:15:25.570 --> 01:15:29.320 of kind of openness to spiritual themes without being religiously limiting. 01:15:30.510 --> 01:15:32.150 So that's a very concrete way. 01:15:32.150 --> 01:15:34.570 Another is within the administrative policies. 01:15:35.740 --> 01:15:41.090 Does the agency set up a clear spiritual assessment set of guidelines? 01:15:42.090 --> 01:15:45.070 And there's a whole lot of them out there. 01:15:45.070 --> 01:15:47.405 In my book on spiritual diversity in social work practice, 01:15:47.405 --> 01:15:51.690 I've explained some spiritual assessment tools. 01:15:51.690 --> 01:15:53.630 If there's no guidance even provided, 01:15:55.350 --> 01:15:58.850 usually social workers feel like they're floundering with that. 01:15:58.850 --> 01:16:01.690 I'm working with a lot of mental health settings. 01:16:01.690 --> 01:16:05.350 Within the strengths model of case management, we try to assess many 01:16:05.350 --> 01:16:08.190 different life domains, one of them being spirituality culture. 01:16:08.190 --> 01:16:11.820 But that domain, I found, in talking with the consumers and 01:16:11.820 --> 01:16:16.145 providers, doing some qualitative research, is the most neglected, 01:16:16.145 --> 01:16:18.595 [COUGH] and least understood domain. 01:16:18.595 --> 01:16:20.711 A lot of workers aren't sure how do I get into that? 01:16:20.711 --> 01:16:23.822 A lot of consumers are saying, that's crucial to me, but 01:16:23.822 --> 01:16:26.530 my worker's not comfortable with it. 01:16:26.530 --> 01:16:30.702 So we're working at even how to clarify some assessment guidelines within 01:16:30.702 --> 01:16:35.335 the strengths model, and we're starting to disseminate that to publications and 01:16:35.335 --> 01:16:37.850 we're gonna put up some very user friendly, 01:16:37.850 --> 01:16:40.853 simple guidelines to providers and consumers soon. 01:16:40.853 --> 01:16:43.763 So anyway, whatever the agency situations, 01:16:43.763 --> 01:16:47.200 they might have to tailor the type of assessment tool. 01:16:47.200 --> 01:16:48.110 But do they have any? 01:16:48.110 --> 01:16:49.590 If they do, does it work well? 01:16:49.590 --> 01:16:52.700 Have they talked with consumers to find out is it working well? 01:16:54.170 --> 01:17:01.900 And a broader thing is just the humaneness quotients in the agency. 01:17:01.900 --> 01:17:07.280 Some operate top-down executive authoritarian control. 01:17:08.350 --> 01:17:13.750 And the workers, they're kinda doing all the ground level intense work, 01:17:13.750 --> 01:17:18.400 but they have no input to changes of practice and policy. 01:17:18.400 --> 01:17:20.520 They just have to follow orders. 01:17:20.520 --> 01:17:24.110 That's not what I mean by a spiritually sensitive organizational culture. 01:17:24.110 --> 01:17:30.360 Even like I say in the business world, it recognizes that the more humanistic, 01:17:30.360 --> 01:17:35.850 interactive, participatory styles of decision making not only can help with 01:17:35.850 --> 01:17:39.870 what you'd come out with as guidelines for practice. 01:17:39.870 --> 01:17:46.110 But the process itself is more affirming and supportive to the staff. 01:17:46.110 --> 01:17:46.610 Yeah? 01:17:48.370 --> 01:17:52.198 >> In some ways, it feels more clear to me about how to do that in an agency 01:17:52.198 --> 01:17:54.907 setting where it's a client and social worker. 01:17:54.907 --> 01:18:00.588 Unless we can understand how to do it in an educational setting like we have here. 01:18:00.588 --> 01:18:05.830 Where there's been 01:18:05.830 --> 01:18:10.750 such a long standing vision of not talking about sexuality. 01:18:11.800 --> 01:18:14.490 >> So that would mean I'm not comfortable 01:18:15.810 --> 01:18:18.280 talking about it in classroom or [INAUDIBLE] really. 01:18:18.280 --> 01:18:21.072 How do you change that structure? 01:18:21.072 --> 01:18:23.765 >> Well your Dean invited me here. 01:18:23.765 --> 01:18:26.290 [LAUGH] There's a good signal. 01:18:26.290 --> 01:18:31.030 I'm not speaking for the dean, but that's one way, right? 01:18:31.030 --> 01:18:35.420 So I've gone to lots of social work programs over the years. 01:18:35.420 --> 01:18:38.030 Somebody says, well the students have been talking about this, 01:18:38.030 --> 01:18:40.280 faculty is starting talking about it, or, 01:18:40.280 --> 01:18:43.980 CSWE says we have to help students learn about spiritual development. 01:18:43.980 --> 01:18:45.840 My gosh, how are we supposed to do that? 01:18:45.840 --> 01:18:49.350 So even just having someone come in and talk and 01:18:49.350 --> 01:18:54.010 stimulate ideas, that helps, but then what's next? 01:18:54.010 --> 01:18:54.970 Is there a next? 01:18:54.970 --> 01:18:58.020 Just like we all know, when we do trainings anywhere. 01:18:58.020 --> 01:19:02.030 If there's not a next, people say, well, that was interesting. 01:19:02.030 --> 01:19:04.650 Now we go on with the usual stuff, forget about it. 01:19:04.650 --> 01:19:08.030 So if there could be set up an ongoing group, like you mentioned, 01:19:08.030 --> 01:19:10.490 there's students who are meeting around this topic. 01:19:11.580 --> 01:19:13.350 Let's say curriculum. 01:19:13.350 --> 01:19:19.730 If many programs have looked at their course objectives and 01:19:19.730 --> 01:19:23.750 to see where the things around religious diversity and spiritual development, 01:19:23.750 --> 01:19:26.920 which are accreditation issues, appear in their objectives. 01:19:28.070 --> 01:19:33.890 Some schools have electives that focus on the course, on this topic. 01:19:33.890 --> 01:19:37.430 Also, many practicum settings are in faith-based organizations. 01:19:37.430 --> 01:19:40.800 How do we pay more attention to the fact that those already are there? 01:19:40.800 --> 01:19:45.550 And we can draw on that as a more powerful resource in the school. 01:19:45.550 --> 01:19:51.023 So, further, what's the dynamics in the faculty meetings, 01:19:51.023 --> 01:19:53.410 or the next sort of agency? 01:19:53.410 --> 01:19:57.270 So creating that kind of humane interactive environment. 01:19:57.270 --> 01:20:01.230 Giving explicit support to addressing the topic, through course objectives. 01:20:01.230 --> 01:20:05.694 Through what kind of courses exist, through having organizations. 01:20:05.694 --> 01:20:08.373 Those are some ways. 01:20:08.373 --> 01:20:09.856 Yes? 01:20:09.856 --> 01:20:11.078 >> Thank you. 01:20:11.078 --> 01:20:12.109 >> You're welcome. 01:20:12.109 --> 01:20:13.945 >> [CROSSTALK] Graduated this program, and so 01:20:13.945 --> 01:20:16.142 I definitely understand what she's speaking of. 01:20:16.142 --> 01:20:19.918 And it kind of segues to my question is, what I find in the work I do now, 01:20:19.918 --> 01:20:22.031 I'm a chaplain at a treatment center. 01:20:22.031 --> 01:20:24.563 But I was also a dual student in social work. 01:20:24.563 --> 01:20:25.088 >> Great. 01:20:25.088 --> 01:20:29.010 >> And even at school here it's kinda the social theological experience 01:20:29.010 --> 01:20:29.848 >> Mm-hm. 01:20:29.848 --> 01:20:34.770 >> I wonder, [INAUDIBLE] do you just avoid that theological work, or 01:20:34.770 --> 01:20:40.597 can kinda focus on positive, or do you actually go after those experiences? 01:20:40.597 --> 01:20:43.040 >> Can you give me an example of a dilemma like that? 01:20:43.040 --> 01:20:48.004 >> Yeah, like in religion class, I think that one of the biggest ones that 01:20:48.004 --> 01:20:51.249 we got is how religion responds imperfectly. 01:20:51.249 --> 01:20:57.822 So the theology between good, whatever, and salvation or around that. 01:20:57.822 --> 01:21:01.829 You have some students who may be on either side, or you have, in my facility, 01:21:01.829 --> 01:21:03.500 how I respond to that. 01:21:03.500 --> 01:21:06.590 Just, what would you do in that setting? 01:21:06.590 --> 01:21:09.170 Well, I just say that I think some of the tension comes 01:21:09.170 --> 01:21:11.272 when the conflictual stuff comes up. 01:21:11.272 --> 01:21:13.922 And that's something that no one really wants to talk about. 01:21:13.922 --> 01:21:14.770 Cuz I don't- >> And 01:21:14.770 --> 01:21:17.300 I think that's one reason why the topic in general has been 01:21:17.300 --> 01:21:19.770 neglected a lot in the profession. 01:21:19.770 --> 01:21:24.690 So yeah, those kind of tensions and disagreements definitely come up. 01:21:26.150 --> 01:21:30.960 So if an organization sets up kind of a safe environment to really 01:21:30.960 --> 01:21:36.070 process it, including educational settings, I think that's important. 01:21:36.070 --> 01:21:39.913 So let's say specifically around the issue of sexual orientation diversity. 01:21:41.299 --> 01:21:48.720 Just one concrete way that I've tried to help promote dialogue around it. 01:21:48.720 --> 01:21:51.660 In this book Spiritual Diversity in Social Work Practice, 01:21:51.660 --> 01:21:57.040 there's a section about religious perspectives on sexual orientation. 01:21:57.040 --> 01:22:00.125 And it explicitly discusses and it presents different, 01:22:00.125 --> 01:22:02.759 it uses Christian traditions as an example, but 01:22:02.759 --> 01:22:06.111 then talks about their parallels in other religions as well. 01:22:06.111 --> 01:22:10.619 So it lays out a range of theological 01:22:10.619 --> 01:22:15.582 positions from complete rejection and 01:22:15.582 --> 01:22:22.797 stigmatization to the position which is kind of common, 01:22:22.797 --> 01:22:29.590 that so-called accept the person, reject the sin. 01:22:29.590 --> 01:22:35.415 That's a common one out there [CROSSTALK], to complete acceptance and affirmation. 01:22:35.415 --> 01:22:39.855 To many people saying just this religious tradition's vantage sexual 01:22:39.855 --> 01:22:44.896 orientation is so oppressive and unfit with me, I'm getting the heck out of it. 01:22:44.896 --> 01:22:47.250 So there's a range of this, right? 01:22:47.250 --> 01:22:52.080 And so then I suggest that the social worker reflect on that range and 01:22:52.080 --> 01:22:54.940 where its fits with whatever their own perspective is. 01:22:54.940 --> 01:22:59.150 And how does that play out partly with social work ethics? 01:22:59.150 --> 01:23:02.450 Can they come to a point where they can harmonize and 01:23:02.450 --> 01:23:07.830 connect their theological position and the social work ethics in context? 01:23:07.830 --> 01:23:13.403 If they can't, I mean frankly, if someone is determined 01:23:13.403 --> 01:23:18.638 to maintain a hostile attitude towards people who have 01:23:18.638 --> 01:23:25.351 non-heterosexual orientations, I think it's valid to question, 01:23:25.351 --> 01:23:30.492 is that really a profession that fits for the person? 01:23:30.492 --> 01:23:35.035 On the other hand, I don't think it helps when an educational setting 01:23:35.035 --> 01:23:39.578 creates an atmosphere with people who have theological questions and 01:23:39.578 --> 01:23:44.275 concerns about sexual orientation diversity or anything else feel like 01:23:44.275 --> 01:23:49.219 they're not allowed to talk about it, to process it, to engage around it. 01:23:49.219 --> 01:23:54.020 Cuz if that happens, that's not gonna help their growth around it. 01:23:54.020 --> 01:23:59.040 I've found many social work students, when they're engaged in a process of reflection 01:23:59.040 --> 01:24:06.580 and dialogue around this or other kinds of dilemmas, they really do grow around it. 01:24:06.580 --> 01:24:09.350 But I also don't assume everybody has to come out with the exact same 01:24:09.350 --> 01:24:10.600 conclusion, either. 01:24:10.600 --> 01:24:15.040 But it has to be one, I think, that is congruent with professional ethics. 01:24:15.040 --> 01:24:16.590 And if that doesn't work for 01:24:16.590 --> 01:24:22.050 some people, there can be other professions that would work for them. 01:24:22.050 --> 01:24:25.140 There's a bigger question, though, the social work profession as a whole 01:24:25.140 --> 01:24:28.780 is advocating for nondiscrimination based on sexual orientation, right? 01:24:28.780 --> 01:24:31.880 So on the policy level, that's one issue. 01:24:31.880 --> 01:24:35.650 And then the other level is a social worker individual growth. 01:24:35.650 --> 01:24:37.490 So it's complicated. 01:24:37.490 --> 01:24:40.056 I don't know, does that- >> Yeah, I just didn't know, 01:24:40.056 --> 01:24:43.651 cuz when you came up, you said this is not theological discussion. 01:24:43.651 --> 01:24:44.822 I totally understood that. 01:24:44.822 --> 01:24:49.762 I find myself trying to split between, is this a theological situation 01:24:49.762 --> 01:24:53.481 that I should engage with this client or this person? 01:24:53.481 --> 01:24:59.190 Or do I do the whole kinda facilitated development and treatment side of it? 01:24:59.190 --> 01:25:02.348 And I just didn't know if we could do that back and forth, or 01:25:02.348 --> 01:25:03.684 if you think [INAUDIBLE]. 01:25:03.684 --> 01:25:06.408 >> So that's a good question, because what I meant was, 01:25:06.408 --> 01:25:08.790 the framework I'm taking is not theological. 01:25:08.790 --> 01:25:13.290 But it is intended to embrace diverse theological views. 01:25:13.290 --> 01:25:15.900 So let's say, within a particular religious frame, 01:25:15.900 --> 01:25:19.860 it can be entirely appropriate, and that's the only way that's culturally appropriate 01:25:19.860 --> 01:25:26.270 to work within that particular theological set of beliefs and symbols and language. 01:25:26.270 --> 01:25:33.360 But to impose a different frame onto someone over here, that wouldn't work. 01:25:33.360 --> 01:25:36.150 So what I'm talking about is kind of an inclusive, 01:25:36.150 --> 01:25:40.530 embracing perspective that includes diverse religious and 01:25:40.530 --> 01:25:45.230 nonreligious spiritual perspectives, isn't limited to them, but respects them. 01:25:45.230 --> 01:25:48.818 And also is willing to grapple with tough things, like you said, 01:25:48.818 --> 01:25:50.396 including the macro level. 01:25:50.396 --> 01:25:55.237 These are social, nationwide conflicts that we engage in 01:25:55.237 --> 01:26:00.220 around religious and spiritual values, and global. 01:26:00.220 --> 01:26:02.260 People are fighting over this stuff. 01:26:02.260 --> 01:26:05.644 So to grapple with that is not easy, but I think we need to. 01:26:05.644 --> 01:26:09.109 >> Have a question, probably one more quick question, 01:26:09.109 --> 01:26:10.990 then we'll have to call it. 01:26:10.990 --> 01:26:12.906 >> Okay, you've had your hand up for a while. 01:26:12.906 --> 01:26:14.624 >> Thanks, [INAUDIBLE]. 01:26:14.624 --> 01:26:16.783 I think you addressed half of it. 01:26:16.783 --> 01:26:22.088 But the other half is that, so I know that a lot of religions and 01:26:22.088 --> 01:26:29.510 spiritual beliefs can kind of, accepting one another and work together well. 01:26:29.510 --> 01:26:34.077 But in the case when there is a belief that there is very absolute and exclusive, 01:26:34.077 --> 01:26:37.701 and let's say that your client is based on this belief system. 01:26:37.701 --> 01:26:38.730 >> Mm-hm. 01:26:38.730 --> 01:26:43.418 >> And ethically, it's something that may be based in guilt and shame, and 01:26:43.418 --> 01:26:45.238 that sort of sinful nature. 01:26:45.238 --> 01:26:48.937 Something like that, that is really impacting them in their life and 01:26:48.937 --> 01:26:51.444 the way that they think in the way that they do. 01:26:51.444 --> 01:26:55.938 To me, it feels like a conflict of interest to be supporting them in 01:26:55.938 --> 01:26:57.840 their spiritual belief. 01:26:57.840 --> 01:27:01.428 And it kinda feels to me like colluding with the oppressor, or 01:27:01.428 --> 01:27:05.810 something that feels like their beliefs themselves are oppressing them. 01:27:05.810 --> 01:27:08.432 >> Okay. >> And of course, that could be my bias, 01:27:08.432 --> 01:27:09.278 obviously. 01:27:09.278 --> 01:27:11.280 And maybe I'll just have to work with that, but. 01:27:11.280 --> 01:27:15.025 And there's [INAUDIBLE], but how do you support somebody if you feel 01:27:15.025 --> 01:27:18.976 like that thing that you're supporting is actually oppressing them? 01:27:18.976 --> 01:27:19.598 >> Yeah, that's good. 01:27:19.598 --> 01:27:23.251 Well, and like empowerment theory says, a lot of oppression is not just out there, 01:27:23.251 --> 01:27:24.443 it becomes internalized. 01:27:24.443 --> 01:27:26.510 I mean, that's a very good way to control folks. 01:27:26.510 --> 01:27:30.434 If you can get them to control their own behavior through shame and guilt, or just 01:27:30.434 --> 01:27:34.776 behaving, or just believing there's no other alternative, that's very effective. 01:27:34.776 --> 01:27:38.987 [LAUGH] So I'm not saying we just go along with that stuff. 01:27:38.987 --> 01:27:43.983 But I think it's probably, I'm not certain. 01:27:43.983 --> 01:27:47.440 But I think probably all religious traditions make some distinctions between 01:27:47.440 --> 01:27:49.662 inappropriate and appropriate shame and guilt. 01:27:49.662 --> 01:27:53.470 That doesn't mean that all members have clarified that, or 01:27:53.470 --> 01:27:56.390 that all religious teachers make that clear. 01:27:56.390 --> 01:28:00.200 But that is a legitimate thing to explore. 01:28:00.200 --> 01:28:02.350 So what are the effects of the person own belief? 01:28:02.350 --> 01:28:03.910 You don't have to even take 01:28:05.580 --> 01:28:08.135 a sophisticated theological critique with the client. 01:28:08.135 --> 01:28:11.720 [LAUGH] But what is the impact of their way of shaming and 01:28:11.720 --> 01:28:15.000 blaming themselves, and where does it come from? 01:28:15.000 --> 01:28:19.040 And are there alternatives congruent with their beliefs and values? 01:28:19.040 --> 01:28:24.561 Yeah, maybe there's even a kernel of truth in whatever's about the shame and 01:28:24.561 --> 01:28:28.590 guilt, but not to get stuck in it, crushed by it. 01:28:28.590 --> 01:28:32.560 How can they transform that through, for example, many religious traditions 01:28:32.560 --> 01:28:36.600 probably all have some kind of rituals and practices around forgiveness. 01:28:37.760 --> 01:28:42.370 Forgiveness is another, by the way, that's another area of research being explored. 01:28:43.750 --> 01:28:46.570 I don't mean that you set yourself up as the granter of 01:28:46.570 --> 01:28:50.830 forgiveness in a religious specific way, but you can help them with that journey. 01:28:52.000 --> 01:28:57.930 So many times when we feel like there's a either/or conflict between what's good for 01:28:57.930 --> 01:29:00.710 the client and what they're engaged in. 01:29:00.710 --> 01:29:04.290 If we loosen up and explore, even within their own perspective, 01:29:04.290 --> 01:29:07.950 there may be some resources and possibilities to transform it. 01:29:07.950 --> 01:29:09.120 And that's where referral and 01:29:09.120 --> 01:29:12.369 collaboration can help, especially if you know who you're referring to. 01:29:13.500 --> 01:29:16.125 It means someone who's congruent with that client, 01:29:16.125 --> 01:29:18.965 who also can be a partner with you in the helping process. 01:29:18.965 --> 01:29:20.897 Cuz you have to be careful, 01:29:20.897 --> 01:29:25.353 sometimes you send somebody from the frying pan into the fire. 01:29:25.353 --> 01:29:26.918 >> All right, thank you. 01:29:26.918 --> 01:29:27.727 >> Thank you. 01:29:27.727 --> 01:29:34.390 >> [APPLAUSE]