Edward R. Canda, Ph.D. - Spiritual Diversity in Social Work: The Heart of Helping

Spiritual Diversity in Social Work: The Heart of Helping

Edward R. Canda, M.A., MSW., Ph. D. is a professor at the School of Social Welfare and director of the Office for Research on Spiritual Diversity in Social Work at the University of Kansas. He is a member of the Religion and Spirituality Work Group at the Council on Social Work Education's (CSWE) Religion and Spirituality Clearing House, which was formed to "promote social workers' knowledge, values, and skills for ethical and effective practice that takes into account the diverse expressions of religion and spirituality among clients and their communities."

Dr. Canda speaks about using religion and spirituality in social work practice. He speaks on spiritually sensitive practice, spiritual diversity, and what strengths and challenges are presented by religion and spirituality in social work practice. Themes of meaning, relationship, transcendence, whole-ness, compassion, meditation, mindfulness, ethics and cultural competence are discussed. More information on Dr. Canda as well as spiritual diversity and social work is available on his website at http://www.socwel.ku.edu/canda/.

Presented on October 8th, 2012 at the University of Denver, Graduate School of Social Work.

Videography by Ethan Crawford.
Editing by Christopher Dennis.

So Dr. Edward Canda is a professor
at the School of Social Welfare

at the University of Kansas and
he's been specializing in the theory and

practice of spirituality in
a sense of its social work.

And he has a master's degree in From the
University of Denver of religious studies,

1979 and the MSW Ph.D Degree and Social
work from the Ohio State University.

Where he incorporated a lot
of various spirituality and

anthropology and
religious studies into social work.

He's working with CSWE as
a part of their religious and

spirituality clearing house for
educational resources.

His focus on spirituality, focuses
a lot on Southeast Asia, Hong Kong,

South Korea, Japan.

More than 150 publications.

And actually the thing that I have to
be amazing, and I didn't know this

until last night it's in Cleveland,
Ohio, which is also where I'm from.

[LAUGH].

So, until we're both from the home town.

So we had a chance chat a little bit about
the unique things about Cleveland, Ohio.

Would know what I mean.

So I'm really pleased to have you here and
look forward, the title of this talk is

Spirituality and spiritual Diversity in
Social Work, the Heart of Helping, so

Doctor Canda welcome to
the graduate school of social work.

>> Thank you very much, [INAUDIBLE].

>> [APPLAUSE]
>> And I want to thank Eugene Williams for

your invitation and your hospitality,
as well as for setting things up,

everything has gone very smoothly.

And Professor Benson has set up
an evening event for me too,

and I appreciate that as well.

Coming back to DU is
very significant to me.

Ike as you've heard I got my first
master's degree here in religious studies

which used to be over in the building
right over here I think, wasn't it?

And that was a big turning point for
me because I was coming back from,

I'd come back from studying
East Asian philosophy in South Korea.

And not quite sure where
to go from there and

made a very fortunate connection
with religious studies here.

That gave me a wonderful background for
my career in social work, actually.

So after that when I went into the MSW and
doctoral programs at Ohio State,

I was able to bring that religious
studies background into social work and

that really helped me to fill a niche
that was largely open in the profession.

So that's what I'm gonna talk about today,
how to converge

understanding of spirituality and
religion with social work.

And especially I wanted to also thank
professor Will Gravelly who's here.

He was my teacher in the 70's and has
been my friend and mentor since then so

it's really wonderful to have you
here in the audience, so thanks.

As well as Doug Carrol who was
a student with me back then.

So I have a good connection.

He's a social worker too.

So another religious studies
social work connection.

So in this presentation I'm
covering a huge topic area, really.

Literally for me it's been a lifelong,
pursuit of study, but

I am going to do this in about 50 minutes,
and then have discussion.

So this is the brief capsule version.

The way I want to do it then is give you
an overview of major values, perspectives,

some practice implications, and
touch on a lot of things quickly.

Today in the context of a large
perspective to kind of expand awareness

around spiritually sensitive practice.

And hopefully that'll touch various
different interests for you and

then in the question and answer period
please bring up whatever you would like.

I can talk more about that.

For those who are in the evening
session that'll be more of a workshop.

We'll have some discussion and
exercises around dealing with stress and

personal growth through meditation and
related practices for that session.

So, in the background of this slide,
I have a mandala.

I like to compose mandala sometimes just
because I enjoy the designs but mandalas

are very helpful to portray insights in
more than just a linear thinking way.

In a nutshell, literally mandala
is from Sanskrit, it means circle.

So it represents wholeness in connection

among many different aspects
of the self or the universe.

Comes originally out of Hinduism and
Buddhism but mandalas were,

have been adapted widely even
in therapeutic contexts.

Carl, you'll like to use
mandalas therapeutically.

So I used mandalas as a way of helping
to represent the bringing together of

diverse aspects of oneself or
different theoretical ideas and

how to converge them in a holistic way.

So you'll see some mandala diagrams that I
have spread out through the presentation.

Especially around this topic
I think it's important

not to be limited to only linear thinking.

Linear thinking and rationality
are really important, they're crucial,

but they're necessary but not sufficient.

So using artistic ways of communicating
also I think is very helpful.

[COUGH]
So I'd like to start

out by clarifying how this topic relates
to basic professional purposes and values.

My approach to the topic isn't
theological, it's not religion specific.

It's attempting to provide a framework so
that people of diverse religious and

non-religious perspectives
can relate to it.

And also so social workers
can connect with clients and

communities of diverse religious and
non-religious perspectives.

So here's some ideas that we talk
about commonly in social work but

I'm gonna link it to spirituality.

We often say the mission of the profession
is to advance human fulfillment and

social justice for everyone.

That's in common with spiritually
sensitive social work [COUGH].

The differences It's taking it a little
farther, it's expanding that notion

beyond what has been common in
conventional social work in the past.

So when we talk about fulfillment of
the person it's common in social work to

say we want a holistic view, we wanna deal
with the whole person in the environment.

Spirituality highlights
the aspects of the person

that goes beyond just
the bio/psycho/social.

And we'll talk about that some more later.

It also considers the whole person in
relation with all people and all beings.

Of course, social work is dedicated to
work with people, that makes sense.

But people exist of course in
the total web of life on this planet.

So, more and more, spiritually
sensitive social work is attending to

the ecological connections of all beings
and the total planetary ecosystem.

Deep ecology and
ecofeminism are good examples of that.

We also are very much concerned
as a field with appreciating and

respecting diversity and engaging
in culturally appropriate practice.

So spiritual diversity intersects
with all other kinds of diversity.

That brings up many
wonderful opportunities, and

also sometimes, complexities,
ambiguities and conflicts.

So, this is a lot of what we deal with in
spiritually sensitive practice as well.

Finally, I'm coming from
the standpoint of our codes of ethics.

Any SW code of ethics expects us
to work culturally competently.

It requires us to respect religious
diversity and our CSWE educational

guidelines include those
two principles but

also it says that students need to
learn about spiritual development.

So this movement has
really paid more attention

to those things than has
been done in the past.

On an international level
there's a lot of movements

to address spirituality and
social work around the world now.

It started primarily in North America but
there are movements in many countries now.

So I'll touch on that a little bit and

if you're interested I can give
you more information later.

But the International Association
of Schools of Social Work and

the International Federation
of Social Workers.

Their statement of principals
also includes respect for

cultural diversity and
spiritual and religious diversity.

So the way I'm approaching
this topic based

on all of those kinds of commitments.

[COUGH] When I started in social work,
my MSW program in 1980,

coming out of the religion
studies program and

previously my background
was cultural anthropology.

I was taught that we wanted to look at
the whole person in the environment,

which sounded great to me.

But there was no mention about religion or
spirituality.

I mean literally zero.

If I looked hard enough I could
find some articles here and

there in some important
historical documents.

But I couldn't figure out why is it if we
say we're looking at the whole person in

the environment,
this area of human experience was omitted?

Especially because all human cultures
include religious and spiritual features

in every person, is engaged in some way
in a search for meaning and purpose.

So that's when I began
to shift to advocate for

more attention to that,
in effect I decided later,

when I was a doctoral student,
that I would apply

social work principles of social change
to advocating with the profession.

To help change the profession, and

so compared from then til now
there's a tremendous difference.

We have in our accreditation standards
recognition of spirituality and religion.

Now textbooks usually,
at least briefly, mention it.

We have textbooks dedicated to the topic.

There's at least 40 graduate
programs around the country

that have specialized
courses on this topic.

There's a lot of movement around it now.

Not due simply to me, but as you know
a major social work practice skill

is to network and
create organizations so really building

a set of enthusiastic people around
the country and around the world.

So there's a lot going on.

So spiritually sensitive practice

addresses the ways that practitioners,
clients or consumers, and

their communities seek a sense of meaning,
purpose, and connectedness.

As they strive toward their highest
aspirations, maximize their strengths and

resources, and work to overcome personal
obstacles and environmental blocks and

gaps in resources.

If that sounds a lot like
typical social work, it is.

That's good.

But it's highlighting things that
aren't so commonly addressed.

For example, the themes of meaning,
purpose and connectedness.

There have been, for a long time, certain
strands of social work that focus on that.

A major one being existential social work,
and Don Krill,

who teaches a course here still,
he's taught for

many many years, existential social work,
is a good example of that.

[COUGH] But sometimes social work is
delivered in a way that's focused on

practical goods and services or
measurable outcomes.

That doesn't look at what is the meaning,
purpose, context of that.

So if we're not careful even the delivery
of needed services the worst

case is if we ignore this quality of
meaning and purpose and connection.

People actually feel objectified and
dehumanized in the process.

It also has to do with helping people
strive to their highest aspirations.

In this case,
highest aspirations can include,

what are their most compelling and
significant life goals?

What conserve as transformative
ideals in their life.

What kinds of spiritual practices and

community connections can help
them deal with adversity.

[COUGH] Personal adversity,
social injustice, oppression.

And this can even include people's
experience of states of consciousness

that go well beyond an ego-centered
understanding of self and world.

What helps people maximize their
strengths and resources and

pay special attention to religiously and
spiritually based strengths and resources.

Those can be internal and external in
the community and the larger world.

And all of this to work to overcome
personal obstacles environmental blocks,

and gaps in resources.

Another feature of social work that is
congruent with the strengths perspective,

as it happens the strengths
perspective was originally developed

at my university in the mid to late 80s,
at KU.

So the strengths perspective
doesn't look at clients in terms of

pathologies, deficits, diagnostic labels.

Of course those things can be
pertinent to their situation but

it never reduces people to those things.

Instead it focuses on goals, solutions,
possibilities, talents, skills,

resources and
never limits the possibility for clients.

Always considers at any point in time
no matter what the person's situation

there could always be an opportunity for
something far more than what it appears.

So for many people, spirituality is
a way to open up those unexpected and

transformative possibilities.

So before I go on too much farther
with these kind of abstract ideas.

I wanna tell you a story that puts in
a nutshell some of the main points.

In the 1980s, a lot of my social work

practice in research related
to Southeast Asian refugees.

So one time,
when I was at the university of Iowa I

was working with the refugee
resettlement program for the state.

And a Methodist minister

gave me a call and said, there's an issue
going on with two loud roommates.

Would you come to meet them and me,
and talk through what's going on.

Okay, what's the situation.

He said well,
they've been having a lot of arguments.

It's getting heated.

One of the roommates has a knife and has
been threatening to stab the other one.

I'm thinking to myself that
sounds like a lot fun.

Sure, I'll go right over there.

[LAUGH] See if,
I've never learned martial arts so

I wasn't too confident [LAUGH] while I
was dealing with possible knife play.

But, all right so, I was working with
a Thai international student who

also spoke Lao, and then we had
Lao interpreters who joined us.

So we had a team there, the two roommates,
the Methodist minister,

myself, my assistant.

So as a group, we started talking
through what were the issues.

We found out that the disagreements were

not really that significant but they were
becoming just agitated with each other.

And a lot of it had to do with
their post-traumatic stress.

So keep in mind the context [COUGH] they

had to escape Laos under
conditions of grave danger,

genocide, mass killings.

Escaping on boats that were
very difficult, dangerous.

Spent a long time in refugee camps

not knowing when they
were gonna get out of it.

Finally, resettled in the US.

In the US, they encountered language and

cultural differences that
brought about further stress.

Sometimes they experienced
discrimination and racism.

And then in addition to that well,

it was great that there was this
community based support system.

Once they were settled this Methodist
congregation provided helped

them get housing.

Invited them to their worship services.

Helped with material needs.

Provided emotional support.

All that was great but some members of
the congregation have the idea that if

they have come here and we're sponsoring
them, they should become Methodists too.

So there was a further tension.

This was very common I found with
Southeast Asian refugees who

frequently were Buddhist.

They were very grateful to
the Christian sponsors.

And they were comfortable going
to Christian services, but

they also wanted to maintain
their Buddhist practices,

go to the Lao Buddhist temple,
preserve their language.

So in other words,
they wanted to construct a bi-cultural,

bi-religious system.

But some of the sponsors
weren't cool with that.

It's one or the other.

So that brought about
a further level of stress.

In the case of this minister,
he did not have that attitude.

He had a both/and perspective.

So the minister was quite comfortable
with this idea that the Lao roommates,

if they want to tap the Buddhist
support systems, they can do that,

as well as connect with the Methodist
support system and maximize both of them.

So with further conversation [COUGH] at
one point it got pretty intense actually.

I was getting worried and

I realized I made one big mistake,
if you do safety training and

you make a home visit, you don't sit
the farthest place from the exit [LAUGH].

And that's where I and my assistant where
I'm thinking that was a bad choice.

And so you could feel the emotional tone
getting more intense, more agitated,

and I could tell there was a change in me.

As I became more anxious, my breathing
changed, it was becoming more tight and

becoming a little bit scanning
as to where was the exit.

Well, once I realized that,
it occurred to me that if I let

this communication intensity escalate,
and my internal

anxiety symptoms escalate, the combination
was not gonna be good for anybody.

So and my assistant,
who was mediating a lot of this,

linguistically, she was
bearing the brunt of it.

Cuz it's not just
the words going in between,

it's the emotional energy going through.

So it occurred to me I had to some
way politely stop that dynamic.

And I was running out of water.

It's very polite in [COUGH]
Southeast Asian cultures to offer

people food or drink when you visit so
I asked for some more water.

Well that simple thing, asking for water,
the roommate went out to the kitchen and

filled up the glass, brought it back,
it interrupted that escalation.

Plus it showed instead of
this escalating hostility,

it made a little occasion of
friendliness and politeness.

So it shifted, and then I could
also pay attention internally.

I could watch my breathing,
I could let it flow more smoothly, I could

restore a kind of mindful awareness of
what was going on in the moment [COUGH].

Once that happened,
everything de-escalated.

We're able to talk through the issues, and

one of the big conclusions was there
was one roommate who wanted to

go spend some time in retreat at
the Lao Buddhist monastery nearby.

And actually, at that time these community
Buddhist centers were very small and

informal because they
didn't have a lot of money.

And so like this was set up in house and
they set up an alter room.

But the way it's set up, it provides
a symbolically protective space.

The monks have a routine out of ritual and
meditation that he could participate in.

So he went there,
that helped him into get re-centered.

We broke the conflict with the roommate.

[COUGH] And it affirmed a positive
mutual respective relationship with

the Methodist minister as well because the
minister was very comfortable with that.

So that to me a good example of
spiritually sensitive practice

that respects diversity.

It shifts from an either or competitive
approach to the differences towards

a both and complementary
mutually respectful approach.

It taps the resources and
insights on both sides.

It respects everybody involved.

But it's not only an external
process at that, it's also internal.

What I said about having to become
aware of my own anxiety and

the change of my breathing, and
to intervene on that level too.

So spiritual sensitive practice
is both internal work and

external in weaving those two together.

Here's a few other broad ethical
principles to think about drawing on

spirituality and religion which
by the way I haven't defined yet.

So you might be wondering what
is he really talking about.

I'm gonna get to that in a minute.

So first of all,
just like social practice in general,

we have to start where the client is.

So we focus on the consumer client's
beliefs, goals, interests and

comfort level.

This isn't about the social
worker's own agenda.

I think meditation is really great, I'm
gonna make sure all the clients do that.

Or I think prayer is the best thing,
I'm gonna make sure they all do that.

That's not the point,
it's assessing understanding the clients

interest goals, resources, where they're
at, what they would like to tap and

then you facilitate it [COUGH].

So as I said before it also means working
in a culturally appropriate manner.

If we're engaging direct spiritually
based helping practices,

such as meditation, or prayer, or ritual.

As I said,
we have to start with assessment.

So even with assessment it's wise,
just like in ethnography or

cultural anthropology, to begin with
the least intrusive open ended assessment.

We have to be careful if
the way we do assessment

isn't either steering people in a certain
direction or cutting off possibility.

Place.

Many agencies don't even have guidelines
for the practitioners how to do

basic assessment around spirituality and
religion of the clients.

That's one problem, and if you don't
inquire at all, that can be a message

to the client implicitly,
you're not interested and you don't care.

But if you ask about it in a certain way,

it can be another message that
you're imposing some assumptions.

Like some agencies will have an intake
form that'll say something like here

are some options, Catholic,
Protestant, Jewish, other.

Find that out.

To tell you the truth, that is useless.

If that's what you asked someone,

by the way what it's saying is
we're not really very interested.

We're asking very broad questions and
a lot of agencies will collect that

information it's checked off, it goes in
a file somewhere and nothing happens.

Well what if the person is Buddhist or
Hindu?

And among Christians, there are tremendous
variation of denominations and

within that, then there's
non-denominational Christians.

Similarly in Judaism,
there's many different styles of Judaism.

So, Islam.

This kind of question is really
narrowing and excluding.

Besides that, it doesn't yield
much helpful information anyway.

Even if someone says,
yeah, I'm a Christian.

Well, there's more than 900 Christian
denominations in the United States and

many non-denominational
Christian communities.

And even if you know, I'm a Roman
Catholic, that's what the person says.

Within Catholicism there's
tremendous variety,

including on some basic social justice and
theological issues.

On the other hand, I don't mean with
assessment we should be too intrusive.

So we start with a open ended,
non-threatening,

exploratory question and
then the client will cue us.

Is this relevant to them,
do they want to pursue it or not, and

then we follow their cues to go further.

[COUGH] So, I could talk more
about that later, if you want.

But the basic principle is starting with
the least intrusive, open-ended approach,

identify the consumer's level of interest,
and then move to a more

explicit spiritually based practices
only if the consumer prefers.

And sometimes that means within the
helping relationship with a social worker,

sometimes it means referral and
collaboration.

Another issue that I think is a big one,
much neglected,

is spiritually sensitive
organizational culture.

Actually, it's kind of interesting to me,
if you look at business research

literature, about the factors that
reduced the likelihood of burn out and

turnover, and
increase employee satisfaction.

Those businesses that attend to
the spiritual qualities of the work

environment and the relationships there,
tend to have lower burnout, turnover, and

higher employee satisfaction.

So there's more discussion about that
in the business sector than I see in

the social literature which
a little bit boggles me.

So in human service organizations
the optimal would be a congruence

between spiritually sensitive
administrative style and policies,

and the practitioners engaging
in that way with the clients.

When there's a misfit between those, even
if the practitioners are interested and

committed to doing this,
they might have no support or

even find obstacles from administration.

Or the workers themselves
are getting burnt out,

because their full human growth
needs are being dealt with.

And so then it's hard to
work well with the clients.

[COUGH]
I'm

finally going to tell you
what I mean by spirituality.

[LAUGH] I think you can get the sense
of it from what I've said already but

this is a more formal definition.

I'm first gonna tell you what I mean
by spirituality as an aspect, and

then give you more holistic
ways of looking at it.

But what I'm going to describe now
is the most common way it's looked

at in social work medicine,
nursing, psychology, psychiatry.

By the way all of those fields have
parallel movements to social work around

this now, and

there's a lot of interdisciplinary
stuff happening around it.

So spirituality is a process
of human life and development.

Spirituality isn't just a thing or
an affiliation, it's a life process.

It focuses on the search for
a sense of meaning, purpose, morality and

well being in relationship with oneself,

other people, other beings of the universe
and ultimate reality, however understood.

It orients around centrally
significant priorities.

It engages a sense of transcendence,
experienced as deeply profound, sacred, or

transpersonal.

So some of these keywords
here that I bolded,

you find across disciplines
around the term spirituality.

There's no uniformly accepted
definition actually.

But these themes are very common,
meaning relationship,

centrally significant priorities,
our ultimate concern, and transcendence.

[COUGH]
With the concept of transcendence,

I've added a few possibilities there,
because if you look at spiritual

traditions around the world, there's
a great deal of variety about this.

For theistic traditions,
transcendence is, can be,

often relate in terms of experiencing
relationship with a personal God.

And sometimes that can be very deep, very
transforming and consciousness changing.

But many religious
traditions are not theistic.

Even the concept of the sacred is
widespread, but it's not universal.

And for some traditions, the sacred and
the profane are not a dichotomy at all.

That ordinary daily life
itself can all become sacred.

And for many nonreligious people,
even using words like holy,

sacred, divine, it just doesn't work.

I have a friend who describes himself,
he's a social work professor,

he describes himself as a secular,
scientific, humanist, Jew.

So, and we participated in
some spirituality conferences.

And he would explain to people
as a nonreligious, non-theistic,

cultural Jew,
what is spirituality mean to him.

One time my wife and
I were invited to his home for

a Sabbath meal and I was kinda wondering,
how's this gonna work?

[LAUGH] Well,
they had the Sabbath style prayers

and welcoming of people but
the wording was, you might say, edited.

It was changed to remove
any theistic references.

But it emphasized the community
connectedness, caring, and

love and sharing.

And afterwards he had a gathering
of other secular Jews and

they had hymns and prayers and
told stories and talked.

All of those didn't have
any theistic frame to them.

But they created an informal spiritual
support group around these common

beliefs and styles.

So they were preserving
Jewish heritage and concerns.

One of the main themes for
them was social justice and

how to link your personal life to justice.

So that [COUGH], to him,
made perfect sense.

But if I were to approach someone with his
point of view with words like Religion or

sacred or god, it wouldn't connect,
so we have to be careful about that.

Give another example, in the same town,
I had another Jewish friend.

She was an Orthodox,
a very devout Orthodox Jew.

So she was very observant.

Even to the point where when
we went to lunch with her.

We had to find a restaurant that
didn't just have kosher, but

kosher food approved by her rabbi.

And so she had a very different
style from my other friend.

Both identify as Jewish,
but quite different styles.

And she was also very open.

So she participated in many of
our national spirituality and

social conferences.

Was very interested in outreach and

connecting with people of
many different perspectives.

And that was a nice lesson, too.

Because it showed me that [COUGH]
whatever the person's perspective.

If they have both a clear
commitment to where they're at and

an openness to where others are at.

We can join and connect and
collaborate and support each other.

The trouble comes in when
people who are highly committed

to their own view see those
as exclusive of others.

Or hostile to others and promote conflict.

And in the worst cases even violence.

So religion.

Will, forgive me if my definition doesn't
measure up to religious studies' standards

but I'm gonna give it a shot here.

[LAUGH] Within social work,
given our professional context.

By the way since the early 80s

there has been a tendency to distinguish
the term spirituality and religion.

For a lot of reasons, but one is
because in our profession there was so

much allergic reaction to
the topic of religion.

It's like pushing people's alarm buttons
when you even say it in many settings.

[LAUGH] And they're worried,
what does it mean?

Is this person gonna be trying to
proselytize or to manipulate, or etc.

So it became common to distinguish
between spirituality and religion.

And you find this in many other helping
professions nowadays, by the way.

So religion is an institutionalized,
I mean formally structured.

Systematic pattern of beliefs,
values, symbols,

behaviors, and
experiences that involves spirituality.

But, not limited to that.

It involves a community of adherents.

You can't have a religion of one person.

It involves transmission of
traditions over time, and

community support functions.

For example, through organizational
structure, material assistance,

emotional support, political advocacy.

So religious groups engage
in many kinds of activities,

some of which are clearly explicitly
spiritual and others are not.

But everything has a connection
to their spiritual frame.

So spirituality can express
through religious settings,

and outside of religious settings.

And for some people their spiritual
way includes both religious and

non-religious expressions.

If you think about it like a Venn diagram,

spirituality is a large circle and
religion is a circle within it.

And some people identify as simply
their religious perspective is

their spirituality.

Others are non-religious but
they're spiritual,

others are both religious and spiritual.

And actually surveys of clients in the US
show that many people are identifying in

this variety of ways.

And in American popular culture
this distinction has become common.

It's become more and more common for
baby boomers and younger to say,

I'm spiritual but not religious.

So, in this slide,
I wanna move towards a more holistic view.

If we start,

the definition I just gave you that
spirituality is an aspect of the person.

Bio, Psycho, Social, and
now many people add Spiritual.

Bio, Psycho, Social, Spiritual.

It's like a pie.

The person has four slices now.

Including the spiritual slice.

Some people don't include
the spiritual slice.

I like pie so I want all four slices.

[LAUGH] But one very peculiar special
thing about the spiritual aspect.

Since it focuses on the theme
of meaning and purpose.

And the possibility of
moving towards transcendent,

connecting modes of consciousness.

Spirituality can pay attention to and

infuse all of these
aspects around the circle.

It's not an isolate,
none of these are actually isolated,

this is just a simplification,
to separate them out.

But, let me give you an example
of how spirituality can connect

all the way around.

If you think about one of the most basic,

fundamental, universal things
about human experience.

Hope this doesn't come as
a surprise to anybody.

Death.

All right.

Everybody alive dies.

Because it's inescapable.

We know from practice when we
work in medical settings or

hospice or palliative care or
grief and bereavement.

We know that often when
people are more closely

aware of their own mortality or
their loved one's mortality.

It raises these big questions
of meaning and purpose.

Maybe it's even why?

Why is that happening?

I had a friend whose four year old
daughter developed a serious cancer.

He was very spiritual in a kind
of alternative religious group

practice dealing meditation and
healing visualizations.

So he brought all that to bear for
his child.

But this was of course a terrible shock,
and she didn't recover either.

So he would sit with his daughter and
they wold meditate together.

In fact I had a quartz
crystal that she liked.

I gave it to her.

And she said,
I'd like to sit with my daddy and

mediate with this crystal and watch it.

And actually, she said a lot of really
profound things at four years old

by her own facing her situation
of illness and mortality.

She was, in many ways, very profound.

So the physical event of death evokes
these deep spiritual questions.

And also beliefs like
is there an afterlife.

If so what is it, where is it?

Is there even anything that exists, is
there a separate ego, or should there be?

An ultimate goal in Buddhism
is to transcend attachment to

a separate individual self.

So just being a kind of
soul hanging around for

all eternity isn't really
an optimal ideal in Buddhism.

[LAUGH] So
there's all these different ideas.

And what the client's belief is
is going to have a big effect

on how they prepare for death.

Their level of anxiety or
hope about death.

And how that may affect their
connection with their loved ones.

So in fact by engaging in spirituality,
even death itself can be transformed

As an experience of growth and

[COUGH] further possibility.

Even for someone who doesn't
believe there's any afterlife.

By living, dying, to its best way.

It can enhance the relationship
with others and

the sense of how precious even
the last moments of life are.

[COUGH] Well here's another way
of looking at spirituality,

this is a different metaphor.

Spirituality as the center of the person.

In idiomatic English we have
this expression to be centered.

For you, here's a little bit
of audience participation,

when you feel centered
what does it feel like?

>> [INAUDIBLE]
>> Calming.

>> [INAUDIBLE]
>> In control.

>> [INAUDIBLE]
>> Peace.

>> [INAUDIBLE]
>> Balance.

Okay, those are good,
those are like feeling qualities.

What's happening in your body?

Yes?

>> Relaxed breathing.

>> Okay.

>> [INAUDIBLE]
>> Relaxed breathing, calm mind.

Right, so if you, when you feel centered
and you're paying attention to that,

you're aware.

Your breathing is usually,
it's a kind of smooth flow.

But even if you're centered
while you're jogging or

doing athletics, your breathing might
be accelerated but it's also smooth.

And your breath moves through your center,
literally.

So many meditation practices, and

prayer practices involve paying
attention to the breath.

Letting it move smoothly and

freely through your central chamber,
and having your awareness focused.

Some traditions on the heart,
some on the energy point below the navel.

So across many traditions it's recognized

that there's a physical
component to centering.

There's an emotional
intellectual component to it.

And when we feel more centered
it's not egocentric actually.

It's opening to others.

So in social practice if
you're talking with a client.

What happens if you're not centered and
the client is telling you some story

that's kind of shocking, or
upsetting to you, and you're not centered?

What's going on in your mind and
body then?

Yes?

>> [INAUDIBLE] separate?

>> You're feel, okay, separating?

>> Yes.

>> And you might even be
separating inside yourself.

Your thoughts are starting to run,
my gosh.

Like when I was in that
situation with the roommate who,

there was the threat of knife play.

My mind is starting to what's
gonna happen, what's gonna happen?

So then to get

lost down that train of thinking
can pull you away from the moment.

Your breathing might become too tight, or
in panicky situations hyperventilating.

So when we're centered it actually
enhances our sense of interconnectedness.

And when it's very deep,

when we go to a sense of our very
deep most profound true center.

We might even have an experience of
consciousness, which is joined or

unified with others, or
with God, or with the universe.

So, all traditions have ways
of talking about that as well.

Within Native American traditions,
many people including

some Native social workers
use medicine wheel diagrams.

Similar to the mandalas I'm talking about.

To help look at all these the connections.

And the center point Is
sometimes referred to

as a sacred center in which all these
aspects are joined and connected.

So when we can connect to
that center within us,

it helps us connect with everyone
else's and everything else's center.

I have up on there, on the left,

a depiction of the Chinese character for
mind.

This is another good way of
thinking about the center.

The Chinese character for mind is composed
of an ideograph for the heart actually.

So in traditional East Asian
thought the mind isn't up here.

[COUGH] Many years ago one of the first
times I met a practicing Buddhist

monk in Korea.

At that time [COUGH] I was
still in my hippie days.

I had long shoulder length hair and
I met this monk who was bald.

And in conversation, and
we were similar ages.

And I said it's really interesting
about your shaving your head.

And he was remarking about my long hair.

So we were talking to,
what is this no hair and long hair mean?

And we found out it meant
very similar things to us.

[LAUGH] Both counter-cultural, and engaged
in a search, and not wanting to conform.

And so in the course of that,
we were talking about the mind.

In Korean the world is maeum.

So when he used the word maeum,
he was gesturing like this, automatically.

When I was using the word mind,
I was going like this.

And after awhile I thought wait a minute,
we're pointing different places.

What does that mean?

So then I learned that the mind
is understood as centered here.

Actually that's true in Europe,
in the Middle Ages and earlier as well.

So that is recognizing that
kind of the root of our

feelings and thoughts arise here.

We process through thinking up here.

But there is a deeper level
of connection in here.

This logo, by the way,
is from the Center for

Behavioral Health at
the University of Hong Kong.

This is one of the most creative centers
for holistic social work that I think.

They incorporate eastern and
western approaches to therapy and

social work as well as evidence based
practice research in a very creative way.

So if you're interested to find out about
that you can check out their website.

This last metaphor is spirituality
as wholeness of the person.

That's the outer circle.

This is the metaphor that Carl Jung
emphasized, the Swiss depth psychologist.

So he talked about the lifespan,
especially in adulthood,

as potentially being a process
of movement towards wholeness.

In which we connect up our
different aspects of ourselves and

our relationships so that they're
all brought into a kind of harmony.

And we have a sense of ourself
that encompasses all of that.

So when that kind of
developmental path is diagrammed

you could think of it like a spiral.

Moving towards a whole circle that
ends up including all of yourself and

your relationships.

This earlier way I mentioned
of spirituality of center,

if you think theologically, it's
a more eminental way of looking at it.

The experience of the sacred or
the ultimate within.

This is more of a transcendent
way of looking at it.

Through expansion of consciousness,
you can come to a point where

your experience of who you
are embraces all of your components,

all of your relationships,
even the entire world or universe.

But it's not limited to any part.

So transpersonal theory addresses
These kinds of experiences a lot.

Transpersonal theory
developed in the 60's, and

has began influencing social
works since the 70's.

It's became more prominent in the 90's.

It looks at how people are, may have
powerful experiences of changes of

levels of consciousness in world view,
that become more embracing of diversity.

So we're no longer the little
ego-body limited self.

That's one aspect.

But the total, or
whole self includes and transcends that.

So many spiritual perspectives emphasize
compassion as a key cardinal virtue.

And I think it's very significant for
social work.

Compassion very simply can
mean engaging with self, and

others, and with life with passion.

So from Latin literally
means with passion.

Spiritual traditions that talk about
the way of cultivating compassion,

especially in a helping process,
emphasize that real compassion, or

the most helpful kind compassion
is not egotistical compassion.

It's not pity.

It's not sympathy.

It's not projecting your own ideas about
how it should be for the other person.

It's a capacity to really
engage empathetically and

genuinely with the other
in their situation.

[COUGH] It's engagement empathetically but
it's not enmeshment.

That's a really tricky distinction, but
that is important for social workers.

Because when we get enmeshed in the social
workers sense of anxiety, life problems,

or hopelessness and helplessness, it's
easy for us to get pulled down that way.

It's like emotionally going down a drain.

So we have to be really
careful about that.

And we'll talk more about that
sort of thing in the afternoon.

So it's also non-judgmental
clear awareness.

And a skill for reaching out.

It's a careful, caring,
non-attachment to the fruits of actions.

If any of you have read the Bhagavad Gita
from the Hindu tradition,

it's really powerful about this lesson.

Arjuna is on the battlefield with
the chariot ready to go into battle.

Unfortunately, the enemies
are his relatives.

Lucky for him Krishna, incarnation of God,
happens to be the charioteer.

Wow, that's lucky,
I can ask you some questions.

At this terrible situation
what do I do about it.

So the book is conversations
between Krishna and Arjuna.

So, one of the messages
that comes out of that is,

engaging in necessary action with clarity
and with non-attachment to results.

And that's hard.

And, by the way, in social work nowadays,
evidence-based practice is all the rage.

Does this mean we shouldn't care
about the results of our actions?

No, I don't mean that.

That's why I added caring on attachment.

But of course we don't wanna injure
people, and we wanna help them.

But even in that we don't wanna be
egoistically attached to the result.

My wife is a medical social worker,
and for

recent years she's been working
mainly in the emergency room.

So every day she's encountering
people with disasters.

Maybe decades long patterns
of self destructive behavior.

Inadequate resources.

If she was attached to the idea that
somehow she's gonna fix or cure everything

or she knows how it should be for that
person and she's gonna make sure they get

there and if they don't she's gonna
be upset, she would be devastated.

So it doesn't make sense for the client,

it doesn't make sense
to the social worker.

So, this kind of caring
non-attachment is very important but

a little tricky to cultivate.

I'd like to give a couple
images to symbolize that.

On the right is the sacred heart of Jesus.

This is a kind of informal street
mural I ran across in Chicago once.

I grew up with this,
my tradition is Catholic.

So I grew up with portraits

of Jesus with this exposed heart on fire,

and drops of blood coming from it,
it's pretty intense [LAUGH] actually.

But what that means is Jesus lived and

died with compassion and is committed
to love and care and help for others.

So when I learned the expression
bleeding heart liberal,

I thought that's what
they're talking about.

Although people often use
that in disparaging meaning,

this kind of bleeding heart liberal
I think is a positive ideal.

But it suggests some difficult things.

It means sometimes compassion carries
you into some dangerous situations.

It means stretching beyond your own self

comfort and your own personal goals.

It can involve sacrifice.

Some people don't like that word.

But actually from Latin,
sacrifice means to make sacred.

So being able to engage in helping in
a way that connects with the other and

transcends egotism can be very
powerful in the helping process.

And notice again,

like the concept of the center in
Maum as rooted here in the heart.

I think that's depicted
very strongly there.

On the left side this is a Korean Buddhist
painting of Kwan Seum Bosal in Korean.

You may have also heard
of this as Kwan Yin,

is common word representing the Chinese.

So Kwan Yin is the bodhisattva
of compassion.

A bodhisattva is an enlightened being
who chooses to stay in the realm

of existence rather than simply
dissipating into Nirvana,

in order to continue working for
the benefit of all beings.

And in particular,
Kwan Yin is the bodhisattva of compassion.

Kwan Yin has such profound compassion that
it reaches out to all beings everywhere.

That's why in this depiction,
it might be a little hard for

you to discern on the picture,
but there are hands and

arms coming out all the way around
in all directions, reaching out.

Every hand has a tool,
different kind of tool.

On top of the main head there are 11
other heads looking in all directions.

Actually each face has
a different expression.

That means with compassionate
awareness of other beings

there are many different compassionate
responses that you may have.

Love, commiseration, anger, even anger.

But compassionate anger is anger for
the benefit of the other.

Not anger because you're trying
to impose your will on the other.

[COUGH] So the different tools in hands,

[COUGH] means that with
the compassionate vantage,

you reach out skillfully,
adapting to whatever the situations,

whatever the person or
the being needs to help.

And on top of the main
head there's another

figure that represents Amitabha Buddha.

The Buddha of infinite light.

That means this kind of compassion
is coming out of a kind of universal

consciousness, not egoistic consciousness,
but it's connected with each moment,

each person, each situation,
and reaches out with skill.

So some Buddhist social workers in East
Asia use Guanyin as a kind of symbol of

good social work.

Well, actually that would be like a super
social worker if you can achieve that.

>> [LAUGH]
>> Wow, that once I was,

When I was teaching in
Japan on this topic,

I had visited a famous Japanese shrine
in Kyoto called Sanjusangen-do.

In that shrine, there's a huge statue
of [FOREIGN] kinda like this form.

On this side 500 [FOREIGN] statues,
on that side 500 more.

So it was literally a thousand
golden statues in this huge expanse.

It was very peaceful, but very powerful.

In fact, when I was there,
it happened that a typhoon moved through.

Outside it was windy like crazy.

Luckily, we got into the building just
before the typhoon and we got out just

after the typhoon, so I thought,
that was very fortunate thanks to Guanyin.

But then it occurred to me, in social
workers and community members and

other disciplines, when we all connect and
cooperate we're all collectively Guanyin.

When we put all of our compassionate
caring and skill together,

that's when we really can
be like this enlightened

powerful being that reaches
out to help all beings.

So this is just a couple of minutes,
as I talk, think about these questions for

yourself, [COUGH] some of you
maybe recent to social work,

some of you may have been in
the field a very long time.

But if you, sometimes need to regenerate
your sense of why are you doing this,

it can help to go back to your personal
development roots in the profession.

So think back to why you decided
to become a social worker.

What motivated you?

What compelled you?

Were there certain relatives or
mentors or friends or

exemplars of spiritual ideals
that motivated you to do this?

And most of us don't go into social work
because we think we're gonna become rich.

Hopefully we can subsist on the salary,
but

that's not a really good occupation if
your goal is simply to become wealthy.

And we're often working in stressful and
difficult situations.

So why would we do that?

What motivates you?

What's your kind of core life purpose for
doing that?

Was there any key event that triggered
your sense of compassion and a dedication

to serve, and how can you keep that
sense of inspiration and motivation now?

How can you re-enliven it?

So we'll talk more about this sort
of thing in the afternoon with

the student group.

Okay, I'm gonna finish up the last part
of this without too much longer so

that we can have questions and answers.

I mentioned evidence based practice.

Actually, this area of spirituality and

religion has exploded as a research
topic in the last 15 years.

Within social work,
there was very little 20 years ago, but

the pace of work on it has
accelerated tremendously.

So there are dedicated journals, there
are many articles in mainstream journals.

National, international conferences,
all kinds of stuff going on.

And if you look beyond that to
medicine and psychology and

psychiatry and nursing, it's just huge.

I can't even keep up with it.

So I'm just mentioning a few key findings.

One thing that fits very well
with social perspective,

if you look across at all different
kinds of therapeutic modalities, and

what factors contribute to clients'
sense of positive outcome.

One of the biggest is the quality
of the therapeutic or

helping relationship, not just the skill
used or the theory frame used.

But was the relationship one of empathy,
rapport, trust, caring and hope?

When that's there, the outcomes
are more often report as favorable and

there's a higher satisfaction.

Instillation of hope and sense of meaning
has also been found to very important.

Referral and collaboration for support
of effects of religious involvement,

if that fits the client's point of view.

So these are like big surveys of
religious populations into looking

at impacts on health outcomes.

One that's very popular in social work and
mental health field is mindfulness.

So, there's two versions that
are kinda common in social work,

one is from Marsha Linehan's
Dialectical Behavior Therapy.

Mindfulness is a major component of that,
which originally came out of Buddhist,

some Buddhist meditation techniques and
became extracted from that and

kind of turned into a method
without a religious frame

that anyone can learn to practice
centering mindful awareness of the moment.

And the point of that is to
reduce suicidal ideation,

symptoms of anxiety and
depression and such.

It's been shown to have
a lot of positive impact for

many people at mental health diagnoses.

There's also in the health field
dialectical behavior, I'm sorry,

mindfulness based stress
reduction from John Kabat Zinn.

There's a lot of medical
research around this.

So meditation has to do with
intentionally focusing our attention,

letting go of ordinary preoccupations and
ruminative thinking, deepening insight and

experience of consciousness.

That's critical for social workers in some
way, even if it's not formal meditation

but some way to keep ourselves centered
and focus in the helping process.

And for some clients, benefit from
learning to practice meditation.

But actually there are many,
many different types of and techniques of

meditation that have important
differences, so you have to be sure.

If you're using it, first of all, that you
are well-qualified and experienced in it.

And that whatever particular technique
matches the beliefs and comfort and

interests of the client.

Mindfulness is paying
attention in the present

moment with a clear mind that
acknowledges but doesn't judge.

I've given examples of that already today.

We'll be talking about this more later for
people who are coming to the afternoon or

evening event.

But so we have to pay attention to our own
situation, our own personal experience and

development as social workers.

On one side so that our engagement
in social work itself could

be part of our spiritual
development process.

And by the way, there are some religious
traditions that make that explicit.

A good example is karma yoga in Hinduism.

Karma literally means action.

Karma yoga means the yoga of
social action, of helping.

So in that type of social service,
people are conscious and clear that

the process of helping is also the process
of engaging in their spiritual growth.

But even without a formal religious
frame to it, anybody, if they want to,

can link their professional lives and
their personal lives so

that everything is fueling their growth.

So, on the other hand, we have to
worry about our own stress level.

So we know that social workers and
other helping professionals,

unfortunately, were more at risk for

stress related physical and
metal disorders and suicide.

So if we're not paying attention to
ourselves, we can place ourselves at risk,

which isn't good for ourselves,
but also not good for clients.

In the Confucian tradition,
it said that the noble minded

person takes care of oneself in
order to be of service of others.

If you are not taking care of yourself,
you can't help others.

But, stress can become eustress.

Often when we say stress,
what we really mean is distress.

The kind of stress that involves harm,

discomfort, depression,
anxiety, frustration.

But stress can be positive.

Like there's the stress of engaging in
an intense activity that you really like.

If somebody loves to jog,
there's stress involved in jogging, but

the stress is a free-flowing energy
that actually strengthens the body.

If somebody's a musician and is involved
in a very intense kind of performance,

that performance is stressful,
but it's eustress.

So eustress, from Greek, eu means good,
or good or positive stress.

If we pay attention to the nature
of our stress and what's behind it,

we can convert distress into eustress.

So, I'd like to ask you to think about for
later, maybe after this,

reflect on yourself,
what activities do you engage in regularly

to decrease your stress,
increase your eustress, and keep

yourself centered in your personal lives,
and in your work as a social worker.

If you think about that and

can't come up with any, I'd like to
suggest you [LAUGH] find something.

Or maybe you say, I used to do this thing
back five years ago, that was wonderful.

But I got so busy, my caseload is so
high, or my teaching load is so heavy, or

I'm trying to publish so much.

I could then next week [LAUGH] go
through these stress things too.

And I forgot about that, I stopped doing
it, so then it can become like a battery.

A battery is a closed energy system.

If you just keep draining
the energy out of that battery,

at some point that's gone.

So how do we keep
recharging our batteries?

I just wanna mention this.

I focused more on a micro-level
in my examples so far, but

this has many macro implications.

One of them is the importance of
social work going through faith based

organizations.

.And of course that's always happened.

But in the, [COUGH], since the Bush and

Clinton administrations, there's formal
policy around trying to increase and

encourage social services to
the faith based organizations.

So NASW has a policy
recommendation around that.

So on the constructive side,

NASW recognizes that those kind of
partnerships with community organizations

can be very powerful, very helpful,
and that's encouraged.

But if that means that the state simply

passes its responsibility onto
non-government organizations and

expects them to take up the slack,
that's not realistic.

In fact many faith based organizations
have protested against this trend.

Rather than it simply being, this is
a nice partnership, if it really means

dumping work on organizations already with
scarce resources, that's not so good.

The other problem is
that if volunteers and

other workers within faith based
organizations are not properly trained and

prepared to deal with serious
issues like substance abuse or

family violence, just to mention two.

It can be very dangerous if
they're meddling wIth it.

So this is a tremendous opportunity for
collaboration.

But if it's not done right,
it can be a risky.

So, one of our major ethical manages for
cultural competence.

[COUGH] This is pretty
much my last piece here.

If we re-envision

cultural competence from the framework
of spiritually sensitive practice,

it can open up some other way
of looking at it, I think.

So if these four colored circles represent
four different cultural contexts, or

they could be religious contexts or

spiritual perspective contexts
just to make it simple.

If a social worker is originally from
the red circle, that's their culture or

religion of origin, and they learn
to connect with the blue circle.

If they learn to do that in a way where
their comfort, their value of respect,

and their skill becomes
fluid to move between both,

and to work within both, and
to live within both, that's a bi-cultural.

If it's moving across the four,
that's multicultural.

Now that's already a big task.

That even means basic things
like multlinguilasm So

we are advocating for bi-cultural,
multicultural competence in social work.

To do that requires not
just skill training, but

consciousness in lifestyle transformation,
I think.

If we're really meaningfully engaged with
people from different worldviews and

cultures and spiritual perspectives, it
means we're gonna be changed through that.

Mutually, we're transforming each other.

That means our perspective, our worldview,
has to become open and fluid.

So this may be still respecting our roots,
but also being able to

be comfortable in other contexts,
then we can become bridges and mediators.

But as I said, that's difficult.

If you go to the center point,
like centering as I talked before,

when you have that sense and
that's the basis you're relating.

You're aware of both differences in
the client systems you're working with and

yourself, and the commonalities.

The common connection as human beings.

And [COUGH] so
if you're from that center point,

that is the one spot in which all
of the diversities are connected.

So how can we train
ourselves in centering?

That kind of awareness to
enhance cultural competence.

If he go to the outer circle it's like
the outer circle of the spirituality

model I gave before.

When our consciousness, And our behavior,

and our teamwork, include diversity and

transcend each of the different contexts,

then we can embrace all of that.

So like I said before,
I don't mean it's realistic for

one social worker to become
fully multicultural,

multilingual, multi-religious,
multi-spiritual, and everything else.

But when we're working together
with others, we form teams,

partnerships, inter-agency collaborations.

Network with community support systems,
with spiritual leaders and

mentor all together that
becomes trans-cultural.

So by trans-cultural I don't mean
ignoring culture, or any differences.

It means embracing them, connecting them,
recognizing common connections and

a perspective that embraces
all of that as well.

Well that's my last,
[LAUGH] my last point.

If you're interested in
additional resources,

a lot of stuff can be accessed free
through my web site, which I put up there.

Also, CSWE has a new clearing
house on religion and

spirituality in social work with some
teaching resources, and that's expanding.

So, questions, comments.

I kind of covered a huge territory.

I feel like I flew around the globe,
and so

I'd like to hear particular things you're
interested in and wondering about.

Yes.

>> Talking about organizational culture?

>> Yes.

>> And I think that social work so

hard for so long to not be spiritual or

religious showing preference.

>> Mm-hm.

>> That we have have any [INAUDIBLE]
sign of spirituality really,

within [INAUDIBLE] educational process or

[INAUDIBLE] organizations
that [INAUDIBLE].

So I'm wondering if you say
an organizational culture

that supports spirituality.

What does it look like?

>> I wish we had more examples to know.

[LAUGH] But, well,
let's start with very concrete.

You've mentioned there might not be signs
of spirituality within our organizations.

That can be literal.

I remember talking to some social
workers in a state based agency, and

they were instructed, you're not permitted
to wear any kind of religious symbol.

Even in your own personal desk you're
not allowed to have anything that's

religiously explicit.

Well, I understand the caution of that.

Because especially if you're in
a place where clients are entering,

if you have a particular religious symbol,

say, someone who resonates with that,
that might help with a connection.

But somebody else for whom that doesn't,
that could really turn them off,

it could alienate them.

So, there needs to be some
caution about that, but

that would depend on the setting.

Let's say if I was, when I was doing work
with the southeast Asian communities, we

did referral and collaboration with monks,
with shamans, with traditional healers.

Of course,
they were fully expressive of their

particular religious practices and
symbols.

So I wasn't taking out, okay, here's I'm
gonna put my Buddha statue over here so

the client sees that and know, but
they could tell from our interaction that

I was very interested and
open, and make those links.

If you think about it,

let's say if you have a situation
where clients come to an office.

What's sitting in your office?

What kinda books?

What kind of paintings?

You can choose those in such a way
that they're giving messages

of kind of openness to spiritual themes
without being religiously limiting.

So that's a very concrete way.

Another is within
the administrative policies.

Does the agency set up a clear
spiritual assessment set of guidelines?

And there's a whole lot of them out there.

In my book on spiritual diversity
in social work practice,

I've explained some
spiritual assessment tools.

If there's no guidance even provided,

usually social workers feel like
they're floundering with that.

I'm working with a lot of
mental health settings.

Within the strengths model of case
management, we try to assess many

different life domains,
one of them being spirituality culture.

But that domain, I found,
in talking with the consumers and

providers, doing some qualitative
research, is the most neglected,

[COUGH] and least understood domain.

A lot of workers aren't sure
how do I get into that?

A lot of consumers are saying,
that's crucial to me, but

my worker's not comfortable with it.

So we're working at even how to clarify
some assessment guidelines within

the strengths model, and we're starting
to disseminate that to publications and

we're gonna put up some
very user friendly,

simple guidelines to providers and
consumers soon.

So anyway, whatever the agency situations,

they might have to tailor
the type of assessment tool.

But do they have any?

If they do, does it work well?

Have they talked with consumers
to find out is it working well?

And a broader thing is just
the humaneness quotients in the agency.

Some operate top-down executive
authoritarian control.

And the workers, they're kinda doing
all the ground level intense work,

but they have no input to
changes of practice and policy.

They just have to follow orders.

That's not what I mean by a spiritually
sensitive organizational culture.

Even like I say in the business world,
it recognizes that the more humanistic,

interactive, participatory styles of
decision making not only can help with

what you'd come out with as guidelines for
practice.

But the process itself is more
affirming and supportive to the staff.

Yeah?

>> In some ways, it feels more clear
to me about how to do that in an agency

setting where it's a client and
social worker.

Unless we can understand how to do it in
an educational setting like we have here.

Where there's been

such a long standing vision of
not talking about sexuality.

>> So that would mean I'm not comfortable

talking about it in classroom or
[INAUDIBLE] really.

How do you change that structure?

>> Well your Dean invited me here.

[LAUGH] There's a good signal.

I'm not speaking for the dean,
but that's one way, right?

So I've gone to lots of social
work programs over the years.

Somebody says, well the students
have been talking about this,

faculty is starting talking about it, or,

CSWE says we have to help students
learn about spiritual development.

My gosh, how are we supposed to do that?

So even just having someone come in and
talk and

stimulate ideas, that helps,
but then what's next?

Is there a next?

Just like we all know,
when we do trainings anywhere.

If there's not a next, people say,
well, that was interesting.

Now we go on with the usual stuff,
forget about it.

So if there could be set up
an ongoing group, like you mentioned,

there's students who
are meeting around this topic.

Let's say curriculum.

If many programs have looked
at their course objectives and

to see where the things around religious
diversity and spiritual development,

which are accreditation issues,
appear in their objectives.

Some schools have electives that
focus on the course, on this topic.

Also, many practicum settings
are in faith-based organizations.

How do we pay more attention to
the fact that those already are there?

And we can draw on that as a more
powerful resource in the school.

So, further, what's the dynamics
in the faculty meetings,

or the next sort of agency?

So creating that kind of humane
interactive environment.

Giving explicit support to addressing
the topic, through course objectives.

Through what kind of courses exist,
through having organizations.

Those are some ways.

Yes?

>> Thank you.

>> You're welcome.

>> [CROSSTALK] Graduated this program,
and so

I definitely understand
what she's speaking of.

And it kind of segues to my question is,
what I find in the work I do now,

I'm a chaplain at a treatment center.

But I was also a dual
student in social work.

>> Great.

>> And even at school here it's kinda
the social theological experience

>> Mm-hm.

>> I wonder, [INAUDIBLE] do you just
avoid that theological work, or

can kinda focus on positive, or do you
actually go after those experiences?

>> Can you give me an example
of a dilemma like that?

>> Yeah, like in religion class,
I think that one of the biggest ones that

we got is how religion
responds imperfectly.

So the theology between good, whatever,
and salvation or around that.

You have some students who may be on
either side, or you have, in my facility,

how I respond to that.

Just, what would you do in that setting?

Well, I just say that I think
some of the tension comes

when the conflictual stuff comes up.

And that's something that no
one really wants to talk about.

Cuz I don't-
>> And

I think that's one reason why
the topic in general has been

neglected a lot in the profession.

So yeah, those kind of tensions and
disagreements definitely come up.

So if an organization sets up kind
of a safe environment to really

process it, including educational
settings, I think that's important.

So let's say specifically around the issue
of sexual orientation diversity.

Just one concrete way that I've tried
to help promote dialogue around it.

In this book Spiritual Diversity
in Social Work Practice,

there's a section about religious
perspectives on sexual orientation.

And it explicitly discusses and
it presents different,

it uses Christian traditions
as an example, but

then talks about their parallels
in other religions as well.

So it lays out a range of theological

positions from complete rejection and

stigmatization to the position
which is kind of common,

that so-called accept the person,
reject the sin.

That's a common one out there [CROSSTALK],
to complete acceptance and affirmation.

To many people saying just this
religious tradition's vantage sexual

orientation is so oppressive and unfit
with me, I'm getting the heck out of it.

So there's a range of this, right?

And so then I suggest that the social
worker reflect on that range and

where its fits with whatever
their own perspective is.

And how does that play out
partly with social work ethics?

Can they come to a point
where they can harmonize and

connect their theological position and
the social work ethics in context?

If they can't, I mean frankly,
if someone is determined

to maintain a hostile attitude
towards people who have

non-heterosexual orientations,
I think it's valid to question,

is that really a profession that fits for
the person?

On the other hand, I don't think it
helps when an educational setting

creates an atmosphere with people
who have theological questions and

concerns about sexual orientation
diversity or anything else feel like

they're not allowed to talk about it,
to process it, to engage around it.

Cuz if that happens, that's not
gonna help their growth around it.

I've found many social work students, when
they're engaged in a process of reflection

and dialogue around this or other kinds of
dilemmas, they really do grow around it.

But I also don't assume everybody
has to come out with the exact same

conclusion, either.

But it has to be one, I think, that is
congruent with professional ethics.

And if that doesn't work for

some people, there can be other
professions that would work for them.

There's a bigger question, though,
the social work profession as a whole

is advocating for nondiscrimination
based on sexual orientation, right?

So on the policy level, that's one issue.

And then the other level is
a social worker individual growth.

So it's complicated.

I don't know, does that-
>> Yeah, I just didn't know,

cuz when you came up, you said this
is not theological discussion.

I totally understood that.

I find myself trying to split between,
is this a theological situation

that I should engage with this client or
this person?

Or do I do the whole kinda facilitated
development and treatment side of it?

And I just didn't know if we
could do that back and forth, or

if you think [INAUDIBLE].

>> So that's a good question,
because what I meant was,

the framework I'm taking
is not theological.

But it is intended to embrace
diverse theological views.

So let's say,
within a particular religious frame,

it can be entirely appropriate, and that's
the only way that's culturally appropriate

to work within that particular theological
set of beliefs and symbols and language.

But to impose a different frame onto
someone over here, that wouldn't work.

So what I'm talking about
is kind of an inclusive,

embracing perspective that
includes diverse religious and

nonreligious spiritual perspectives,
isn't limited to them, but respects them.

And also is willing to grapple
with tough things, like you said,

including the macro level.

These are social,
nationwide conflicts that we engage in

around religious and
spiritual values, and global.

People are fighting over this stuff.

So to grapple with that is not easy,
but I think we need to.

>> Have a question,
probably one more quick question,

then we'll have to call it.

>> Okay, you've had your hand up for
a while.

>> Thanks, [INAUDIBLE].

I think you addressed half of it.

But the other half is that, so
I know that a lot of religions and

spiritual beliefs can kind of, accepting
one another and work together well.

But in the case when there is a belief
that there is very absolute and exclusive,

and let's say that your client
is based on this belief system.

>> Mm-hm.

>> And ethically, it's something that
may be based in guilt and shame, and

that sort of sinful nature.

Something like that, that is really
impacting them in their life and

the way that they think
in the way that they do.

To me, it feels like a conflict of
interest to be supporting them in

their spiritual belief.

And it kinda feels to me like
colluding with the oppressor, or

something that feels like their beliefs
themselves are oppressing them.

>> Okay.
>> And of course, that could be my bias,

obviously.

And maybe I'll just have
to work with that, but.

And there's [INAUDIBLE], but
how do you support somebody if you feel

like that thing that you're supporting
is actually oppressing them?

>> Yeah, that's good.

Well, and like empowerment theory says,
a lot of oppression is not just out there,

it becomes internalized.

I mean,
that's a very good way to control folks.

If you can get them to control their own
behavior through shame and guilt, or just

behaving, or just believing there's no
other alternative, that's very effective.

[LAUGH] So I'm not saying we
just go along with that stuff.

But I think it's probably,
I'm not certain.

But I think probably all religious
traditions make some distinctions between

inappropriate and
appropriate shame and guilt.

That doesn't mean that all
members have clarified that, or

that all religious
teachers make that clear.

But that is a legitimate thing to explore.

So what are the effects
of the person own belief?

You don't have to even take

a sophisticated theological
critique with the client.

[LAUGH] But what is the impact
of their way of shaming and

blaming themselves, and
where does it come from?

And are there alternatives congruent
with their beliefs and values?

Yeah, maybe there's even a kernel of
truth in whatever's about the shame and

guilt, but not to get stuck in it,
crushed by it.

How can they transform that through,
for example, many religious traditions

probably all have some kind of rituals and
practices around forgiveness.

Forgiveness is another, by the way, that's
another area of research being explored.

I don't mean that you set
yourself up as the granter of

forgiveness in a religious specific way,
but you can help them with that journey.

So many times when we feel like there's a
either/or conflict between what's good for

the client and what they're engaged in.

If we loosen up and explore,
even within their own perspective,

there may be some resources and
possibilities to transform it.

And that's where referral and

collaboration can help, especially
if you know who you're referring to.

It means someone who's
congruent with that client,

who also can be a partner with
you in the helping process.

Cuz you have to be careful,

sometimes you send somebody from
the frying pan into the fire.

>> All right, thank you.

>> Thank you.

>> [APPLAUSE]