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When I was a boy, people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I answered, “a druggist”. That was what Pharmacists were called then, and it was what my father was. I gradually became aware of the words “Social Worker” because my grandmother had a friend who was one. Although I didn’t pay attention to what she did or what it meant to be one.

My favorite class in Junior and Senior High School was Orchestra. I began to take violin lessons when I entered 7th grade. My friends talked about playing the trumpet in the Junior High orchestra. I thought that would be neat, as I liked the sound of that instrument. However, in order to use a school owned instrument one needed to pass a test. My family didn’t own a trumpet, so I took the test. The school music teacher played notes on the piano and we had to sing the notes in tune as he played each one. I was not able to sing them in tune. He told me I would be welcome in the orchestra but would have to have my own instrument. I went home feeling dejected. My parents pretty quickly gave me hope. My father had taken violin lessons as a boy and played in the school orchestras. Since I could remember he did not play it, but still had a nice sounding instrument my grandparents bought for him. It needed new strings, bow hair, etc. My Parents fixed it and it was ready for me when I began Junior High.

I became moderately successful and when I reached Senior High became the Concertmaster of the orchestra. When I was in my junior year, I told my parents I was thinking about majoring in music in college. They discouraged me. My mother pointed out there were many good musicians who were having a hard time making a living, which was correct. And, despite my fantasies about bring a wonderful/great violinist, I knew that was not a correct assessment of my level of playing. I was a fair player and enjoyed the sound of the violin.

So, I went to college and decided I would become a dentist. I think I sensed that pharmacy, dentistry and especially medicine/doctor were valued professions. I signed up for the expected two year mix of liberal art courses with pre-dent chemistry, zoology, math, etc. I did well and enjoyed the liberal arts courses which included sociology and psychology. I passed but did less well in the science courses. My second year I decided I really didn’t want to be a dentist. So, I switched to being a pharmacy major. I overrode my mixed feelings about becoming a pharmacist and plowed into organic chemistry.

It was somewhat interesting, but I had trouble keeping track of all the carbon atoms and formulas we had to know. I did not do well in the exams.

Around the same time, I developed a pain in my chest area. The doctor didn’t find any abnormality. I remember him spending some time asking me about my life and I talking about college and my plans. In some way, that discussion was a catalyst. In a few days I decided to major in Sociology and minor in Psychology the two courses I liked very much and earned high grades in. The pain went away.

Social Work was not yet on my radar. However, when entering my junior year, I decided I would like to become a psychologist. One was required to take a battery of interest and aptitude tests if one wanted to do that. The staff psychologist who explained the results to me pointed out that my profile fit people who were successful in business, to some extent law, pharmacy (because they worked in drugstores/businesses), and were also compatible with social service work. He said I could major in psychology but might not find it to be as satisfying. The psychologists I was aware of at that time administered   psychological tests, did research about human behavior, and taught in universities. I agreed with his assessment of the tests I had taken. So I decided to stick with my major in sociology.

A person I knew from high school was in many of my sociology classes. He told me he was going to become a social worker. He said there was a good chance one could become the director of a social service agency. I thought much about it and decided it could be interesting to be in a field where one could apply sociology and psychology knowledge. My friend let me know that in order to get better jobs and more money, it was important to earn a  graduate school masters degree.

My senior year, I talked with my sociology professor advisor about my interest in applying to graduate school to study social work. She introduced me to an instructor at the school of social work at the university who had helpful information such as suggesting I volunteer at something like facilitating a children or teen recreation group which I did.

I was accepted at the university where I did my undergraduate work and began my journey to become a social worker.

Sigmund Freud

When I was about fourteen, our family took a trip out west and visited relatives. A great aunt, talked with my parents about her psychiatry visits for some issues she had and that all the psychiatrists would talk about Freud’s ideas. My memory is that she wasn’t pleased with some of those ideas.

It might have been what motivated me to read Freud’s classic “The Interpretation of Dreams” when I was in senior english class in high school. I remember that I earned a good grade in the class, but that the teacher wrote on my book report-”why did you choose to read something like this?” I thought it was an interesting book and wondered why she did not seem to agree. I never asked her.

The teaching staff in graduate school in those days did value Freud’s insights. And so did I. It began a process for me of becoming more aware of myself, my thoughts, fantasies, and feelings. And, those classic psychoanalytic insights helped me to gradually become more comfortable with myself and with others.

There were many analysts who wrote about their therapeutic work/ideas. Some differed from aspects of the classical psychoanalytic practice and understanding of the meaning of our human behaviors. Particularly helpful for me at different times were Theodore Reik, Erich Fromm, Otto Rank, Erik Erikson, Anna Freud, Karen Horney, Clara Thompson, Franz Alexander, and Karl Menninger. Each showed me that individual differences were a fact of human existence. We all might have slightly different perceptions of ourselves and of other people.

School of Social Work Faculty

I learned much from the faculty at the School of Social Work about how to work to help people. Also, from the Field/Internship Supervisors I worked with. And, continued to learn and grow myself as a person.

Some guidelines which were very helpful were:

Start where people are when they are asking for service and move only as fast as they can move.

Respect a person’s right to self determination regarding decisions about their life.

Support the person’s initiatives.

Individualize people. We are all similar in some ways, but also are different in some ways from each other.

Social Workers need to develop a “disciplined use of ourselves” when helping people.

There were a number of social workers, mostly professors with much experience in the field, who wrote books about doing social work. One of those was Dr. Gisela Konopka, who’s seminars on working with groups I attended as part of my graduate training.

Around the time I earned my Master’s Degree, Dr. Helen Harris Perlman, Professor at the University of Chicago, wrote a book titled “Social Case Work A Problem Solving Process”. It was helpful. However, it later interested me that one of her last books was titled “Relationship The Heart of Helping People”. A recognition of the importance of the therapeutic relationship for help to be realized.

My experiences with my social work student friends and aquaintances began a long term process of  developing and building on my wish and feelings of satisfaction for being helpful to others, as well as my respect for a person’s individuality. My teachers and the people who worked in the social work agencies where I did my internships were major contributors to this process by their examples and the knowledge they shared.

Looking back, my parents set the first examples for me. My Mother stressed that one “could always find some good, something to like in most people”. I saw my Father being this way with customers in his drugstore where I worked during my Jr. and Sr. High school years.

My wife was a social worker. She helped me in many ways to continue to learn and to develop as a more sharing and genuine being. We had many stimulating discussions about human behavior, including our own, and about relationships, including our own. We did not always agree with each other’s point of view, but we worked around our differences. I know I learned much from her. We experienced counseling from the client’s point of view during the earlier years of our marriage and growing family. It was worthwhile/helpful.

Carl Rogers

Not very long after I began to work at a Family Service agency I was assigned to do therapy and counseling with people. Looking back I think I was giving people too much advice, and not facilitating enough of a collaborative approach. My supervisor, who was very helpful and experienced, suggested I read Counseling and Psychotherapy by Carl Rogers. The book was in the agency library. I was somewhat familiar with Rogers from an undergraduate psychology class. The opinions of the author of the text at that time, was that Roger’s  “Non Directive” approach was not sufficient to bring about lasting change.

Reading the book helped me to relax and to become more aware of people’s feelings and to acknowledge them. Also, Roger’s philosophy that humans had impulses to grow as a person and actualize themselves gave me a good inner feeling. And I found myself keeping that in my mind as I was working with clients. It also helped me to feel better about myself.

Many of my colleagues at that time, were not impressed with Roger’s approach. Over the time I have been in the field, Rogers approach gained much more acceptance as an important ingredient in counseling and therapy. A Conference for Professional Counselors and Therapists was held in Phoenix Arizona in the mid 1980’s to honor the memory of Dr. Milton Erickson MD. Clinicians who had made influential contributions to therapeutic practice were invited to speak. Many came and shared their experienced knowledge. A book was published with all of the speeches. It noted that Carl Rogers received a five minute standing ovation-before he even spoke!

Rogers approach to understanding human behavior was considered to be a humanistic one. Others in this group were Abraham Maslow and Frederick Perls. Reading both added to my understanding of myself and others. closely related to the humanistic group were the existential group. Rollo May and Irvin Yalom were therapists who added to my awareness. Rollo May said in a workshop I attended that every therapist should have a sign in their office which says, “Either way it hurts”.

Family Therapy

Soon after joining the staff at Family Service in the late 1950’s, Family therapy was becoming known and used more to help people with their relationships.

I met and was in a therapy demonstration role play with Virginia Satir, who provided a two day inservice for our staff. Another pioneer, Nathan Ackerman gave a lecture and showed films of his work at a conference in the city. Watching Carl Whitaker work with families helped me to relax more and to be more genuinely myself (in an ethical professional manner).

As with the individual therapy/counseling approaches, I read about all of the family counseling ones and went to many workshops to learn how the experienced people worked to help families and couples to better their relationships.

Of course, the  approach with individuals couples and families I was weaving was becoming more measured to meet the needs of the people I was working with. I had become more aware of what some of the professors in the school of social work said about our profession being an art in practice based on a body of knowledge composed of clinical experience as well as social science experimental evidence. I experienced helpful supervision and discussions with colleagues.

During my graduate school studies and for several years practicing as a clinical social worker, I had an inner struggle between a fantasy that I was a great therapist with the reality that I was able to be of much help to some, a little help to some, and no help to some. In my mind, I would feel very badly and a failure when a person/family seeking help didn’t return or said it wasn’t helping or I could see that we were not making any progress. Eventually-it took some time-I accepted reality. I was like everyone else who was competent but wasn’t always successful with a particular person, couple or family.

Heinz Kohut and Self Psychology

In the mid 1970’s I was an experienced clinician and supervisor at another family service agency. I attended a workshop about a newer psychoanalytic approach called “Self Psychology”. An MD Psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut developed the approach. It opened another new way of understanding behavior for me. It was also meaningful because my wife, also a social worker, was drawn to it. We had many meaningful discussions about how it applied to us and to others.

Teaching

I was asked to teach a course at a local, new State University about family counseling by a former colleague at family service. A couple years later, I added a course about supervision in human services at the request of the University. As I write this, I am still teaching the supervision course.

For about ten years I co-taught at a Large Public University a course on Clinical Social Work in Healthcare when I was working in a hospital setting.

I have probably learned as much as the students have. I have continued to learn about myself and to be open and spontaneous about sharing the knowledge and experience I have acquired. I have learned about different cultures. Students taking the courses come from many different countries with cultures different than my own as a European, white, middle class American. I have learned more about counseling/therapy and supervision from teaching and discussions with students.

Change

For myself and many others change is challenging and often takes time. My experience has been that change is more likely to slowly begin when my behavior, thoughts, and feelings are accepted by myself and depending on the situation, significant other(s).

Often, being aware of a need to act differently is necessary, but not always. Change can occur without trying or awareness. Example is identifying psychologically with another’s traits and finding oneself relating more in the manner that person does. As a child I took on the ways of relating of my parents without thinking of it. As an adult I have become aware that in my work, I have been aware of consciously trying to use techniques to help others in my work as a social worker, and when they fit for my personality, they eventually become automatic genuine responses which I do not have to stop and think about using. Looking back, I see my current ways of interacting with others is a distillation of my past and current experiences and learnings.

Social Work and teaching have been challenging and rewarding work for me.

I continue to learn.