A presentation at Heritage University at CBC Week 11 in in Pasco, WA 99301, USA by Jacob Campbell
Location: Online - Zoom
Time: Monday’s from 5:30-8:15
Week 11: 11/02/20
Topic and Content Area: Effecting Change
Reading Assignment: Hepworth et al. (2017) chapter 17 and 18
Assignments Due:
Other Important Information: N/A
Taken from Rudish, E. (2013) Increasing empathy: Empathy training manual. Retrieved from http://cultureofempathy.com/References/Experts/Others/Files/Marieke-Kingma-Empathy-Training-Manual.pdf
Learning objective: The participant is aware of the fact that every individual has his own point of view and knows the own perspective is not universal. The participant can enter the perspective of the other by focusing the attention on the differences between himself and others and by temporarily putting aside the own references.
[Whole Class Activity] Write the word OCEAN on the flap-over and ask the participants to close their eyes for a moment and let their senses take over as they imaging OCEAN. See it, smell it, hear it, feel it. Then ask the participants to share their thoughts and feeling when they think about the word OCEAN. Write down what you hear. How are the images different?
Discuss with the participants how earlier personal experiences filter what we imagine. All of us have slightly different filters that helps us to make meaning of the world. This is why our perceptions are never exactly like anyone else’s (Lieber, 1994).
Exercise from Lieber (1994)
[Small Group Activity] Divide the participants in three groups of four. Explain that the groups may select words from the list below and participants will write down what the word on the card means to them. Then each participant in the group will read their definitions in a go-round. Remind the participants that they don’t interrupt or ask questions during this phase and remind them that the purpose of this exercise is to see how perceptions vary, not to determine a correct definition.This is also an opportunity to monitor for accurate listening skills and temporarily putting aside the own references. Each group may choose three words to use in this exercise.
Word Selection:
The process may be as follows
In closing this exercise you can check out whether participants understanding of the words on the cards changed after they were discussed in their groups.
“Empathy has been defined as perceiving, understanding, experiencing, and responding to the emotional state of another person (Barker, 2003, p. 141).” (Hepworth, p. 513). Decety and Jackson (2004) describe two basic types of empathy.
There are three basic components of empathy laid out by the Hepworth text.
“Additive empathic responses go somewhat beyond what clients have expressed and, therefore, require some degree of inference by social workers. Thus, these responses are moderately interpretive— that is, they interpret forces operating to produce feelings, cognitions, reactions, and behavioral patterns” (Hepworth, p. 513). Cormier, Nurius, and Osborn (2009) describe that
“Levy (1963) classifies interpretations into two categories: semantic and propositional” (Hepworth, p. 514).
Semantic interpretations: describe clients’ experiences according to the social worker’s conceptual vocabulary
“By ‘frustrated,’ I gather you mean you’re feeling hurt and disillusioned.”
-> Semantic interpretations are closely related to additive empathic responses.
Propositional interpretations involve the social worker’s notions or explanations that assert causal relationships among factors involved in clients’ problem situations
“You have a tendency to worry about problems down the road and lose focus on dealing with your anxiety about taking the exam.”
If you never played Pitfall on the Atari (or have no idea what that is, there might be a problem… )
“moderate interpretations (those that reflect feelings that lie at the margin of the client’s experiences) facilitate self-exploration and self-awareness, whereas deep interpretations engender opposition” (Hepworth, p. 514)
We need to remember that we want to make interpretive statements that are closer to the clients own understanding a self image.
The following are some ways that we should consider using additive empathy.
[Small Group Activity] With a partner, have a discussion about a time when they felt frustrated, upset, uneasy, etc. Practice asking good open ended questions and implementing additive empathetic statements.
“Social workers would more appropriately consider confrontation to exist along a continuum that ranges from fostering self-confrontation at one extreme to assertive confrontation at the other extreme” (Hepworth, p. 524) describing information based on Rooney (2009).
Effective assertive confrontations embody four elements
Confrontation is probably one of the most important skills that you can can develop in trying to help changes others..
[Small Group Activity] In small pairs or small groups, students will practice confrontation. Students are encouraged to consider a real life situation that could benefit from confrontation. This situation does not need to be overly personal or large. Provide a short description of the situation to your partner. Use the sentence frame provided by Hepworth et al. (2017) provided on page 525 to use your partner to practice how you might confront the situation you chose.
The sentence frame follows this pattern:
I am concerned because you (want, believe, are striving to) (describe desired outcome) but you (describe discrepant action, behavior, or inaction) is likely to produce (describe probable negative consequences).
Oz, F. (1991). What About Bob?. What About Bob? (1991). Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103241/
[Discussion] How many of you have seen the movie “What About Bob?”
[Watch] Death Therapy off of What About Bob.
[Discussion] How could this be an example of transference or counter transference? [Not exactly an correct example… but for discussion]
[Discussion] What are some examples of transference and counter transference
Week 11 is looking at how we effect change with our clients. This is generally the goal with most services we provide as social workers. To understand how we effect change, we will look at following: