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[Name of the Writer]
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Introduction
Reflexive Praxis is defined as a moment in the dialectic change, or a reflection and action that is directed at the structures so that they can be transformed (Dunn, et al 2019). . Praxis helps the oppressed people so that they can acquire a critical and thoughtful awareness of their condition. Reflexive praxis also called reflective practice can cast huge benefits in empowering awareness that serves as a key component of emotional intelligence and it can play a central role in the better understanding of the thoughts and actions of others. It is important to note that oppression and privilege act as a central theme of reflective practice (Dunn, et al 2019). This is so because there are numerous cases in which the receiving population takes the social worker for granted. Sometimes, clients express anger which is out of aggression and personal hatred or bias towards that particular individual or ideology. In the same way, there are a lot of cases in which the client receives you with more passion and privilege either because of the thirst to empower or either because of some major similarities. This critical reflection essay aim at the investigation of my experiences that I gained from my social work practice such as oppression, privilege and other feeling how I have gained knowledge about them and how they have played a central role in affecting my behaviour or changing my perception guided by different theories such as Transpersonal Theory, psychodynamic theory and social learning theory. This critical reflection will demonstrate how a social worker is directly or indirectly shaped by the type of responses he gains and the way people responds to him.
Discussion
The social work practice was a myriad of knowledge, taking into account the outcomes that I gained from my social work practice. There are different privileges that can be gained from social work, these privileges can either be social or moral. Privilege is defined as something that can add to the knowledge of someone accompanied by a positive outcome. (Kornbluh, (2019) defined privilege as a set of advantages and the social rights that are given to someone. One of the privileges that can be obtained from social work practice is positive feedback, appreciation, cultural understanding and an adequate understanding of whatever is told to the client.
Transpersonal theory is one of the insights into privilege. According to the theory, it is quoted that one can grow both spiritually and morally under the impression of transpersonal behavior. when one individual is brought in the contact with the other being, there is a massive upheaval in terms of cultural knowledge and better religious understanding (Hassan, et al 2019). In the context of Social Work practice, transpersonal theory adds to the flavour of work and it is a kind of motivation because an individual is brought into diverse knowledge that can play a central role in shaping future of the individual as well as the upheaval in the knowledge of the social worker. Transpersonal Theory is one of the theories that best describes my experience because I gained privilege in terms of the spiritual dimensions of human nature and the higher states of consciousness. According to the theorist Abraham Maslow, two major concepts of human development are self-actualization and self-transcendence. The transpersonal movement is more like a historical account that highlights aspects of a special workers goals. These goals are to understand and get an insight of something than can help to understand the aspects of interactions of human and the role of behaviour. During my social work, I realized that adhering to these aspects and understanding the attitude and behaviour of different people and those whom I am helping make it very easy for me to be privileged. According to Robins, (2019) quoted by (Hassan, et al 2019), transpersonal theories can play a central role in addressing issues such a mental health recovery, hospice, aging, divorce and the human service organization management. People are more welcoming and more understanding if they are guided by the underlying approach of understanding and love. I respect my clients' religions their cultural values, their norms and it ultimately facilitated me by making it easy for me to counsel them, help them learn and then adding to my own knowledge. Taking into account the life situation, that I ever faced suiting my social work experience, I can make difference and compact resolution. In one of the incident, my client belonged to another religious and initially it was hard for me to understand this his actions were the product of extremism in his knowledge of religions. It is obvious that extremism, in any case, is not acceptable and it can be dangerous. So, under the social work practice, I tried to know more about his religions, I self-studied his religion to look for the claims that can help him overcome the situation that he is constantly facing. The privilege that I got was a positive attitude, he started to take interest he started to recover and then he was again into a normal routine that mitigated the social disorders. The theory applicable to this situation is the transpersonal theory.
Oppression is defined as a negative approach to behaviour. (Koni, et al. 2019) According to (Weenink, (2019), oppression is defined in terms of the prolonged cruel or unjust attitude that is faced by someone who is trying to overcome others or the exercise of authority. It is also termed as a state of being oppressive or a negative treatment. Oppression is another framework that is associated with social work there are different types of oppression that can be faced by an individual in social work such as hatred, physical attack and a complete denial of the positive aspect told to the client (Joseph, et al 2019). The theory explaining oppression is the Psychodynamic Theory (Strengers, et al 2019). This theory highlights that all types of oppression are actually localized in the consciousness of an individual. When an individual is made to adapt to or learn something that is out of the contact or paradigm of understanding of individual, there are different types of reactions and all the types of oppression are the result of this refusal (Canda, et al 2019). In social work, there are a lot of people who need assistance because they need someone who can help them overcome the impact of that guilt or overcome the strong negative influence of that regret. There are three indicators presented by this theory. First indicator is, the people who suffer more in childhood are mature before the exact age of maturity. Second indicators of the damage to the inner of people due to which they become more spiritual and considers the social practices as help from some divine source. The third indicator presented by transpersonal theory is that when people are oppressed due to their language, colour, culture, race and nationality, paving the way for harsh experiences (Chan, et al 2019). The psychodynamic approach includes different theories because psychology that sees humans functioning based on the interaction of forces that drives a person such as, the human unconsciousness and different structure of the personality of the individual. The history of the psychodynamic theory is similar to that of Freud's psychoanalysis because Freud's theory acted as the baseline of the psychodynamic approach (Joseph, et al 2019). According to Maller, (2019). The psychodynamic theory states that the events of childhood can have a great influence on the adult life, and it plays a central role in shaping the overall personality. According to Maller, (2019), this theory can play a central role in helping a social worker either to create distances firm the one who is counselee or treated or to get a closer look into the personality of the social care receiver, leading to a massive change in his behaviours and attitude(Paine, et al 2019). It is highlighted that all that matters in this theory is the role that is played by the understanding of the central conflict of consciousness with the subconscious because consciousness deals in the present time while subconscious deal with the event that is the reason of such a massive change. Morley, (2019) has quoted in Strengers, ( 2019)'s work that psychodynamic theory is one of those approaches that can add to the facilitator of the social worker but on the same board, it can be a distractor that can mitigate the influence of the work. In my case and analysis of the situations that I have experienced so far, it is asserted that I faced massive oppression in my life while doing social work because I failed to understand the major guilt in the client that is the major driver of all the suppression and the negative attitude. Also, it is highlighted that the oppression can be so critical that it can lead client to even react physically. If the subject of intersectionalities is addressed, social learning theory can help to mitigate the negative factors that can incorporate intersectionalities, In the context of social work practice, a positive environment that would be free of all human biases and the negative attitude automatically help the client to grow and learn more. It would be much easy for a client to overcome the difference and step ahead towards a positive future.
Intersectionality refers to the social categorizations such as gender, race and the biases of class that can impact the attitude of both clients as well as the social worker (O’Sullivan, et al 2019). The theory that best describes social intersectionalities is social learning theory. This theory highlights that people learn from one another, taking into account modelling, imitation or the observation. This theory is called the bridge between behaviourist theories and the social learning theories, adhering to the features such as motivation. These intersectionalities can be associated with both, privilege and oppression. Within the Social work context, Intersectionality in the form of oppression can be reflected in the form of gender biases, hatred and the negative attitude of the people. Also, in the essence of privilege, same-sex, same gender and same religious background can cause a lot of privileges. However, in both the context, human actions is the measure of understanding and observation that is made. An analysis of the social learning theory highlights that human attitude and knowledge is the product of both classical conditioning as well as operant condition. This theory was proposed by Bandura where he agrees with some compact point that behaviours is something that is learned from the environment and it is the product of observational learning(Donnelly, et al 2019). Also he believes that the mediating process occurs between the two, responses and stimuli. In the coast of social work practice, this theory is one of the major elements that can act as side guideline to teach what is required of a normal human and then how the role of a social worker is different from that of a normal human being. According to O’Sullivan, (2019), this theory is more like a code of conduct that can add to the framework of social work because a positive environment can even eradicates the instinct ideologies. Also, according to (Alessi, et al 2019), it is important for an individual to consider the elements that are associated with intersectionality because they are relative enough to address the situation and achieve the required goals. One of the examples is that of racism because it is found that an individual or the client is not going to work with someone with opposite race then either he should be given a positive approach towards his treatment or the client would be shifted ahead to someone having the same race so that there can be positive and effective communication.
In another situation, I had a client and she was very fearful of the flames and fire. Initially, I found it lack of psychological understanding so I tried to clarify his vision by using different supporting material such as evidence, theories and a field attitude. When one day I made her encounter a flame from matchstick that became so fearful that she attacked me with a vase. It was something very alarming for me and then I studied more. I came to know that the guilt and fear that is built in the unconscious mind cannot be mitigated so easily. Along with it, I realized that she started hating, me, afraid from a many negative emotion but it was so hard to imagine that fear. The social theory that is applied to it is the psychodynamic theory that presents the same phenomena. Another situation from my work experience is that of facing a client who was highly racist. He was very negative and full of hatred towards the people of other races and cultures. On encountering me he was more than furious and he simply got up from this place and rushed back abusing me. It was one of the situations that shocked me and I was speechless. When I tried to approach he started throwing things to me and it was a highly negative experience for me. In another situation, I met a woman who was belonging to another race. From the knowledge that I gained from my last experience, I gave her a highly positive environment and I clarified that this practice has nothing to do with the race ethnicity culture or another association. That session ended in a highly positive way. However, the theory applicable to both the situations is social learning theory. However there are different experiences that I gained from both the situations and the scenarios. Intersectionality can be highlighted in the context of both the cases because, in one of the situations, there is a dire need to understand to fact that positive attitude and rigid attitude are both the reflections of the underlying aspects of Intersectionality
Conclusion
Reflective practice is one of the major approaches to knowledge. It is defined as an approach can help to communicate both positive and negative outcome. Also, it acts as a backbone to guide future action is a positive way so that for coming issues can be resolved in a positive way. These different theories define different ideas that are associated with reflective practice, taking into account that each of the theory also presents a solution that can either ignite or mitigate a particular behaviour. In a nutshell, my experience as a social worker made me realize that social work can help to get knowledge about different things and experiences which cannot be understood and learned in a normal or causal setting. These experiences can then act as a source of knowledge for future when previous experience can help me make changes in the situation. No doubt, that social work is a collection different types of experiences positive and negative having a direct impact on the future of the individual because if a client can attack me, it may cause a huge damage in the same way positive feedback and quick recovery can add to the worth of my work, leading to a more successful life.
References
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