Psychosocial and Relationship-based Practice (Critical Approaches to Social Work)

“Claudia Megele has written a book in which the emotional labour of being a social worker is beautifully and fully explored. Claudia has woven the raw realities of front-line social work with current thinking about how our psychological development and emotional make-up influence the way we engage with relate to clients and colleagues. Claudia Megele’s excellent book, Psychosocial and Relationship based Practice, is for all those who would like their social work to be inspired by the best in evidence-based thinking and relationship-inspired theory.”    “Claudia Megele has written a book in which the emotional labour of being a social worker is beautifully and fully explored. She brings conviction as well as scholarship to the task of describing and defining a relationship-based practice. We are introduced to many of the great figures who have devoted their lives to thinking about human relationships and what is involved when we seek to help a fellow human being. Freud, Adler, Bion, Klein, Bowlby, Ainsworth, Fairbairn, Winnicott, Fonagy and Berne are all discussed. Their ideas for relationship-based theories, practices and understandings are explained and evocatively applied to a number of rich, detailed, unflinching case examples. The cases are the heart of the book. They capture the everyday reality of social work, making the idea of a well-thought-through psychosocial, relationship-based practice all the more compelling.
   
David Howe, Emeritus Professor of Social Work.  University of East Anglia, UK.    Each chapter explores a number of key relationship ideas and applies them to a case, in place and over time. We are helped to think about and feel things from both the worker’s and client’s point of view. Cases begin to make sense as, step by step, we are shown how to humanise our practice by applying the insights of psychoanalytic thinking, object relations theory, narrative therapy, attachment theory, transactional analysis, family therapy and motivational interviewing. The part that defence mechanisms, transference and countertransference play in relationships under stress, including worker–client relationships, is threaded throughout the pages. The effects of early life experiences, trauma and loss are recognised. And the value of reflecting, mentalising and helping people mend their broken, incomplete stories is described and explained.
   
“This book explains key psycho-dynamic concepts and applies them to cases in ways that illuminate superbly how relationships can be skilfully used to help vulnerable service users. It does this while ensuring workers’ own internal lives and experiences of relationships are kept firmly in the picture, drawing out the agonies and ecstasies, joys and sorrows of people’s lives when deeply engaged in social work.”    Claudia has woven the raw realities of front-line social work with current thinking about how our psychological development and emotional make-up influence the way we engage with relate to clients and colleagues. When we recognise ourselves and others as complex, often flawed but ever-hopeful, then we can edge our way towards being more understanding, empathic, patient and tolerant. Our relationships might then be helpful; our practices supportive and therapeutic. Claudia Megele’s excellent book, Psychosocial and Relationship based Practice, is for all those who would like their social work to be inspired by the best in evidence-based thinking and relationship-inspired theory.”
   
Harry Ferguson, Professor of Social Work,    David Howe, Emeritus Professor of Social Work.  University of East Anglia, UK.
Centre for Social Work, School of Sociology and Social Policy,   
University of Nottingham    “This book explains key psycho-dynamic concepts and applies them to cases in ways that illuminate superbly how relationships can be skilfully used to help vulnerable service users. It does this while ensuring workers’ own internal lives and experiences of relationships are kept firmly in the picture, drawing out the agonies and ecstasies, joys and sorrows of people’s lives when deeply engaged in social work.”
   
“This book presents a comprehensive and intellectually sophisticated exploration of the emotional contours between social workers and service users. Claudia Megele spells out more precisely than before the dynamics of these relationships, and how they might become more transformative. This is the perfect text to inspire social workers and supervisors wanting to replace bureaucratic and procedurally led practice with more humane and creative ways of working.”    Harry Ferguson, Professor of Social Work,
    Centre for Social Work, School of Sociology and Social Policy,
David Shemmings OBE, Professor of Child Protection Research    University of Nottingham
Co-Director of Centre for Child Protection University of Kent   
Co-Director of the ADAM Project    “This book presents a comprehensive and intellectually sophisticated exploration of the emotional contours between social workers and service users. Claudia Megele spells out more precisely than before the dynamics of these relationships, and how they might become more transformative. This is the perfect text to inspire social workers and supervisors wanting to replace bureaucratic and procedurally led practice with more humane and creative ways of working.”
   
“Claudia’s writing is a refreshing mixture of theory and strategy, while also provoking the reader to reflect on their application into practice. Megele presents very specific interventions taken by the social worker with very specific responses of family relational and interactive sequences, including conversational exchanges as well as psycho-social contexts. A detailed focus on case studies over time, combines with a review of relevant literature related to theory and strategy, and with challenging questions to the reader. This engaging book is an excellent teaching tool for practitioners to enhance and inform relationship building skills.”    David Shemmings OBE, Professor of Child Protection Research
    Co-Director of Centre for Child Protection University of Kent
Lynn McDonald, Professor of Social Work, Middlesex University    Co-Director of the ADAM Project
   
Social work is fundamentally a relationship-based profession. This book offers a critical multidisciplinary analysis of case studies of social work interventions from a psychosocial and relationship-based perspective. Providing a description of each case, it draws on psychodynamic theory, object relations theory, attachment theory, relational psychoanalysis, and sociological theories and research to present a critical interdisciplinary analysis of the dynamics and the outcomes of each case. This offers the reader a holistic and practical psychosocial and relationship-based perspective in thinking about and analysing each case, and offers a host of learning that is immediately relevant to the readers' own practice. This book serves as a contemporary, integrated, and highly valuable reference and resource for social work students and practitioners as well as students and practitioners from allied professions, such as health, occupational therapists, nursing, psychotherapy and counselling, who may be interested in a psychosocial and relationship-based understanding of their own cases and interaction with their own clients/user of services.