Kasandra

“believe consciousness raising and community work are social work, while clinical practice is a flaccid permutation of psychiatry. Community work is constructive, assertive, and empowering; clinical work is a palliative that subordinates social work and social workers to a medical model which is foreign, even antagonistic, to my view of social work… . Sometimes I feel clinicians are unethical because they are waiting for a crisis to happen so they can fix it, rather than promoting healthy communities.”
― Michael Reisch, The Road Not Taken: A History of Radical Social Work in the United States

“psychotherapy in general and strongly opposed to its use as the major mode of social work practice, we begin with the assumption that both social work and psychotherapy serve important functions in modern life, although neither is fulfilling these functions very well. We believe that social work has abandoned its mission to help the poor and oppressed and to build communality. Instead, many social workers are devoting their energies and talents to careers in psychotherapy. A significant proportion of social work professionals—about 40 percent—are in private practice, serving middle-class clients.,”
― Harry Specht, Unfaithful Angels: How Social Work Has Abandoned its Mission

“Reflecting a long-standing schism within the profession, which persists into the twenty-first century, RASSW argued that “a dichotomy exists within NASW between” social activists and clinical practitioners, which is exacerbated by the promotion of licensing. When all social services are threatened by the conservative political and ideological climate, a focus on licensing undermines the profession’s efforts to fight for “the survival and well-being of millions” (RASSW, February 1,1976, p. 3). Citing the opposition to licensing by such groups as the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW), RASSW asserted that efforts by NASW to promote licensing contradict its stated intent to fight racism within the social service field and were destructive of professional unity. Promoting licensing, in lieu of uniting around this struggle “is to fiddle while Rome burns” (p. 3). The paper also disputed the linkage between licensing and service quality. It added an interesting twist to the growing debate over professionalization by arguing that “under current political conditions licensure may actually decrease the accountability of social workers to their clients” (RASSW, February 1,1976, p. 5). The paper concluded that licensure neither protected nor improved service quality; rather, it divided workers and undermined their job security, as the recent attack on public education in New York City had demonstrated. Instead of fighting for licensure, RASSW proposed an alternative strategy that focused on building worker-client-labor-community coalitions and combating racism in social service agencies and other institutions.”
― Michael Reisch, The Road Not Taken: A History of Radical Social Work in the United States

“The name of the JPHS exemplified how the more politically acceptable term, “progressive,” came to replace the label radical. Whereas in the 1940s and 1950s the term progressive was used to connote someone associated with the Communist Party or its support organizations, by the 1980s it came to mean anyone with views to the left of center. Within this parlance, by 1992 a centrist politician like Bill Clinton could refer to himself as a progressive.”
― Michael Reisch, The Road Not Taken: A History of Radical Social Work in the United States