Psychosocial, Transpersonal, & System Perspectives
Three human services perspectives include the psychosocial, transpersonal, and system perspectives. These perspectives each have value but are limited in their application. The psychosocial perspective is focused on the way the client reacts to the environment. This perspective works with the focus on how the client views herself in relation to others.
Transpersonal perspectives are focused on healing and aspiration. This is increasingly more common social worker tool. The perspective attempts to help people by building ego and developing the person rather than concentration on the environmental conditions (Woodside & McClam, 2012). While this perspective is beneficial it does not have strong theoretical support.
Another perspective is social learning which focuses on the effect of environment specifically modelling behaviors of other individuals (Woodside & McClam, 2012). By teaching clients to model more positive roles the worker may eliminate many negative behaviors.
While all three perspectives have merit, their use must be determined case by case. These perspectives may also be limited by collaborative sessions with other workers. Collaborative sessions may include diverse professionals who focus client interventions through their particular professional outlook. This is highly beneficial because groups can leverage diverse backgrounds and perspectives which provide critical thought, and creative problem solving. However, the strength of diversity both in professions and in people can be a hindrance to collaboration. In order to reduce this risk, goals should be set as well as communication rules in order to maintain the focus of the team.
The setting of rules and defining of goals can be achieved through a common patient focus that is defined by the patient goals rather than by professionals. While there is no set method for establishing rules and goals, the act of doing so can build collaboration from the start. This occurs because the most important value elicited from this activity is a common focus or mission for the collaboration. Solutions are more likely to occur with this common focus embedded within them.
Another issue is conflict. The challenge of conflict can be seen two distinct ways. The first type of conflict is interest-based conflict which refers to conflict driven by the interests of the individuals involved (O’Daniel & Rosenstein, 2018). Interest-based conflict are often caused by professionals who cannot bend or find flexibility in their solutions (O’Daniel & Rosenstein, 2018). Interest-based conflicts are often solved by simple questioning and offering different alternatives to the session.
Unlike interest-based conflicts, rights-based conflicts refer to issues that people consider to be their right. Examples of this conflict include patient rights or client privacy. These forms of conflict are relatively easy to solve in many instances. These conflict typically occur over right and wrong questions. The simplest way to solve these conflicts is to check the law or policies regarding an intended action.
References
O’Daniel, M., & Rosenstein, A. H. (2018). Professional Communication and Team Collaboration. Retrieved from NCBI: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2637/
Woodside, M., & McClam, T. (2012). Models of service delivery: Online instructor’s manual (p. 56). In An introduction to human services (7th ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.