Entire section quoted from Early TJ and GlenMaye LF (2000), Social Work 45(2):118-127, 'Valuing Families: Social Work Practice with Families from a Strengths Perspective'. Supporting references have been deleted to improve readability.
Philosophical Developments in Social Work
Although the focus of social work throughout its history was primarily client problems and deficits, prominent examples of other foci also existed. For example, the functional approach, developed by Virginia Robinson, Jesse Taft, and the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work in the 1930s, was centered on a psychology of growth and was distinctly different from the other major approach of that period, the diagnostic school, which was based on Mary Richmond's traditional formulations emphasizing metaphors of illness and locating the center of change in the social worker. The functional approach saw change as centered in the client rather than the social worker, and a client-social worker relationship process in which the client's own power for growth and choice was released. In contrast to the expert role adopted by the diagnostic school of practice, within the functional approach, the social worker entered into the helping relationship "with avowed lack of knowledge of how it would all turn out.... only client and worker together would discover what the client could do with the help offered" (p. 80). The functional approach was based in large part on philosophical perspectives emphasizing human purposive action, self-actualization, human potential, and other existentialist understandings of human development which tended to view human beings in terms of complexity and potential. The diagnostic approach, in contrast, was based on deterministic formulations of behavior in which causal events needed to be discovered and understood before adjustment could occur. The social worker's expert knowledge was used to diagnose and describe behaviors and causes. Functionalism contributed a major and lasting reconceptualization of the helping process by underscoring the fundamental importance of the relationship between client and worker. The diagnostic approach and the functionalist approach are representative of a basic split in philosophical perspective that has informed social work practice since the beginning of the profession.
Functionalism, with an emphasis on phenomena as processes, the concept of wholeness, relationship, and human potential, is part of a philosophical thread that winds its way through one major aspect of the social work profession-- the abiding presence of schools of thought advocating for social change, social justice, and the search for meaning and purpose in human endeavors. The other major aspect of social work has focused on treatment and cure, and problem identification and problem solving. This dichotomy of practice perspectives is based on a similar bifurcation of philosophical perspective that has been conceptualized in many ways, including a dichotomy of subjectivist versus objectivist. The objectivist position, with its focus on pathogens, determinism, universalizing theories of human behavior, and diagnosis, informs the problem-based approaches of traditional casework. The subjectivist standpoint emphasizes the complexity and uniqueness of human beings, the creation of self and choices, and understanding through the search for meaning. Subjectivist perspectives supported the functional approach and today provide the philosophical underpinnings for the social justice-- oriented approaches, such as socialist, feminist, constructivist, empowerment, and strengths approaches to practice. Space does not permit a full explication of the similarities and differences among subjectivist orientations, as, for instance, the difference between empowerment approaches and strengths approaches, or the differences between a constructivist versus a feminist approach. These approaches share similar values orientations regarding the sharing of power between client and worker, emphasis on process and praxis, and a belief in the potential competence and inherent worth of all human beings. The strengths approach, with its emphasis on growth and change, collaborative relationship, and the center of change located in the client, has as its foundation a subjectivist understanding of human behavior and purpose.
Two other current movements that share common assumptions and goals with the strengths perspective are the early intervention "family support" movement based on empowerment principles and "resilience-based practice".
