Spirituality in Social Work Practice

Sonia L Abels (Ed.)

Denver, CO: Love Publishing, 2000

Reviewed by Paz M-B. Zorita

Spirituality, loosely defined, has increasingly become part of conventional psychotherapeutic practice, and more and more social workers have accepted spirituality as an integral part of the human person or at least as a potential wellspring of strength for their clients. In fact, the Council of Social Work Education already includes spirituality as one aspect of clients' lives to which social workers are to be sensitive to and knowledgeable about. Gone are the days when only a handful of social work scholars claimed that a moral and/or spiritual crisis underlies many of clients' problems. Spirituality in Social Work Practice is a recent contribution to the mainstreaming of spirituality into social work. Eight authors from different spiritual perspectives contribute to the volume.

The editor, Sonia L. Abels, frames the eight contributions within the tradition of the narrative, "the classic genre for sharing human experience," (p. 1) and one particularly appropriate for social work, a professional practice based on imaginatively listening to stories. In agreement with other social work pioneers of the narrative movement, Abels sees "the moral imperative ... within the story," and hopes that the narratives in the book awaken in the reading practitioner the desire to relate her own stories to those of whom she tries to help, and in so doing, be better able to understand her practice. The editor understands that spirituality is best captured by "a poetic temper," (p.2) and that between spirituality and storytelling there is generative synergy that may lead to new or richer meanings for both the giver and the receiver of help. At the end of each chapter, a few questions invite the reader to reflect on how the stories have affected them, personally and professionally.

The contributors have been social work practitioners or social activists. Each one tells the story of how spirituality unexpectedly entered into their professional practice and how that crisis affected them, their clients, and the practice itself. One author shares how a crisis of meaning prompted her to pay attention to "Angels in [her] way," (p. 31) and thereby encouraging her to take professional risks. Another author discusses finding meaning in the fellowship of clients with disabilities. Next, the creator of Kwanzaa describes the movement as a non-religious spiritual and political project, and several authors from different spiritual backgrounds (Bedouin-Arab, First Nations, Christianity, and Siddha Yoga) explain how these traditions influence their practice.

The narrators, for the most part, recount a crisis in which the personal fulfillment expected from highly professionalized social work practice (or in one case from notable achievement in an academic degree in a prestigious university) began to unravel. Some form of personal conversion followed, transforming their relationships with their clients. In some narratives, the dissatisfaction originated in a personal nostalgia for a long suppressed spiritual life (contributions by Sheridan, Kreutziger, and Logan). Other narrators were frustrated by the felt inability to help those whose worldviews were radically different from their own (most notably illustrated by Al-Krenawi's story). In several of the stories, the practitioner had been, as a child, an insider in a particular spiritual way of life (Al-Krenawi, Kreutziger, Logan, Yellow Bird). In most cases, however, university education, professional training, and further socialization into the professional world substituted the traditional beliefs of the aspiring professional for a metaphysics of skepticism. More or less explicitly in the stories, the narrators' beliefs in a supernatural world were either discredited and discarded, or dutifully bracketed out of professional life, until the crisis. The authors recount the crisis and confess their "errors" or admit to their pain: having neglected the spiritual, having felt shame about a birth identity stigmatized by the dominant culture or by modernity, the pain of being different or of having lost important pieces of a heritage, the guilt of not having been helpful to clients. To the confessions, an effort follows for relearning or affirming a forgotten tradition (Al-Krenawi, Kreutziger, Lowery), migrating to one different from the one received in childhood (Logan), or re-creating one (Karenga, Sheridan, Soissons-Segal).

All the authors offer useful insights about the spiritual needs of their clients and how to use spiritual resources in professional practice. The narratives are particularly helpful in demonstrating how the epistemological switch made by the authors expanded their capacity to observe new aspects of their clients' lives, and become a new type of learner, less professionally dogmatic, more attuned to what their clients know and find useful, and more willing to legitimize that knowledge. Al-Krenawi's story is a wonderful illustration of the practical consequences of that switch.

However, spirituality is a tricky subject on many fronts. It competes with scientific explanations that legitimize the social-behavioral professions and it challenges the separation between religion and the state in modern societies. More importantly, "neutral" spirituality, for most people, does not exist, but is embodied in traditions (including non-religious ones) that may compete with one another. Attempts to create a meta-spiritual space that accommodates a diversity of spiritual traditions are complicated. They may fail either because spiritual traditions are, by definition, value laden and resist neutrality, or because an accommodating meta-spiritual space may lack spiritual traction. The narratives in this volume do not deal with these issues directly, but the reader may perceive in the more accommodating stories a thinness of language that in the end may be unsatisfactory to all involved. The book, however, is a welcome addition and invitation to the continuing exploration of the possibilities and limits of spirituality in social work.

For more information on this book, visit www.lovepublishing.com.

Paz M-B. Zorita, Ph. D.

Associate Professor of Social Work

College of Human Services

Arizona State University West

Phoenix, AZ

Copyright Families in Society Jan-Mar 2003
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