Existentialism and Social Work

Neil Thompson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351937818
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

Existentialism and Social Work provides a clearly-expressed and well-argued exposition of Sartrean existentialism as a theory base for social work practice. It introduces the key concepts and themes of the philosophy and relates them to social welfare theory and practice. Existentialism is a valuable means of making sense of many of the complexities, contradictions and dilemmas which social work staff encounter. The book explores the relationship between theory and practice and examines how existentialism can help to bridge the gap. A number of theoretical perspectives are evaluated from an existentialist perspective and links are drawn between Sartre's philosophy and aspects of commonly used theories and methods. But this is not simply a theoretical analysis. Neil Thompson also explores the use of existentialism as a guide to day-to-day practice and draws up a set of Principles for Practice. The ultimate aim is to present existentialism as a concrete philosophy of praxis.

1 Introduction

For many years now social work has been going through a period of change and turmoil brought about in no small part by the breakdown of consensus over the role of welfare in society which has emerged as a result of the rise of New Right ideology and a stronger focus on market economy and individualism (see, for example, Loney et al., 1991, Part III).

For many, it has felt as though the very basis of social work has been threatened by a political climate hostile to the development of state welfare services to cater for vulnerable and disadvantaged groups in society. In this context, it would therefore not be surprising if there were to be strong resistance to yet more talk of change. Despite this background, this text proposes a new way of looking at social work theory and practice.

I feel it is worth putting these ideas forward because they give a framework which can help to deal with change. In fact it is a basic premise of the existentialist approach that change, doubt and uncertainty are fundamental aspects not only of social work in particular, but of human existence in general.

Clearly it would be pointless and counter-productive to turn our backs on these issues and hope they will simply go away if we ignore them. We need a philosophy which can equip us to come to terms with such basic problems. In many respects existentialism can meet this need. This study is an exploration of the possibilities of applying existentialist philosophy to social work.

No doubt the term ‘philosophy’ will cause a few eyebrows to be raised as this is often identified with high-brow ideas largely irrelevant to the real world and expressed in elitist jargon. Existentialism is not entirely free of such criticism, but its roots are very firmly based in day to day reality. Moreover, as a philosophy which lays great emphasis on subjective experience it is more readily compatible with actual practice than ‘objective’ social science can be. These are important points which will be dealt with in greater detail in Chapters 2 and 3.

The existentialist framework is one amongst many which can be used to try and understand social work and so it is necessary to establish what existentialism can offer which other paradigms fail to achieve. This is one of the primary aims of the study - to present existentialism as a theoretical approach to social work practice, policy and philosophy. This will entail an analysis of the dominant practice models and their strengths and weaknesses. The focus of such analysis will be the multiplicity of assumptions - methodological, ontological, epistemological and political - which underlie social work theory and practice. These assumptions are, I believe, key aspects of the many conceptual frameworks discernible in the literature - psychodynamics, behaviourism, systems theory and so on.

Some of these assumptions are explicitly formulated but more often they are implicit and therefore unquestioned. Gouldner (1971) recognised the importance of the assumptions underlying sociology and tried to clarify them. He described them as ‘domain’ assumptions:

Domain assumptions are the background assumptions applied only to members of a single domain; they are, in effect, the metaphysics of a domain. Domain assumptions about man and society might include, for example, dispositions to believe that men are rational or irrational; that society is precarious or fundamentally stable; that social problems will correct themselves without planned intervention; that human behaviour is unpredictable; that man’s true humanity resides in his feelings and sentiments. (p.31)¹

Social work is an agglomerative pot-pourri of assumptions as we shall see below in Chapter 3. For our purposes, the main assumptions to be questioned are the model of the person, the model of society and the nature of science. The ‘model of the person’ is an important concept drawn from John Shotter (1975)² and I shall be extending this to take fuller account of existentialist ontology. This is a point of particular importance as ontology - the study of being - is a dimension so frequently omitted from theoretical studies. Questions about the nature of human existence are of course complex and intricate and so it is not surprising that they are conveniently sidestepped wherever possible. Nonetheless, they are crucial issues as they impinge on our thinking about so many other important aspects of social life.

Questions about the nature of society are also fundamental to social work theory and practice. The main distinction to help our analysis here is the opposition between consensus models (for example, functionalism) and conflict models (for example, marxism). The implications of the two types of model will be examined in order to assess their relative degree of appropriateness to an understanding of social work. The model of society is an important aspect of how modern social work has developed from Victorian philanthropy. We shall touch on this again in Chapter 6.

The nature of science also raises important questions about epistemology - the study of knowledge. Like ontology, epistemology is a subtle and hard to grasp field of enquiry and also one which is frequently avoided. Again I feel it is important to tackle these issues in order to gain a deeper understanding of people and problems. Turning our backs on questions of what constitutes valid knowledge hampers the progress of theoretical development and causes confusion in practice. The knowledge base of social work and the relationship between theory and practice are significant areas of debate and yet epistemology remains a rare word in the social work literature.

The neglect of so many relevant points can be seen as a major contribution to the unacceptably wide gap between theory and practice. The inability of existing theoretical perspectives to account for the various dimensions of social work leads to a mistrust of theories which seem far removed from the complex reality of practice. As a result we have a polarisation between theory and practice. The two are looked upon as distinct entities tenuously related rather than two sides of the same coin. Such a polarity is fraught with a number of dangers. Devaluing theory and separating it off from practice reduces social work to ‘common sense’ rather than a theory-based professional³ activity (Sibeon, 1991a). It is also not without significance that such a split discourages a critical awareness and distracts attention from debate about the roles and purposes of social work. As such it serves an ideological purpose⁴. The ‘education versus training debate’, as we shall discover below, brings out many of these issues.

Existentialism is capable of not only generating interest in these issues, but also going some way towards resolving them. Existentialism challenges the assumptions inherent in the concept of ‘human nature’ and the conformity this engenders. Equally, the orthodoxy of social work can be challenged in the same way. Chapter 2 addresses some of the fundamental issues surrounding the relationship between theory and practice.

The denial of a predetermined human nature is a fundamental characteristic of existentialist philosophy. There is no fixed conception of how people should behave or what form society should take. Such expectations about behaviour and social organisation are ideological constructions rather than manifestations of ‘human nature’.

In 1946 Jean-Paul Sartre defined existentialism as:

Nothing else but an attempt to draw the full conclusions from a consistently atheistic position. (English translation, 1948, p. 56)

One such conclusion is the absence of a God-given human nature. Human nature is constantly ‘in the making’, an historical process rather than a static entity. Social reality cannot be reduced to ‘human nature’ as if this were sufficient explanation. The concept of human nature is a ready-made package; it closes off doors of enquiry by providing a stock explanation. It is incapable of accounting for the fluidity and contingency of history. As such it is another example of determinism, an attempt to deny human agency. It can be seen as a hindrance to the analysis of how people make history.

A second major implication is that individuals are free to choose their own actions and enter into a process of ‘self-creation’ or ‘self-definition’. Existentialism is a philosophy of freedom. It takes freedom, in the sense of responsibility for one’s own actions, as its starting point. In the absence of a fixed nature it is necessary to reinvent oneself continually. Our actions are based on free choice and so change is an everpresent possibility. Maintaining a personality structure is not inevitable nor is it something which ‘just happens’ -it is a choice or a series of choices, although we are usually not fully aware of these choices. We tend to develop stock responses but an action based on habit is nonetheless a free choice.

There are many instances of this apparent in everyday life. Take, for example, cowardice. There is no metaphorical ‘yellow streak’ which causes cowardly behaviour. People choose to act in particular ways in particular circumstances. If this is construed as cowardly, the label ‘coward’ is then applied. The action is based on free choice and it is only in response to this that a label is applied. Our anxiety to establish a stable self often leads us to cling to the labels others try to impose on us. We can understand this in terms of a dialectical relationship between actions and labels, or in Sartre’s terminology -existence and essence. Choice remains the key concept here for an essence can only influence our actions when we choose to internalise it.

The important point to recognise here is that external factors, however formidable, do not determine actions for an element of choice always remains. To use Sartre’s example, even the prisoner in his cell is free in this ontological sense, as he can always resist, he can always say ‘no’. The number of choices can be severely limited but choice cannot be extinguished as freedom, that is, choice and responsibility for one’s own actions, is a fundamental and intrinsic quality of human existence. Victor Frankl, an existentialist psychotherapist, comments:

Needless to say, the freedom of a finite being such as man is a freedom within limits. Man is not free from conditions, be they biological, psychological or sociological in nature, but he is and always remains free to take a stand towards these conditions, he always retains the freedom to choose his attitude towards them. (1967, pp. 14-15)

This can be broadened beyond the level of individual action and can be extended to apply to the social and political sphere. Indeed, Marx and Engels captured this point when they argued that men make history, but not in conditions of their own choosing. People are not able to choose the conditions but it is nonetheless people, not conditions, who make history.

Another significant aspect of existentialism is the inevitability of absurdity (‘absurdité’). Without God, life has no predefined meaning and so existence is rendered meaningless and absurd. This is a fundamental question of ontology to which Sartre responded by introducing the concept of ‘intentionality’. He argues that our actions are oriented towards the future rather than simply determined by the past (cf. behaviourism). Action is intentional, it is carried out with goals in mind and it is these goals which give action meaning. There is no overall, absolute meaning to existence (by contrast with religious doctrines). Existence is a perpetual process of creating our own meanings in and by our actions.

A common criticism of this approach is that its logical conclusion appears to be one of quietism and despair. If life has no ultimate meaning, what is its point? What makes life worthwhile?

Sartre counters such criticism by emphasising that existentialism is a philosophy more favourable to a spirit of optimism than of despair. He sees existentialism as a form of realism. It is an approach to human existence which:

… cannot be regarded as a philosophy of quietism since it defines man by his action, nor as a pessimistic description of man, for no doctrine is more optimistic, the destiny of man is placed within himself. Nor is it an attempt to discourage man from action since it tells him that there is no hope except in his action and the one thing that permits him to have life is the deed. (1948, p. 44)

Discovering that one is responsible for one’s own actions can be a very disturbing and destabilising realisation, but it is also a moment of liberation - a liberation from the illusions which deny freedom. As such, it is a significant source of potential empowerment. Sartre developed a theory of behaviour and ideology based on the illusory distortions of what he termed ‘bad faith’ (mauvaise foi). In many respects the concept is parallel to Marx’s ‘false consciousness’. For Marx, false consciousness is a denial of the class conflict inherent in the social system. For Sartre, bad faith is a denial of the freedom intrinsic to human existence.

Although bad faith can take many forms, its basic characteristic is that of self-deceit. People seek the security of a false stability by rigidly adhering to conventions, by looking for explanations of their behaviour outside themselves and by positing a fixed ‘nature’ which they can do nothing about (for example, ‘I’ve always been aggressive -I can’t do anything about it, it’s just the way I am’.) Hazel Barnes, in her study of Sartre’s work, sums this point up quite aptly:

Essentially, bad faith is a lie to oneself which rests on the denial that a human being is a self-making process. (1974, p. 26)

The concept of bad faith and its far-reaching implications are clearly a valuable area of exploration for social workers seeking to make sense of people’s motivations. But it is not simply a tool of psychology, it also casts light on the role of ideology or as Berger and Luckmann (1966, p. 5) put it, ‘ideas serving as weapons of social interests’. Ideology is an important link between individual thoughts and actions and the broader level of social formations. Such a linkage is of course a fruitful source of explanations for social workers trying to understand individuals and their social context. Bad faith and ideology are therefore concepts worthy of closer examination. Chapters 3 and 6 will undertake this.

Sartre’s earlier works stressed the freedom of the individual whilst acknowledging the influences and constraints of social and political factors. His later works exhibit a shift of emphasis. Without abandoning his earlier position, Sartre relocated the focus of his work in politics and social organisation. Although, in the ontological sense, we have freedom which is absolute and irreducible, in the political arena freedom is marginal by virtue of the powerful interests which predefine the boundaries of acceptable behaviour and the institutions which police these boundaries. It is this dual sense of the word ‘freedom’ which leads Hazel Barnes to comment:

In Sartre’s philosophy freedom is both starting point and ultimate goal. (op. cit. p. 141)

This brief comment is extremely important as it encapsulates the crux of existentialism - the movement from ontological freedom to political freedom.

One method of differentiating between the two types of freedom is to refer to the latter as liberty (cf. Jordan, 1976) but this poses problems insofar as the French language, in which Sartre’s texts were written, has only one word, ‘liberté’ to translate both freedom and liberty. Moreover, the two concepts are the same but viewed from different angles.

Sartre’s contribution to understanding the social and political sphere owes much to Marx’s dialectical materialism. Sartre agreed that class conflict and the oppression and exploitation of one group by another constitute the dynamic of history. However, he went beyond Marx by claiming that a change in the economic basis of society is not sufficient to free people from oppression. What is needed is a total resocialisation, a radically new form of social organisation based on freedom, a restructuring of social relationships in accordance with existentialist principles. It is not clear what precise form this resocialisation would take, but this is consistent with, and indeed characteristic ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Theory and Practice
• 3. Existentialism: Basic Principles
• 4. Existentialism and Theory
• 5. Existentialism and Practice
• 6. The Sociopolitical Context
• 7. Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index