Caroline Humphrey

Insider-outsider Activating the hyphen

This contribution arises from my doctoral thesis about the rise of self-organized groups for women, black people, disabled people and lesbians and gay men within trade unions in Britain. My reflexivity as a researcher hinged upon my capacity to recognize my new position as an insider-outsider in relation to the university, the union and each of the self-organized groups, whilst the fertility of the project hinged upon my capacity to activate the hyphen by journeying between different life-worlds. This article explores the personal, professional and political dilemmas in becoming an insider-outsider with a view to assisting future generations of action researchers.

Dilemmas in doing insider research in professional education

This article explores the dilemmas I encountered when researching social work education in England as an insider researcher who was simultaneously employed as an educator in the host institution. This was an ethnographic project deploying multiple methods and generating rich case study material which informed the student textbook Becoming a Social Worker (Humphrey, 2011). But a series of dilemmas materialized over the four-year period of the project. First, ethical dilemmas emerged around informed consent and confidentiality when conducting surveys of students and reading their portfolios. Second, professional dilemmas stemmed from the ways in which my roles as a researcher, academic tutor, social worker and former practice educator converged and collided. Third, political dilemmas pertained to the potential for the project to crystallize and convey conflicts among stakeholders in the university and community. Since the majority of research in social work education is conducted by insiders, we have a vital interest in making sense of such complexity.

Tomorrow's social workers in the UK

This article explores the revolution which has taken place in social work education in the UK. There is a new Degree in Social Work structured around a core compulsory curriculum; a set of National Occupational Standards which constitutes the first official job description for social workers as well as the standards against which students will be assessed; and a new Code of Practice which heralds the first official ethical code for our profession. All this has taken place within an overarching framework of state regulation: new regulatory councils have been established in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to oversee these new developments. My main argument is that there is a tension between the minimalist approach to the entry criteria and ethical codes for our profession, and the ever-expanding official curriculum and job description. This tension is particularly acute in England so that the welfare of tomorrows social workers and service users could be in jeopardy.

By the light of the Tao

This article unveils a three-stage model of critical reflection which has emerged from research with social work students and their educators in England. In the first stage we acquire the art of reflection in everyday life-worlds as we process raw experiencing and convert it into transferable learning. In the second stage reflection becomes critical when conjoined to the art of reframing as we access alternative standpoints to reflect more broadly and deeply upon the status quo. In the third stage critical reflection realises itself in practical reform as professionals become change-agents in the world. Beyond this is meta-reflection which is of particular relevance to educators and researchers, and the Tao is invoked at this level as a way of appreciating the complexity of such journeying.

Shadows Along the Spiritual Pathway

Contemporary spirituality discourses tend to assume that a canopy of light and love overarches all spiritual pathways. Unfortunately, the dark side of humanity cannot be spirited away so easily, and aberrations of personal spiritual development, interpersonal spiritual relationships and new spiritual movements can often be traced to the denial, repression and return of our dark side. Transpersonal psychology offers a way of approaching, reframing and redeeming the unconscious depths of our psyche, with its metaphors of shadows and daimons on the one hand, and its therapeutic practices for symbolically containing and transcending polarities on the other. In its absence, any spirituality which eulogises holistic growth is likely to engender the reverse effect.

Evil, child abuse and the caring professions

The aim of this paper is to explore the ways in which the concept of evil has been invoked in relation to child abuse. First, the scene is set by juxtaposing professional discourses which have eschewed the concept of evil and public opinion which is affronted by the evil of child abuse. Second, I will discuss the work of some therapists in the USA whose work with perpetrators and survivors has led them to frame the causes and consequences of child abuse in terms of moral evil. Third, I will draw upon case studies of Satanic abuse and spirit possession in the UK to illustrate that some social workers and religious communities have interpreted child abuse as an outcome of or as an antidote to metaphysical evil. Finally, there is a critical appraisal of the merits of referencing moral and metaphysical evil in the discourses of caring professionals, with a suggestion that a mythical–metaphorical conception of evil could be a more flexible and fruitful resource for therapeutic work.

Face-to-Face: Social Work and Evil

The concept of evil continues to feature in public discourses and has been reinvigorated in some academic disciplines and caring professions. This article navigates social workers through the controversy surrounding evil so that they are better equipped to acknowledge, reframe or repudiate attributions of evil in respect of themselves, their service users or the societal contexts impinging upon both. A tour of the landscape of evil brings us face-to-face with moral, administrative, societal and metaphysical evils, although it terminates in an exhortation to cultivate a more metaphorical language. The implications for social work ethics, practice and education are also discussed.

Grand Narratives of Spirituality: Some Critical Reflections

Abstract Grand narratives posit spirituality as the master term undergirding human history and all its cultural and religious formations; individual human becoming in all its moral, psychological, social and transpersonal dimensions; and the therapeutic practices of caring professionals. This sets the scene for a series of isomorphic relations to crystallize between spirituality and culture, spirituality and humanity, spiritual care and holistic care. The result is that pre-existing frameworks drawn from academic disciplines and professional vocabularies can be dislodged to the bewilderment of those located outside the spirituality camp. The risk is that scholars and practitioners who take up residence inside the fortress of a grand narrative of spirituality may allow spiritual premises to prejudice their research and practice. It is argued that scholars need to preserve the epistemological priority of social-scientific categories in studies of contemporary communities; that caring professionals need to reaffirm the ontological priority of humanity in their practice; and that demarcating boundaries between the secular and the spiritual could enhance spirituality scholarship and the work of caring professionals in modern post-secular societies.