John A. Brown

Child abuse: An existential process

This paper discusses child abuse as an existential crisis. It describes exostential counseling as an approach to helping abusive parents to become more responsible and better able to cope with this particular crisis of their existence. Three types of crises are identified: developmental or maturational, acute, and chronic. each appears receptive to existential counseling within a framework of crisis intervention. Themes and the basic philosophy of existentialism are discussed. A case example provides an illustration of existential couseling in child abuse. Suffering is viewed as a dynamic concept within the framework of the existential psychotherapy of Victor Frankl, called Logotherapy, which is the primary one employed in this paper.

Existential Social Work Practice with the Aged

This paper discusses existential social work practice with the aged with particular reference to logotherapy. Existential- ism as a philosophy of life has particular utility for social work vractice with the aged as freauentlv the aged client wrceives hfis iife as lacking me&g. ~eveial cases are gesented i d discussed to illustrate the aoolication of an existential framework in oractice with the aged client.

Clinical social work with chicanos: Some unwarranted assumptions

Generally the literature of social work conveys a negative attitude toward the use of clinical social work with Chicanos. These attitudes result from assumptions that have not been empirically tested. Nevertheless these assumptions have been accepted as valid. This paper identifies and discusses these assumptions in the light of the nature of clinical social work and its objectives. The conclusion reached is that clinical social work is not alien to the needs of Chicanos and can be used successfully with them when the therapist has an understanding of the cultural system and can provide therapy within its framework.