Liz Frost

Human agency and social suffering

In this paper the authors are primarily exploring the notion of social suffering within a psychosocial paradigm. A brief outline of Bourdieus concept of social suffering, and a similarly concise explication of the psychosocial subject as contemporarily theorized are given. The central section of the paper looks at some understandings of social suffering that are experienced internally as well as within structural inequalities and power relations. The concept of hurt is considered, offering the internalized injuries of class as an example. Loss is then examined in relation to the severing of, for example, communities and the losses of social recognition and internal esteem. The complex concept of double suffering, in which hurt accrues more hurt and is re-experienced, is then discussed. The welfare subject of contemporary policy and practice is, finally, briefly revisited.

Why Teach Social Work Students Psychosocial Studies

This paper is primarily concerned with examining how the current re‐emergence of psychosocial theory, mainly emanating from sociology, is useful for informing social work theory. Firstly it considers two extended examples of the limitations and/or contradictions in current theory for social work (that of linguistic determinism and postmodern versions of identity), and suggests how psychosocial theory offers ways forward for understanding and practice. The paper then considers two particular strengths in psychosocial theory: the ability to offer a ‘rich’ conceptualisation of the subject, and the equalising of worker and service user implicit in the theory. A further section looks briefly at the recent application of psychodynamic principles in social work practice, as ‘relationship‐based practice’. It then briefly considers some further implications for research and ‘evidence’ for social work. The papers final section offers a discussion of two potential limitations in applying psychosocial theory in practice, before concluding that overall psychosocial theory is both productive, useful and appropriate for social work.

Young Women’s Experience of Body-Hatred: Stigma and Shame

This chapter attempts to get a little nearer to the experience of contemporary young women in relation to their bodies and their looks. The previous three chapters have considered the major themes in the construction of contemporary young femininity that contribute to the negative interpretations of their appearances which girls display. This chapter will report on conversations with young women, some of whom are diagnosed as suffering from appearance disturbance difficulties and some who are ‘normal’ sixth-formers.

Sexuality and Body-Hatred

In the previous chapter, consideration was given to how consumer culture generally has rendered Western capitalist populations insecure about their bodies. An exploration of how this is particularly pervasive for women, and especially so for young women, was undertaken. That ways in which girls spend their leisure time — what they watch on television, what they read, and the company they keep — may reinforce their sense of alienation from and discomfort with their physical selves was argued.

Adolescence and Body-Hatred

As the Introduction explained, the purpose of Chapters 3, 4 and 5 — the central core of the this text — is to consider how the expectations of, and ideas about, young women in relation to various aspects of their lives can produce a dissonance between girls and their own bodies. In keeping with the social constructionist perspective outlined in the last chapter, young women will be considered as positioned by three different sets of ideas about what being young means. The psycho-biological category of ‘adolescence’ is explored in this chapter, the ‘teenager’ as economic consumer is explored in Chapter 4 and the category created within legal and moral definitions of young people (quite often encapsulated in the term ‘youth’ in relation to boys but with no real equivalent term for girls) is the theme of Chapter 5.

Why do they stay? A study of resilient child protection workers in three European countries

ABSTRACT Whilst 50% of child protection workers across much of Europe and the affluent ‘West’ leave after two years, many stay and develop substantial professional careers. This paper discusses research in Italy, Sweden and England examining what factors explain ‘remaining’ for more than three years in this stressful job. Underpinned by a hermeneutic epistemology, qualitative interviews were undertaken and subject to an interpretative thematic analysis. The findings proved to be complex and multi-layered and this paper presents an overview of these. The theoretical framework for the project mainly drew on organisations and resilience, and the initial sections of the paper consider how formulations of resilience as contextual and relational can elucidate professional sustainability. Organisational issues are considered, including the impact of work management, of supervision and of allocation in different national contexts. The paper also focuses on the role of friendships and informal support at work. Threaded through these established themes are more, perhaps surprising, concepts: for example, creativity, power, reflexive spaces and interpersonal relations as explanatory of remaining in child protection work.

Young Men and Body-Hatred

The theme of this chapter is the extent to which the arguments advanced in Chapters 3, 4 and 5 can also be applied to young men. That young men may be experiencing some kind of ontological difficulties in this early part of the century in capitalist societies has certainly been the subject of much popular and academic debate (Kidlon and Thomas, 1999; Biddulph, 1997, 1999). High levels of suicide in young men (Department of Health, 1999), high usage of illicit drugs and ‘heavy’ drinking (British Youth Council, 1999), and underachieving at school (Phillips, 1993) are taken as signs of a general ‘problem’ in young men, though of course the problematisation of adolescence in itself is hardly a new phenomenon (see Chapter 3). That all young people ‘have to negotiate a set of risks largely unknown to their parents … irrespective of social background or gender … [leading to] stress and vulnerability’ (Furlong and Cartmel, 1997) represents a very generally held belief about contemporary youth.

The Limits of Self-Reflexivity

The purpose of this chapter is to offer readers a means for locating the arguments and discussions addressed in the remainder of the volume. An analogy would be: to offer some general comments about the nature of the terrain before a hiker attempts to negotiate the particular features of a route. The work of some key theorists is drawn on for models of how the relationship between the body and the self can be usefully understood. This offers both the opportunity to reflect in some depth on major themes such as ‘identity’ and ‘youth’ and equally importantly introduces limits and boundaries around their use in this particular text. The chapter intends to circumscribe concepts such as the body, which have a diverse and broad range of potential approaches, within a manageable set of meanings, applicable for the duration of this work.

Young Women and the Body: Some Conclusions

The central concern of this volume — the questions of whether, why, and how do young women experience chronic dissatisfaction and disassociation from their bodies — has been addressed. This concluding section will not attempt to offer a summary of each specific chapter, as summaries are included in the text, but will draw together the arguments under four major themes that seem of outstanding importance to how modern girl’s subjectivities are formed. They encapsulate both the kinds of social meanings which form girls’ senses of how they can be, and also the unequal power relations which girls inhabit which will render their access to resistance to these prevailing ideas relatively limited.

Introduction: the Alien Body

The Western world is worried about its young people. In the United Kingdom their levels of depression are increasing, and suicide is now the second most common cause of death in the under-35 age group. (Department of Health, 1999). Fears are frequently expressed that boys seem to be experiencing difficulties with achieving in education and with their identities (Phillips, 1993). That both sexes are using more illegal recreational drugs is an additional source of concern (Graham and Bowling, 1995).