Ruth R. Middleman

Groups to Empower Battered Women

Battering is part of a pattern of coercive tactics, including verbal, psychological, and sexual abuse, that a man uses to intimidate, undermine, and force his female partner to comply with his wishes. The experience can be likened to brainwashing. Three sets of ideas seem important for feminist social workers to consider in working with such women: (1) a structural approach to practice; (2) empowerment through recasting perceptions, raising consciousness, and increasing access to opportunities and resources; and (3) using the small group as a supportive agency.

THE USE OF PROGRAM: Review and Update

SUMMARY This paper focuses on what has been thought of in social group work as “program”—program skills, program content, program media, or use of program—and what is now known as nonverbals, exercises, simulations or games, or expressive therapy. Certain dilemmas of the past, e.g., process vs. product (content), talking vs. doing, social work vs. recreation, are reviewed as obstacles to the integration of doing-oriented activities within the major theoretical approaches to group work in social work. Such obstacles have been less encumbering to other professions which have presently assumed the dominant theoretical leadership in this area. Some recent developments in knowledge, technology, and social-cultural forces are described which have contributed to a present milieu that places increased value of diverse modes of expressiveness. The paper concludes with seven future-oriented proposals that theory, practice. and research in this area demand.

Communicating by Doing

The authors define three categories of engagement with clients wherein nonverbal communication, specifically doing-oriented activity, forms the basis of the transaction. Doing-without-talk, doing-with-talk-after, and doing-with-talk-on-top are described in work with particular clients. These concepts are illustrated with case examples. The authors encourage practitioners to connect with the strengths of clients.