EMERGENCE OF a healthoriented paradigm of human behavior is particularly felicitous for the social work profession. In its implicit emphasis on growth-enhancing possibilities for human beings, a healthoriented model strikes an affinity with the value base of the profession and stimulates reaffirmation of principles of practice that have always been present. Recent works by Germain and Gitterman. Pincus and Minahan. Meyer, and others have begun to translate the principles of a health model into practice.' The promise of this new view still outstrips its application, in particular, awareness of conceptual traps, which can mute the full force of the new view, is necessary. In any process of change, the weight of old assumptions tends to color the radical possibilities in the new paradigms, leading to a diminished understanding and application of the new principles. While working toward conceptualizations of behavior that center on health, those In the profession must be equally attentive to sabotage from some of the familiar beliefs about the nature of change and particularly the profession's role in facilitating it. In making a shift from a diseaseoriented to a health-oriented model of practice, recognition must be given to some of the fundamental ways in which the disease model has shaped the view of how human beings grow and change. Becoming clearer about some of the important dynamics at work here will pave the way for a concept of change that Is genuinely grounded in a health-oriented perspective of practice. One of the striking things to consider with regard to the influence of the disease model is its emphasis on a static-mechanistic model of human behavior. In keeping with the Newto
Human growth during adulthood is cyclical and more related to the reworking of growth tasks than the assumption of new roles. A model of human development based on this theory offers an expanded, and potentially more powerful, instrument for helping adults cope with change.
Rationalistic and legalistic influences have diminished the power of self-determination as a guiding principle of social work practice. The authors discuss an approach that places the client's own knowledge of self at the center of social work practice.
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