A Case Study in Applying Theories to Practice

A Case Study in Applying Theories to Practice Introduction The aim of this assignment is to show how a Social Worker would apply a Behavioural Method as an understanding and intervention on the case study supplied. I will do this by explaining what Behavioural Social Work is, how it is used in practice, how it meets the needs of the service user and identify personal challenges along the way. I will try to challenge my own views and ideals on the service user, and how these can be challenged for Anti-Oppressive Practice. The History of Behavioural Social Work â€Å"Most of what makes us truly human, most of what makes us individuals rather than ‘clones’, most of what gives us a discernible personality – made up of characteristic patterns of behaviour, emotion and cognition – is the result of learning† (Sheldon and McDonald, 2008). The Behavioural Perspective focuses on the individual and the relationship between stimuli in an environment and how it determines behaviour through learning (Westen, 2001). This is also how Behavioural Social Work is executed, by focusing on behaviour that is observable and changeable. Like other forms of social work methods it has been adopted from other disciplines, and in particular Psychology, but has been adapted to achieve measured outcomes and effective practice for Social Work (Watson and West, 2006). There are four main Theories that are relevant and used in Behavioural Social Work; The first behavioural theory is Respondent Conditioning , first introduced by Ivan Pavlov, who used experiments on dogs to discover how to condition a response after the presence of a certain stimuli has been removed. The second major behavioural theorist is B.F Skinner and his Operant Conditioning , he observed that the behaviour of organisms can be controlled by environmental consequences that either increase (reinforce) or decrease (punish) the likelihood of the behaviour occurring (Westen, 2001). He claimed that the outcome of behaviour was volunt ary and goal directed, and always controlled by the consequences the behaviour would lead to. The next behavioural theory identified is Social Learning Theory , which extends behavioural ideas and claims that most learning is gained by copying others around them, rather than them being reinforced as skinner claimed. That behaviour is shaped by observing others and interpreting it (Payne, 1997). The fourth behavioural theory is Cognitive Learning Theory and was introduced by Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck in the 1960’s, this is a theory that focuses on the way people perceive, process and retrieve information (Westen, 2001). A perception of the environment from previous experience. It was during the 1980’s that Social Work adopted behavioural theory as a method of working with service users, part of the reason for this was the ability of the theory to achieve realistic outcomes (Watson and West, 2006). The learning theory used in social work is a combination betwe en all four theories listed above; Respondent Conditioning, Operant Conditioning, The Social Learning Theory and Cognitive Learning. These are used to enable the social worker to observe behaviour and therefore intervene appropriately (Watson and West, 2006). The importance of behavioural social work is that the behaviour is learned and can therefore be unlearned. Cognitive learning theory focuses on this specifically and its engagement with cognitive processes which produce thoughts and feelings (Sheldon, 1995). Behavioural social work allows the service user to modify and change their behaviour through a process of reinforcement, both positive and negative, to produce a likeliness of a wanted behaviour occurring (Watson and West, 2006).