Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Discourse Of Denigration And The Creation Of “Other”, Joshua Miller, Gerald Schamess

School for Social Work: Faculty Publications

This paper attempts to reduce the distance between intellectual frameworks that inform different fields of social work practice by exploring the relationships between intrapsychic mechanisms, family dynamics, small group processes and such society wide phenomena as public denigration, scapegoating, and the systematic oppression of politically targeted population subgroups. Clinical theories are used to explore disturbing social trends such as the redistribution of wealth while cutting services to the needy, the growth of prisons and disproportionate numbers of incarcerated people of color, societal retreat from social obligation and commitment and divisive political rhetoric. Suggestions are made about how clinical social workers …