Social Work Commons^™

Uncovering The Intricacies Of The Clinical Intake Assessment: How Clinicians Prioritize Information In Complex Contexts, Margaret M. O'Neill, Ora Nakash

School for Social Work: Faculty Publications

Objective: Based on a single intake interview, mental health clinicians must distill their assessment to brief statements reflecting essential information. We explored how clinicians organize and prioritize the clinical information they collect during the initial assessment of their clients. Method: We conducted in-depth semistructured interviews with a convenience sample of 38 clinicians in four community-and hospital-based mental health clinics in Israel. Clinicians were interviewed immediately following an intake session with 117 clients and were asked about the client’s main problem, evaluation process, rapport with the client, and role of sociocultural factors in assessment. We identified primary themes across interviews. Results: …

Radical Love Unlimited: A Biomythography, Loren Cahill

School for Social Work: Faculty Publications

This is an experimental text of creative nonfiction. Radical love is defined, and its trivariate dimensions are illustrated—(re)memory, ritual, and (re)imagination— through the lived and imagined experiences of the author. She engages in the genre of biomythography through the speculative mediums of letter writing, memoir, and journaling. She attempts to expand the category of Blackgirlhood and Blackgirls’ subsequent sacred pursuits of healing. This work may be used as an intervention in a wide variety of capacities, but it stands, first and foremost, as a mirror for Blackgirls to bear witness to themselves being centered, as well as another opportunity for …

A Qualitative Study Examining The Quality Of Working Alliance As A Function Of The Social Identifies Of Clients And Therapists During The Mental Health Intake, Ora Nakash, Michal Cohen, Liron Aharoni, Shir Zur, Maayan Nagar

School for Social Work: Faculty Publications

Therapists are faced with the challenge of developing effective ways to advance cross-cultural engagement with a rapidly growing diverse client population. In this qualitative study, we characterized the way clients and therapists described the quality of working alliance during the mental health intake and examined whether these descriptions vary as a function of their social identities. We conducted in-depth interviews with Ashkenazi (socially advantaged group; n = 22) therapists and their Mizrahi (socially disadvantaged group n = 29) or Ashkenazi (n = 26) clients immediately following their intake session in four mental health clinics in Israel. We performed a thematic …

Centering The Voice Of The Client: On Becoming A Collaborative Practitioner With Low-Income Individuals And Families, Celia Falicov, Ora Nakash, Margarita Alegría

School for Social Work: Faculty Publications

Despite current interest in collaborative practices, few investigations document the ways practitioners can facilitate collaboration during in-session interactions. This investigation explores verbatim psychotherapy transcripts to describe and illustrate therapist’s communications that facilitate or hinder centering client’s voice in work with socioeconomically disadvantaged populations. Four exemplar cases were selected from a large intervention trial aimed at improving shared decision making (SDM) skills of psychotherapists working with low-income clients. The exemplar cases were selected because they showed therapist’s different degrees of success in facilitating SDM. Therapist’s verbalizations were grouped into five distinct communicative practices that centered or de-centered the voice of clients. …

Editorial: The Use Of Simulation In Advancing Clinical Social Work Education And Practice, Kenta Asakura, Marion Bogo

School for Social Work: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Using Simulation As An Investigative Methodology In Researching Competencies Of Clinical Social Work Practice: A Scoping Review, Kenta Asakura, Ruxandra M. Gheorghe, Stephanie Borgen, Karen Sewell, Heather Macdonald

School for Social Work: Faculty Publications

This article reports a scoping review designed to synthesize current literature that used simulation as an investigative methodology (simulation-based research; SBR) in researching practice competencies in clinical social work. Following Arksey and O’Malley’s scoping review framework, 24 articles were included in this scoping review. The majority of articles reported SBR studies conducted in Canada and the U.S. and were published in the last 10 years, signifying that this is a burgeoning area of research in clinical social work. Areas of clinical competencies included professional decision-making (33%), the role of cognition and emotion (21%), attending to culture and diversity (21%), and …

Biopolitics' New Iteration: Gay Men, Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis And The Pharmaco-Pornographic Imagination, Rory David Crath, J. Cristian Rangel, Adam Gaubinger

School for Social Work: Faculty Publications

This article builds upon Paul Preciado’s conceptualisation of pharmaco-pornographic power to understand the ongoing affects and effects of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) on queer men’s sexual socialities and subjectivities. Drawing from a new-materialist epistemology, we analyze data from a sexual health pilot study in NYC to trace the techno-sexual health assemblages forming in queer life worlds. Our analysis suggests that these assemblages, entangling PrEP and other pharmacological substances, pornographic imaginaries together with mediatic technologies and public health rationalties, are creating paradoxical desires and practices of intimacy that are both normative and exceed rational health-actor logics and normative understandings of risk. These …

Extension Of Marriage Benefit To Long-Distance Relationship: Comparative Evidence From East Asia, Tidarat Puranachaikere, Bahareh Sahebi, Christine M. Aiello, Shveta Kumaria, Tamara G. Sher

School for Social Work: Faculty Publications

Background: Being married is related to better physical and mental health compared to being single or in an unmarried relationship. For those in long-distance relationship (LDR), there are mixed findings in psychological and physical health outcomes when compared to individuals in proximal relationship (PR).

Objective: To explore the health differences between those in LDRs and PRs in a larger and non-Western sample with more health behaviors than had been previously assessed.

Materials and Methods: The present study analyzed the data from the East Asian Social Survey (EASS) comparing health variables and health habits between LDR and PR participants. There were …