Original Article
Multiple-Reflection Model of Social Work Practice
Kiyoshi Kamo, Yumi Oshita and Harumi Okamoto
Abstract
A new multiple-reflection model of social work is constructed through the discussion of the concept of Hollis’s reflection.
First, the reflection that Hollis defined as a careful consideration of conscious and preconscious pathological factors in an interior mental apparatus by a transcendental subject in her psychosocial therapy is critically discussed.
Hollis’s reflection is a vertical consideration of the inner world and is therefore unable to respond to a circular and reflexive mechanism among vertically and horizontally interconnected mental and social elements of a life world. A vertical and horizontal reflection that explains these dynamics is theorized by introducing the idea of the process of returning light from a surface as the new meaning of reflection, and a new system of social work theory is deduced from this understanding of reflection.
Tomm’s circular questioning technique is then introduced into and connected to this theoretical basis. As a result, a clearly defined system of systemic assessment and transformation is composed, with the system skill having greater capacity to transform reflexive deviant activities among elements in the social structure.
This is a new model of reflection-oriented social work practice.
Keywords: multiple-reflection model of social work • psychosocial therapy, reflection • careful consideration • reflexive process • circular questions
Japanese Journal of Social Welfare, 54(5), 1-10 2014