Shame and social work in the organisation

This presentation is focused on the connection between shame and organisations in social work and presents some of the outcomes of recent exploratory research carried out in Italy. Mistakes and blame are frequent and common presences in any social work organisation. Being wrong is an unpleasant emotional experience especially when accompanied by the sight of the damage done and when internal or external voices not only blame for the wrong action but also criticise the whole person. The shift from ‘I/you made a mistake’ to ‘I am/You are a mistake’, that is ‘I am/you are a failure as a practitioner or even as a person’ is easy and common, and shame may be the resulting feeling. Even if it may be useful feedback to give constructive opportunities of learning from mistakes, criticism is more often felt by people as an attack and a sabotage to their own self- confidence and this produces more commonly defensive reactions, rather than listening and reflecting. In these circumstances learning from mistakes becomes almost impossible for the individual and the whole organisation. The author will present some examples of short reflective writing by social workers and social work students who made an in-depth structured reflection on some of their most relevant experiences in relation to this issue during research workshops conducted by the author. Feelings of lack of personal and organisational resources and competencies, strong empathic reactions to hard situations faced by service users, complex relationships with colleagues and managers are some of the emerging outcomes from this exploration. At the same time, the social workers involved gave interesting suggestions on how to create organisational contexts where understanding and sharing even feeling of inadequacy produce more resilient social workers and better interventions.