Expanding Diversity to More Fully Include Those Disabled/Differently Abled in Social Work Practice; Issues of Relatedness, Social Justice, Inclusiveness and Diversity among Social Work Colleagues, in the Clinical Dyad and the Community-at-Large

Abstract

This paper will discuss disability as a neglected aspect of cultural competency in the diversity literature and among social work colleagues. It identifies some of the unconscious intrapsychic and sociocultural concepts that contribute to the avoidance of and malaise around people with disabilities in the community at large as well as in the social work community. Personal and cultural aspects of unanalyzed countertransference and transference are examined. The impact of those internalized sociocultural concepts and projections among colleagues will also be explored. Through anecdote, parallel processing, and the literature, it will be shown how some of the transference issues toward the disabled clinician can become assets in the therapeutic alliance, and how colleagues can become more at ease with differently abled peers particularly through the use of an embodied sense of compassion, greater self-awareness and wisdom.

Keywords:

• Disability
• differently-abled
• diversity
• cultural competency
• compassion

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fanny Chalfin

Fanny Chalfin is in private practice in Northampton, MA. She holds a Masters degree in Comparative Literature from The University of Chicago as well as an MSW from Smith College. She has presented and published on the topic of the role of a visible/visual disability in the clinical dyad. She thinks of social work as the place where the personal and political come together, and finds the marginalization of the disabled/differently abled community, even among social work colleagues to be a surprisingly neglected area of cultural competency and diversity.