Social workers in mental health. Epistemological identities and preferences among social workers

ABSTRACT

Mental health has become an interprofessional service. Historically, differences between professionals in their epistemological orientation toward mental illness and treatment have created substantial tension. However, there are little empirical evidence about professional’s epistemological identity. In this article, we first discuss the important relationship between epistemology, practice and ethic and report the results from a survey based on a Norwegian sample (N = 432) of social workers. The overall finding is that social workers seem to be more eclectic than specific in their epistemological orientation and that the eclecticism seems to express epistemological indifference rather than a conscious choice.

KEYWORDS:

• Epistemology
• epistemic injustice
• social work
• subject ontology
• object ontology
• mental illness
• mental health

Acknowledgments

A grant from UH-nett Vest (the University and College Network for Western Norway) made this research possible. We extend our gratitude to our colleagues in the Research in Social Work Group within this collaboration network.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the UH-nett Vest (the University and College Network for Western Norway).