Multi-faceted psychiatric rehabilitation teams and their relation to social workers’ competencies and self-experience

Abstract

Psychiatric rehabilitation social workers’ professional activity takes place within a multi-faceted rehabilitation team that includes other professionals, community agents and clients’ family members and its structure changes according to the clients’ clinical status and recovery needs. Participating effectively in such a complex team work requires social workers’ competencies of adapting, communicating, negotiating and collaborating with other professionals and non-professionals. This paper discusses the influence of the constantly changing rehabilitation environment on the social workers’ professional self-experience and suggests a few implications of this phenomenon and conclusions which may contribute to professional development of social workers.

Keywords:

• psychiatric rehabilitation
• social workers’ competencies
• professional self-experience
• rehabilitation teams

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hanoch Yerushalmi

Hanoch Yerushalmi, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and serves as an associate professor and the chair of the Department of Community Mental Health at the University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel. He has formerly been the director of the Student Counseling Center at the Hebrew University in Israel. He published numerous articles on relational psychoanalytic therapy and supervision. Department of Community Mental Health, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel, Tel: [phone]. Email: [[email protected]]