Kitwood's thought and relational social work

Abstract

Tom Kitwood is a key figure in the development of thought about dementia, but generally no references are made to his work outside of elderly care. This article argues that Kitwood's thought has much to offer to all the professional caregivers, regardless of the users’ category they are caring for, and to the broader field of professional social work. Some key themes from the writings of Kitwood are examined, namely the critique of the ‘standard paradigm’; the conception of malignant social psychology; the respect for otherness in the positive person work; the person with dementia as a resource for reciprocity processes; the new culture of dementia. For each of these issues similarities between Kitwood's approach and relational social work are identified. Relational social work considers the helping process and the well-being development as co-constructions, in which the contributions not only by the helper (or the caregiver, or the social worker), but also by the helpee (or by the care recipient, or by the user) are essential: both at the same time are helped and helpers, and both are empowered by this. This idea—of great value to all social work fields—is remarkably close to the Kitwood's thought about the dementia care.

Tom Kitwood è una delle figure di riferimento nello sviluppo del pensiero sulla demenza, ma in genere il suo lavoro non viene citato in campi diversi da quello dell'assistenza agli anziani. Eppure, come si illustra in questo articolo, il pensiero di Kitwood ha molto da offrire al Lavoro sociale, e a tutte le professioni di aiuto, indipendentemente dalla categoria di utenza di cui si occupano. Vengono passati in rassegna alcuni temi centrali degli scritti di Kitwood: la critica al cosiddetto ‘paradigma standard’, il concetto di psicologia sociale maligna, il rispetto dell'alterità nel lavoro a sostegno della Persona, la nuova cultura della demenza. Per ciascuno di questi temi vengono identificati i punti di contatto tra l'approccio di Kitwood ed il Lavoro sociale relazionale, vale a dire una metodologia che vede l'aiuto e l'incremento del benessere come processi co-costruiti, che si sviluppano a condizione che ne siano egualmente protagonisti non soltanto coloro che danno aiuto (i caregiver o gli operatori sociali), ma anche coloro a cui tale aiuto è destinato (gli assistiti, o gli utenti). Entrambe le parti, in questa prospettiva, danno e ricevono allo stesso tempo, ed entrambe rafforzano il proprio empowerment, professionale o personale. Questa idea di reciprocità—di grande valore in tutti gli ambiti del Lavoro sociale—è intrinseca anche al pensiero di Kitwood.

Keywords:

• Kitwood
• relational social work
• respect for Otherness
• empowerment
• reciprocity

Parole Chiave:

• Kitwood
• Lavoro sociale relazionale
• rispetto dell'Alterità
• empowerment
• reciprocità

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Maria Luisa Raineri is Assistant Professor of Social Work at the Catholic University of Milan. Her research interests are about social work theory and practice, namely the practical expressions of relational social work at case, group and community levels. She has gained experience about students’ practice placements and students’ supervisors training and support. She works also as social workers’ supervisor and as educator in social workers’ lifelong learning. Previously, she worked as social worker in child protection and she was a volunteer administrator in a third sector organization that manages services for looked after children.

Elena Cabiati concluded her PhD in 2014 and her research interests are about child protection, social work practice evaluation and self-help groups. She works at the Catholic University of Milan with young students, social workers to be, in a ‘Social Work Orientation Workshop’. For many years she worked as a practitioner in a governmental child protection service with families and with adolescents, and young people on probation. She also works as facilitator in self-help groups of parents who have a parental authority process about their children.

Notes

1. About mutual-help groups for persons with dementia, see Burgener and Twigg (2007).