Enhancing Academic Competencies:Practice Oriented Social Work Research using the Heuristic Paradigm

Vytautus Magnus University Kaunas, Lithuania, July, 2002

 Katherine Tyson, Ph.D. Professor

Loyola University of Chicago School of Social Work

Central Concepts of the Heuristic Paradigm

All observation occurs using heuristics A sharp demarcation between theories

and observations is impossible All methods are theory-laden and

generate bias No one method is superior to any other

for testing and developing scientific theories

Central Concepts of the Heuristic Paradigm

Theories cannot be conclusively confirmed or falsified, but they can be evaluated and improved

Values cannot be eliminated from scientific knowledge

Facts are laden with theories and values Generating scientific knowledge is compatible

with pursuing humanistic values Bias informs any act of knowing; it cannot be

eliminated from scientific knowledge, but it can be regulated through bias recognition

Intrapsychic Humanism is based on the most up-to-date scientific

principles sets forth and is based on a new ontology and

epistemology the environment-system boundary is drawn

around the caregiving relationship is explicitly value-based is free of cultural, class, and gender bias

Intrapsychic consciousness:

• Generates the innate motive in every human to develop genuine, effective self-regulation and stable inner well-being based on being able to cause the caregiver’s caregiving

• Is so powerful it regulates aspects of physical functioning• Is the basis of self-worth, accurate understanding of self

and others, and the capacity to make and pursue self-caretaking choices

• Exists in every human even in the face of trauma and serious self-destructive motives (e.g., severe mental illness)

• Can be developed both originally parental caregiving and, if this does not occur in childhood, through a treatment relationship

The origins of clients’ self-destructive motives

When parents unknowingly cannot provide their children with stable care, the child still identifies the care s/he receives as ideal. The effect is that the child comes, unknowingly, to mistakenly equate inner unhappiness with ideal self-caretaking and acquires needs for unhappiness. As the Piepers write in Smart Love, “Children become mentally ill out of love for their parents.”

Elements of a Theory

•Concepts

•Principles

•Assumptions

Ontological and epistemological assumptions

• Undergird all theories and research designs

• By definition are beliefs• An ontology is a theory of reality• An epistemology is the way that reality is known

Ontological assumptions of non-depth psychologies

Behaviorism: neuromuscular, publicly observable behavior

Cognitive theories: conscious, verbalized thoughts

Narrative approaches: clients' stories

Family systems theories: Patterns of family communications and interaction

Ontological assumptions of depth psychologies

Freudian psychoanalysis: instinctual drives (id), ego, and superego

Self psychology: the self as a subjective experience of identity evolves within the context of the instinctual drives

Intrapsychic humanism: personal meaning structures, or regulatory agency

Bias recognition via identifying the environment-system boundary

• The researcher always chooses a focus, or a system for study

• The variables not included in that focus are in the environment

• since they are not being studied, their impact on the system is not known

Problem Formulation: Using the Literature Review

How have others formulated the problem?

What data have they gathered to look at it?

Where have they drawn the environment-system boundary?

What if you change the problem formulation, data gathered, or ESB?

Central Choices Researchers make when Designing Research

Choosing a metatheory, or philosophy of research

Formulating the research problem Selecting ontological and epistemological

assumptions Defining one’s values Drawing the environment-system boundary Considering controls

Deciding how to collect data, including whether the research design will be naturalistic or interventionist

Deciding how to analyze data

Ways of controlling for some alternative explanations

Using studies with a similar sample

Sorting the sample into groups (comparison or control groups)

Setting up comparisons in data analysis

Conceptualizations of Causality

• Linear

• Multifactorial

• Interactive

• Emergent (Sperry & Wimsatt)

Science has two criteria for ascribing reality to a posited entity - perceptual and causal (Bhaskar)

• Causal ontological status "turns on the capacity of the entity whose existence is in doubt to bring about changes in material things" (Bhaskar)

• Examples: magnetic or grativational field; motives in intrapsychic humanism

Emergence as a causal relationship

• Exists when a system exists apart from but is also dependent on the organization of another system (Wimsatt)

• Examples: in intrapsychic humanism, consciousness emerges from and also regulates aspects of bodily functioning

Naturalistic and Interventionist Research (Heineman Pieper, 1994) :

are differentiated according to the researcher's intentions and practices

The interventionist researcher comes into or arranges the system under study and intentionally alters it for research purposes

The naturalistic researcher is a natural part of the system under study and does not introduce into the system data gathering methods that are not already in place

Some Ways to Recognize Biases in one’s Research Design

Compare how different theories approach the problem differently

Re-draw the environment-system boundary

Consider triangulating: sample, informant perspectives (e.g., emic v. etic), data gathering methods, and methods of data analysis.

Developing a coding manual Take a sub-sample of the data to be coded and

intensively examine it Develop categories related to your hypotheses,

guiding theory, and your initial observations Refine the definitions of your categories and

their reliability with other coders Cross-check them against your research design Finalize the reliability check Use the categories to code your data

Analysis of quantified data

Descriptive statistics– no limitations on sample size

Inferential statistics– Requires randomized or systematically selected sample– Each statistical method has other requirements the data must meet

• Data presentation using charts and graphs with narrative interpretations

Naturalistic evaluations of practice

Problem formulation:– Define the system for treatment– Define the system to be used to evaluate

the treatment– Choose the guiding theory for the

evaluation and articulate: the ontological and

epistemological assumptions, the theory of what causes change,

and the regulating values.

Naturalistic evaluations of practice

Data Collection – Determine how data can be gathered

without altering the natural change process

– Draw the environment-system boundary around the time frame to be used for the evaluation

Data Analysis– Develop change indices based on

your clinical assessment, treatment plan, and theory of change

Standards for Evaluating Scientific Knowledge Include:

Substantive rather than primarily methodological criteria

The utility of the study's explanations and/or problem solutions

Bias recognition Whether the research draws upon such valuable

resources as practitioners', clients', and informants' judgments

The consistency between ontological and epistemological assumptions

Values, such as humane treatment of the participants in the research

Current research findings about infants undercut the following theories:

• Social learning theory (behaviorism and its variants including cognitive behaviorism),

• Piaget's assertions that learning begins with action, that children are egocentric, and that cognitive development proceeds in defined stages,

• Freud's beliefs that aggression is an innate drive and that infants are encased in primary narcissism,

• Mahler's view of infants as autistic and then enthralled in a symbiotic merger with the parent, and

• Winnicott’s view that hatred is innate in human nature, and that children and caregivers inevitably experience destructive motives towards each other.

Three kinds of motives when there is core inner pain

• Motives for constructive forms of pleasure

• Motives for forms of self-destructive pleasure

• Motives for unpleasant experiences (which may or may not be conscious)

•The nurturing process that enables the child or client to develop the capacity for effective agency consists of the caregiver supplying from her/his own consciousness a structure, in the form of a reflection for effective agency, that otherwise could not come

into existence.

An Aversive Reaction to Pleasure

• occurs because a pleasurable experience that gratifies the person’s motives for constructive pleasure,

• simultaneously signifies a loss to person’s self-destructive motives,

• which then rebound with increased intensity.

Reaction to a loss

Self-destructive motives

• use the ache of a loss for gratification,

• aggravating the pain of the loss,

• And give destructive behavior the meaning of pain-soothing

The relationship or process meaning

• Understanding the client’s communications in terms of the client’s movement towards or away from the reflective mutuality of the caregiving relationship with the therapist

• Listening for aversive reactions and how the client is responding to loss (e.g. towards or away from the comfort of the caregiving relationship)

The healing action according to Intrapsychic Humanism

•  Is generated by the social worker selectively nurturing the client’s motives for constructive pleasure, especially motives for a deepened involvement in the therapeutic caregiving relationship

• Occurs at every moment the client, having recognized the superior pleasure of following her/his motive for self-caretaking, including involvement in the therapeutic caregiving relationship, chooses to gratify that motive instead of self-destructive motives

• Outcome: a developmental deepening of the stability of the client’s capacity to have a conflict-free, preferential experience of the motives for constructive pleasure, expressed also in a deepened capacity to maintain an uninterrupted experience of the caregiving intimacy of the therapeutic relationship

Treatment Planning Principles

• “Starting where the client is” – letting the client set the agenda, within the limits of responsible caregiving

• Evaluating the client-therapist relationship: the relationship meaning

• What aspects of the client’s motives are most destructive of the client’s safety, well-being, the safety of others, and the ongoing therapeutic relationship?

• What is the nature of the client’s motive for help?

• What is the nature of the client’s aversive reactions to caregetting pleasure (e.g., does the client need residential care)?

Exacerbations of self-destructive motives are due to:

• a reaction to intercurrent experiences in the patient’s life, or

• an aversive reaction to caregetting pleasure, or

• a reaction to a loss in the treatment

Loving Regulation: An Alternative to Discipline and Permissiveness

Separates out being in charge of the child from administering painful consequences

Allows parents to stop unwanted child behavior without setting an example of causing pain to her/himself or others

Helps parents focus on giving the child a positive relationship as a base for the child’s self-worth, even when the child says ‘no’ or is unhappy with the parents’ choices