When I studied Social Work at the graduate level I learned that the essence of Social Work and its Strengths Perspective was to mobilize your strengths and use them in the service of achieving your goals and visions so that you will have a better quality of life – on your terms. (This is paraphrased from a book on the Resources page).

This perspective is the essence of what makes Clinical Social Work different from other forms of therapy. It’s a dedicated search for strengths and then figuring out how to use them well. Look for what worked and figure out how to do it again. It’s not so simple. Look to the Systems and circles around the person – to the environment – to gain information and insight. Look with a wide lens. Each of us is intimately influenced by what surrounds us that either supports or inhibits our sense of being.

The Strengths and Systems essences of Social Work really seeped into my bones as a way of honoring the whole of a person’s experiences in the world and seeing the diagnosis as one informational part of the strong and resourceful person who entered the room for a chance at the therapeutic process. I’m in the life is messy camp and I believe that we need to come into therapy with our messes and our stories …. as well as our strengths. It’s the interaction between our wounds and our resources that makes healing possible.

Sometimes we have access to the wounds. Sometimes we marvel only in the mind. Sometimes we lose connection with the innate wisdom of the human spirit. The trauma-informed Clinical Social Work that I practice will honor the past, present, future, environment, wounds, diagnosis, and the ever-present strengths that are waiting to serve you.