Evaluate an identified limitation your colleague may encounter when relying on intuition or personal experience in making decisions about an intervention plan.
Relying on Intuition and Personal Experience
Respond to two colleagues:
- Evaluate an identified limitation your colleague may encounter when relying on intuition or personal experience in making decisions about an intervention plan.
Colleague 1: Carrine
My answers for scenarios one and two were the same. It would be interesting to know how I would have scored before reading all the articles. Dean (1989) mentions we cannot unlearn what we already know; therefore, whether we consciously or subconsciously used the different types of knowledge, it is still there (p.117). I would want a physician to use all the different kinds of knowledge because signs and symptoms appear differently in everyone. If a physician solely used his expertise from his fieldwork and schooling, he could overlook a disease symptom, he had not had prior experience.
As practitioners, we need to use our experiences and knowledge to help make informed discussions. For example, when working interning with Parents as Teachers, some clients would want to understand what validated me to provide parenting information. While many of them valued the importance of schooling, what ultimately persuaded the perception of my ability was my personal knowledge from being a parent. If I did not have the first-hand experience of being a parent, I would have had to spend time bridging differences to convince the parents that I was qualified to provide information.
Home visitation programs had started to get negative connotations because of the lack of evidence and research. Different home visitation programs began to switch to systems that were evidence-based such as Parents as Teachers. As an evidence-based program, we were able to provide sources that reinforced personal knowledge and provide statistics. Another advantage of having theories is that if someone does not have any personal experience with a situation, they can be competent through their knowledge of theories.
Dean, R. G. (1989). Ways of knowing in clinical practice. Clinical Social Work Journal, 2, 116.-127. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00756139
Colleague 2: Ciara
During this activity, I was surprised at the answers that I chose for both situations. For situation 1, I picked 1,3,6,8 and 9. For situation 2, I picked 3,4,6,8.9. and 10. The reason why I chose these answers for situation 1 is because I feel that as a social worker/therapist, it is not our jobs to tell our clients what to do, rather we should give them options on different possible outcomes. Also, what may work for one client may not work for another. In situation 2, I chose these answers because it is the physician’s job to tell us what we should do and in order to obtain healthy lifestyles.
I do feel that using personal experience and intuition is helpful in some cases. It is helpful because it allows our clients to understand that we are all humans and it will allow us to reach our clients on a personal level. For example, I have had a client that had someone close pass away. When my client reached out to me, I also had death close to me. I was able to relate with my client about grief and the different steps it will take to handle and deal with the feelings that they had.
Using theories and research can be effective as well. For example, during my internship for my BSW I was an intern at DUI/Drug counseling center. It helped individuals with DUI’s obtain their license again. There was a particular client that stated he started drinking when he was young and his anger flared. As he got older, we would drink anytime he got angry. By using research, we were able to understand where the anger was coming from and allowed him to take steps to not only recover from alcohol, but from his anger also.
Subject: Masters Social Science
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