Qualitative Social Work

Qualitative Social Work http://qsw.sagepub.com

Art, Irony and Ambiguity: Howard Goldstein and his Contribution to Social Work Mel Gray Qualitative Social Work 2002; 1; 413 DOI: 10.1177/14733250260620847 The online version of this article can be found at: http://qsw.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/1/4/413

Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com

Additional services and information for Qualitative Social Work can be found at: Email Alerts: http://qsw.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://qsw.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

Downloaded from http://qsw.sagepub.com by Mel Gray on March 28, 2008 © 2002 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

03 Gray (JG/d)

11/12/02

3:44 PM

Page 413

Qualitative Social Work Vol. 1(4): 413-433 Copyright ©2002 Sage Publications London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi 1473-3250[200212]1:4;413-433;029503

ARTICLE

Art, Irony and Ambiguity Howard Goldstein and his Contribution to Social Work Mel Gray University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia

ABSTRACT

KEY WORDS: education humanism narrative

This article examines Howard Goldstein’s contribution to social work, not least his enduring interest in social work as a humanistic endeavour wherein artistry, morality, spirituality, and values feature prominently. He believed that social work could be greatly enriched by literature and the arts and by what the humanities had to teach, and he constantly reminded us of the need to balance our scientific and humanistic projects. He was and will continue to be a source of great inspiration to many, for through his passion for writing he has left us many wonderful books, scholarly articles and essays. Through his wisdom he enriched the social work landscape. He lifted our minds and our souls and made us appreciate the complexities of the human condition that only artists could truly understand. ‘The social worker as a performing artist has the talent and will to move beyond the constraints of method and technique and respond imaginatively and creatively to the impromptu, unrehearsed nature of the special human relationship’ (Goldstein, 1998b: 250). For this she needs wisdom, which she gains when she begins to respect knowledge and information as incomplete and provisional, ‘when it is tempered by scepticism, curiosity, and perhaps a sense of irony, [by] the processes of

values

413

writing


03 Gray (JG/d)

11/12/02

3:44 PM

Page 414

414 ■ Qualitative Social Work 1(4)

reflective and analytic thought’ (Goldstein, 1998b: 251). There is no better way to understand the art of helping than to read what Howard has to say about passion, imagination, creativity, reasoning, judgment, reflective wisdom, morality, and choice. Such literature can only come from one who has involved himself in critical life situations, one who enlisted in the search for meaning at a moment when meanings were no longer fixed, one who enlisted in the quest for principle and ideal when the codes were no longer given (Green, 1966).

This article is about Howard Goldstein (1922–2000), writer, scholar, therapist, educator, researcher, mentor, and friend, and his contribution to social work. What made Howard’s contribution unique was that he consistently challenged professional thinking and offered ever-fresh views on social work theory, education and practice. My purpose is to introduce you to Howard’s work and to provide an overview of some of the issues that he cared deeply about so as to encourage you to explore his writing. For those of you who do not know Howard or his work, he had an enduring interest in social work as a humanistic endeavour and constantly entreated us to see social work as an artistic, moral enterprise where values featured prominently. He believed that moral sensitivity was needed to ‘compensate for the dehumanizing consequences of advanced technology and highly specialized professionalism [saying that] . . . sentient human beings alone can resolve the radical questions that bear on the quality and meaning of their lives’ (Goldstein, 1987: 181). He also believed that social work could be greatly enriched by literature and the arts, by what the humanities had to teach, and he constantly reminded us of the need to balance our scientific and humanistic projects. He was a source of great inspiration to me and all the students and colleagues who crossed his path in his many years in academia. His scholarly and collegiate relationships continued long after his retirement for Howard had a passion for writing and a deep and enduring interest in the work of those who stayed in touch with him. He also had a wonderful, endearing sense of humour, and his ability to cut to the chase was encouraging for those of us overwhelmed by academe and caught up in its political machinations. In a sense, this article began as a script for a photographic presentation made as a Tribute to Howard Goldstein in the ‘Arts’ section of the Council of Social Work Education (CSWE) Annual Program Meeting held in Dallas in March 2001. The opportunity to submit it to Qualitative Social Work presented a real challenge. I had no idea how I might translate a selection of quotations and photographs into a publishable piece. My attempts thus far have amounted to a memoir of my 10-year friendship with Howard. He taught me a great deal but most important of all he encouraged me to be creative. For many years he entreated me to write about the relationship between social work and photography. I made many attempts. Each time I would send my manuscript off to Downloaded from http://qsw.sagepub.com by Mel Gray on March 28, 2008 © 2002 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

03 Gray (JG/d)

11/12/02

3:44 PM

Page 415

Gray Goldstein and his Contribution to Social Work ■ 415

Howard to find it returned with wonderful encouraging words telling me that it was great but no good. I have never known anyone able to put me down as lightly as him. Once he wrote in truly characteristic fashion, I truly enjoyed your work (not yet an essay – more of an account) – but it is really the start of something big that I hope you will continue to work out. I can’t resist using the term that I borrow from the most instructive book on writing (Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird – you have to get it, can’t write without it) a shitty first draft: As she says, ‘All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific thirds drafts’. (For me it is often 5th, 6th, etc. drafts). The peculiar problem in writing the personal essay is that as you get closer to the deeper, inner core of the work (the personal) you are that much farther removed from your own good judgment and ‘objectivity’. It is easy to get so enamoured with your own rhetoric that you lose sight of the big picture – like, in photography, being fascinated with a lovely flower or child and not seeing the old beer can in the background. . . . your ideas on creativity and the relation of photography and social work are lovely and what you should be writing about. Junk everything else – it only detracts discursively from the essential topic. Try to develop it as best you can as a shitty first draft: just do what you can do. Write what you can and then put it aside for a few days and look at it again.

As I sifted through his comments I would find my 20 pages reduced to 3 and, as the song goes, I’d pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again. The particular piece on which he was commenting was finally published as a segment on writing for a journal some five years later when he was Editor of Families in Society (Gray, 1999). Over the years of my friendship with Howard there were many instances of serendipity, and the sequence of events that led to the writing of this article was one of them. While I have yet to meet the challenge of transforming my words and pictures into text, I have instead written about Howard’s lasting contribution to social work, beginning with this brief narrative of how he became so important to me personally, then providing a summary of Howard’s social work education in his own words, and lastly, through my collection of his selected writing about various issues in relation to social work. Themes that constitute constant threads in his work relate to social work and the arts and humanities, social work as a humanistic endeavour, social work as narrative, social work as art, social work education, social work writing, personal growth, and spirituality. However, I think that most of all Howard would like to be remembered as a storyteller. His writing was filled with personal anecdote, digression, and sensitivity, with great attention to detail and exactness (Ruth Dean in the Foreword to Experiential Learning [Goldstein, 2001]). I hope I am able to do justice to a man who enriched my life immeasurably. Downloaded from http://qsw.sagepub.com by Mel Gray on March 28, 2008 © 2002 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

03 Gray (JG/d)

11/12/02

3:44 PM

Page 416


When Howard was working on his last book on Experiential Learning, published posthumously by CSWE (Goldstein, 2001), I had just moved from South Africa to Australia to take up a position as Professor of Social Work in Newcastle, New South Wales. Howard had encouraged me in my decision to make the gigantic step in moving countries so he was closely monitoring my progress, providing me with just the right dose of encouragement I needed. It was a good decision for at Newcastle I discovered the most creative social work programme imaginable where the course is taught experientially. I wrote excitedly to Howard to tell him about my discovery. Imagine my surprise when I learnt that he was writing a book on experiential learning. He was equally excited because he was looking for examples of experiential social work education models and there I was able to provide him exactly what he needed. These serendipitous experiences kept leaving me feeling as though I was being guided in some way and I feel that way even more now when I keep having experiences that link me ever more closely to Howard. I feel as though I am part of a tapestry that is being woven by the network of relationships Howard forged with people across the world. In October 2000, the last time I saw him, he gave me the ultimate gift. He introduced me to a group of people, many of whom he had told me about over the years and whose work he had directed me to. He bequeathed to me those whom he valued most highly. Together we talked about spirituality, strengths, constructivism, and social work as art. Howard also gave me an unpublished manuscript called ‘The Arts and Ironies of Understanding’ (Goldstein, 1999b), which I will draw from where it enlightens on his contribution to social work. Perhaps it is appropriate to begin with a piece from this manuscript in which Howard talks about his own social work education and the ideas that shaped him.

HOWARD’S SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION IN HIS OWN WORDS1 ‘Although I didn’t know it at the time, my own social work education in the early 1950s was in what is now called the “narrative mode”. Following the lead of the other helping professions, social work was striving for a scientific posture. But the social sciences were just then, as the saying goes, “getting their act together”. Role theory, social systems theory and other formulations about individual and social behavior could barely be spotted on the horizon. Thus we had to rely on what were essentially “stories” as the source for our learning: case studies, process recordings of interviews, Freud’s famous patients, Jung’s journeys into the shadow world, to name a few. With the absence of grand theories, there was a relative absence of lectures. Years later when I began teaching, I dug out my casework class notebooks hoping to find something I could use: they were blank, empty. Our classes were, in effect, hermeneutic exercises within which we discussed, debated and searched for meanings in the cases Downloaded from http://qsw.sagepub.com by Mel Gray on March 28, 2008 © 2002 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

03 Gray (JG/d)

11/12/02

3:44 PM

Page 417


we presented or were given for analysis. The classes were supposed to be ‘scientific’ forums: they were, experientially, an adventure into the literature, drama or other aspects of the humanities . . . But like my cohorts, I was easily persuaded and socialized by my profession’s unruffled identification with the rules of objectivity: I became stoical and detached – or at least assumed the professional demeanor that made it look as if I were. I say that these events appear ironic on looking back, but at the time (and at present as well) it seemed natural since education and practice were devoid of the root metaphors of the arts and humanities. If anyone, in fact, were radical enough to be an advocate for the role of literature or drama, this wouldn’t necessarily arouse opposition – only blankness or puzzlement. ‘Thus I was probably primed for a determining moment that happened some thirty years ago. It was, to be sure, an unlikely event, since it occurred at an annual meeting of educators where determining moments are exceptionally rare. By that time I had progressed from direct practice into and through doctoral education and was now an entry-level member of the professoriate, struggling with the question, what to teach? All I can report about the three-day program was one presentation – not by a professional colleague, but by an outsider, an associate professor of English at the Teachers College, Columbia University, named Maxine Greene. The title was The Humanities and Social Work Education.2 I cannot recall the size of the audience or the other members of the panel. But from the outset of her presentation, it was one of those rare ‘Oh. Yes!’ moments when you hear the words that exactly articulate what you know so deeply but cannot express. For only when we can name and define something is it possible to give it meaning and form: and humanities became the term that I could now own (albeit at that time with some uncertainty about what it implied) and rely on to explain my former intuitions about understanding and practice. ‘Dr. Greene proposed that literature offers the opportunity to become engaged in critical life situations in symbolic ways and to discover what they mean: it is the kind of experience that stirs one to turn back into herself and her “reality”. Where else can one look for ways of pondering questions not answerable by factual statements, nor soluble through formal or empirical inquiry? She spoke of times when, in working with clients, the helper cannot take refuge in methods, anonymity and distance, when dependable understanding seems just beyond reach, when one has to take the risk of choice, assert one’s identity and values, without certainty or verification. Thus, she advised educators: In the student’s preparation for the dangerous world where there will be no one to give him orders, he requires the development of his sensibilities that the arts can provide. He needs opportunities to participate imaginatively in the kinds of


03 Gray (JG/d)

11/12/02

3:44 PM

Page 418


formed experiences that engages him wholly as an intelligent and emotional being, that possess the special potentiality of revealing him to himself . . . He needs to dredge up the queer, unanswerable questions which are philosophical, so that he can orient himself in the days to come, find his own perspective . . . This is what it means to be enlisted in the search for meaning at a moment when meanings are no longer fixed. This is what it means to be enlisted in the quest for principle and ideal, when the codes are no longer “given”.’

SOCIAL WORK AND THE HUMANITIES The arts and humanities deserve attention as a valuable means for tempering and humanizing our methods, for drawing closer to wisdom. (Goldstein, 1997a: 31)

The value of the arts and humanities to social work is a constant theme in Howard’s work (Goldstein, 1986a, 1987, 1988, 1990a, 1992, 1993a, 1999a, 2001). He saw the humanities as best illustrating the ‘ironies paradoxes, and their alltoo-human idiosyncracies [sic]’ (Goldstein, 1997a: 21) of life. He was an avid reader and enjoyed non-professional as much as, if not more than, professional literature – autobiography, narrative, allegory, poetry, novels, and essays offer a ‘rich and bountiful – and empirical, if you will’ (Goldstein, 1997a: 22) source of information about the human predicament. He cited Albert Murray in describing, ‘the social function of literature, of all art, [as being] to help the individual come to terms with himself upon the earth, to help him confront the deepest, most complex questions of life’ (Goldstein, 1997a: 31). Classical literature and drama offered more vivid depictions of life’s perplexing dilemmas than the social and behavioural sciences. If practitioners listened carefully, clients caught in moral deadlocks would tell their unsettled stories each in their own way. In fact, he said, each moral conflict is a story in its own right. Thus for Howard,‘a truly humanistic form of practice calls for a greater regard for a neglected practice principle, that is, the need for careful and sensitive regard for the moral and spiritual convictions of clients’ (Goldstein, 1987: 182).

SOCIAL WORK AS A HUMANISTIC ENDEAVOUR The process of helping embodies what is variously called an inductive, creative, intuitive, or artistic dimension that express humanistic concerns with values, morals and beliefs. (Goldstein, 1999b: 5)

Howard contributed actively to ongoing empiricist-humanist debates (see, for example, Goldstein, 1990a, 1992, 1993a). He saw science and the humanities as offering ‘ongoing discourse about how we do or are supposed to make sense of the world we inhabit. Science strives increasingly to find order in a universe Downloaded from http://qsw.sagepub.com by Mel Gray on March 28, 2008 © 2002 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

03 Gray (JG/d)

11/12/02

3:44 PM

Page 419


it has come to discover as increasingly complex; the humanities and its literature and art strive to express the human situation – where we are in that universe as sentient human beings. Each – science and the humanities – informs the other’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 43). Although he tried to take a balanced view, he almost certainly was a greater advocate of the humanistic side of social work possibly due to his constant concern about trends to over-value its technical–rational aspects. By humanistic he meant ‘spontaneously and openly responsive to the here-and-now of meaning and being and responsibility, to strength, spirit, and resilience, to what might have been, and to the pathological defenses and defects that shrink the human soul’ (Goldstein, 1997a: 26). He cited Berlin’s argument that ‘even laws based on a large collection of empirical data or on hypothetico-deductive methods are not readily applicable to the complexity, the variousness, and peculiarities of human affairs’ (Goldstein, 1997a: 31). He saw qualitative research as consistent with social work’s humanistic approach and as a relevant mode of inquiry for the forms of knowledge such an approach valued, including the importance of values, ethics, spirituality, aesthetics, and culture (Goldstein, 1986b, 1991, 1993c). In an editorial entitled Poetry and Practice, Howard wrote that the human situation was the focus of social work and that however one made sense of this, it fell ‘across a continuum of types of understanding that, at one extreme, might be called scientific, at the other, artistic’ (Goldstein, 2000: 236). While acknowledging that the ‘boundaries distinguishing science from art [were] artificial’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 18) and recognizing that the arts and sciences were interrelated cultures that enriched and complemented one another (Goldstein, 1999b: 2), he nevertheless speculated about the consequences of social work practice driven by these two extremes. He attributed a ‘high degree of literality’ to the scientific culture embodied in inter alia quantitative, empirical and outcome studies, straightforward reports, and the DSM diagnostic categories,3 all of which were ‘ “top-down” in nature, providing the reader with more or less definitive conclusions’ (Goldstein, 2000: 236) based on expert opinion. By way of contrast the qualitative, artistic dimension was more nuanced, less certain, more subjective and interpretive, and embraced ‘the implications of irony, moral choice, and faith . . . the idiosyncrasies of language and individual perspectives . . . and diversity and culture’ (Goldstein, 2000: 236). It was ‘ “bottom-up” in nature; the authors generally unbridled by preconception, allow their curiosity to discover the relative enigmas of individual, family and community life’ (Goldstein, 2000: 236). Ethnographic and case study research provide scope for the artistry needed for clients to tell their stories for they depend ‘on a way of thinking that unexpectedly can reach beyond the obvious and reveal what could not have been predicted. Such artistry does not negate the rigors of scientific thinking; art in special cases is an attribute of great science and science in many ways always has informed art. Neither does the art of understanding dismiss the role of Downloaded from http://qsw.sagepub.com by Mel Gray on March 28, 2008 © 2002 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

03 Gray (JG/d)

11/12/02

3:44 PM

Page 420


theory: bereft of theory, we would be groping our way through an inscrutable world. Not as a replacement or compromise but as a complement, artistry in understanding invites the creative and imaginative powers of subjectivity rather than rejecting them as undesirable contaminants of the purity of truth’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 5). In science ‘sober rationality, and careful analysis and not artistry are the prime attributes’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 5). The situations that social workers encounter require ‘a measure of personal experience blended with a special art and aptitude that, in some instances, may overrule or disarm what seems to be an appropriate theory’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 6). It was this grounded approach that Howard favoured where the true test of a good theory was its relevance to practice, where social workers and clients were ‘partners in discovery’ (Goldstein, 1991: 101). He saw research as a means rather than an end in itself and perceived a ‘reasonable kinship’ (Goldstein, 1991: 102) between qualitative inquiry and social work practice, especially in the ‘qualitative methods of participant-observation, in-depth interviewing, and life-history gathering research’ (Goldstein, 1991: 102), all of which were commonly used by social work practitioners in their work with clients, albeit for different purposes. He described qualitative research as having a ‘special character’ which ‘enables us to know in a more profound way. The talent of social work is not solely technical: it is, as well, artistic and philosophic . . . we quickly learn that the peculiar dilemmas and moral questions we encounter call for fresh and creative ways of understanding’ (Goldstein, 1991: 104). Hence, the problem under study should determine the methods used. ‘We must be wary of putting the proverbial cart before the horse – that is, allowing our preferred method to determine not only how we approach the problem we wish to study but how we define it in the first place’ (Goldstein, 1991: 102). As in all aspects of social work, Howard valued creativity in research calling for flexibility and responsiveness to the person-insituation, and ‘vigilant reflection’ (Goldstein, 1991: 105) as we attempt to make sense of or construct meaning from our conversations, dialogues, observations, and involvement in the research process (Goldstein, 1991).

SOCIAL WORK AS NARRATIVE There are responsible professionals who have come to terms with the meaning and importance of their faith and artistry and who are open to, intrigued by, the open-ended, ironic, and narrative qualities of their clients’ lives. (Goldstein, 1999b: 4)

In a sense each and every client’s predicament constitutes a ‘story, which will characterize the protagonists and antagonists that created the drama . . . At the core of this narrative is a moral theme of some kind that infuses the drama Downloaded from http://qsw.sagepub.com by Mel Gray on March 28, 2008 © 2002 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

03 Gray (JG/d)

11/12/02

3:44 PM

Page 421


with its own urgent and trenchant meanings’ (Goldstein, 1987: 182). Thus he says, ‘when it comes to understanding, the narrative can say – albeit often cryptically – much about how the teller wants to be known and treated, and where the teller stands in the larger world’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 7). The story will not be revealed in a reasoned and logical fashion and is more often than not ‘marked by inconsistencies and disguised by metaphors, allusions, and analogies of all sorts’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 183), many of which were ‘an expression of the need to ease the weight of a moral conscience and to preserve self-esteem’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 184). Thus Howard believed that problem-solving perspectives of professional helping, which led us to believe that there were rational solutions to most problems, served to prolong false hope, for acceptance of ambiguity and perplexity and the ability to live with inconsistency and uncertainty best equipped us to truly help others. ‘Life’s problems cannot always be reconciled by analytic reason or practical methods . . . one can learn to live with personal dilemmas that cannot be wished away or resolved for all time’ (Goldstein, 1987: 185). It was by seeing the client’s life as an unfolding story told in a relationship with a social worker, the telling of which gave rise to a rich narrative infused with moral content, that we appreciated the importance of the value dimension of social work. The domains of knowledge and skill, and of values, morals and ethics were inseparable. Hence the arts and humanities and not science, valued for its precision and objectivity, alerted us to the significance of the narrative in social work. For Howard, narrative – client narratives, cultural narratives – and the examination of those narratives, reaching beneath the surface for assumptions and predilections, is a kind of research, postmodern to be sure, but inquiry nonetheless; it is research in the best sense of the humanities and research that really inspires more formal qualitative research. After all, that kind of research (qualitative) is about what people say about their worlds, their experience, only just hammered into a more formal style. Howard’s book The Home on Gorham Street [Goldstein, 1996b] is, I think, a major piece of research, a look at the lives of children at an orphanage that was across the street from his childhood home through the eyes of its now elderly survivors. It is historical, narrative-based, and does use some of what now would be called some qualitative research methods. It is a formidable accomplishment. (Dennis Saleebey, personal communication, 6 June 2002)

SOCIAL WORK AS ART Art, as it is expressed in many humanistic genres within the text and dialogue of the relationship, is the foundation for a narrative approach to working with people and their ordeals of living. (Goldstein, 1999b: 5)


03 Gray (JG/d)

11/12/02

3:44 PM

Page 422


Howard appreciated the parallels between social work and all forms of artistic expression, including photography, and never lost sight of the social worker as artist. He believed that the crucial inductive, creative, intuitive, or artistic dimension of the helping process required a type of understanding that, in its deeper sense, was an art that had ‘more in common with the talents of artists and creative writers’. (Berlin, 1996 cited in Goldstein, 1999b: 6) A capacity for integrating a vast amalgam of constantly changing, multicolored, evanescent, perpetually overlapping data, too many, too swift, too intermingled to be caught and pinned down and labeled like so many individual butterflies . . . a gift akin to that of some novelists, that . . . convey a sense of direct acquaintance with the texture of life . . . of what matters from the rest . . . It is a sense of what is qualitative rather than quantitative, of what is specific rather than general . . . it is what is called natural wisdom, imaginative understanding, insight, perceptiveness, and more misleadingly, intuition (Berlin, 1996 cited in Goldstein, 1999b: 6).

In this context Howard uses the term art or artistry to mean our ‘inner connection with the outer world – a means of explanation and preservation of integrity and worth’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 7). He saw this kind of understanding as a talent – a ‘special art’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 1) in which,‘like any art, the rules, rudiments, and technologies may be taught’ (Goldstein, 1998b: 242). ‘One can learn how to be a creative practitioner, one’s talents can be exploited and augmented by an appreciation of what the arts and humanities can teach’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 5). He contrasts the art of understanding with ‘the science of understanding with its methods, taxonomies, categories, and procedures’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 7). He sees it as an ‘art that is as disciplined in its own ways as are the analytic skills of the human scientist’ and one which keeps with the flow of the personal narrative, individualizes the client, ‘preserves the quality of humanism when we try to be of help to another, when we join with the client to locate lost virtues, strengths, and expectations . . . this is not as quixotic and romantic, as it may seem, given the calamitous nature of many lives’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 7). ‘Practitioners influenced by the arts and humanities are . . . [not] totally free and ephemeral spirits detached from an orderly rational world: art cannot flourish without rule and rigor. But where the strength of science lies in what it knows and can prove objectively, the arts and humanities value subjectivity, the creative powers of imagination, and the pursuits of the unknown’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 37). ‘Artistry doesn’t stand for cold facts especially when they lend themselves to impressionistic conversion into humor, farce, and metaphor – emotions that are powerful sources of understanding’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 14). Artistry and understanding lie in ‘the triumph of character over psychology. Psychology wants to know what a man’s problems are; character has to do with how he surmounts them . . . life is a work of art not a case study’ (Epstein, in Goldstein, 1998a: 247). Downloaded from http://qsw.sagepub.com by Mel Gray on March 28, 2008 © 2002 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

03 Gray (JG/d)

11/12/02

3:44 PM

Page 423


Howard acknowledged that ‘the boundaries distinguishing science from art are artificial: ostensibly, science is the means by which we discover or reveal true reality . . . [and] art is the means by which we create meaningful representations of that reality. Such boundaries dissolve, even fail, however, when we dispense with the myth that reality is some thing – object or event – “out there” ’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 18). ‘An important plank in the bridge joining the arts and science’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 19) is metaphor.‘The reliance on metaphor for explanation is not merely a matter of expediency, the human sciences’ shorthand method for managing the ambiguities and foibles they run into . . . Without them, without the ability to draw from the dramatic or melodramatic, what would replace the rhetoric of emotions, needs, desires when we refer to “bearing heavy hearts”, feeling “emptiness,” or “burned out”?’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 20). Without the metaphor of memory and history, we cannot imagine what it is like to be someone else. Metaphor is the reciprocal agent, the universalizing force: it makes possible to envision the stranger’s heart . . . Through metaphorical concentration, doctors can imagine what it is like to be their patients. Those at the center can imagine what it is to be outside. The strong can imagine the weak. Illuminated lives can imagine the dark. (Ozick, 1989: 279, 283 cited in Goldstein, 1999b: 20)

Thus ‘the creative inspirations of the arts and humanities will tell us far more about human nature than the sober studies of the human sciences’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 28) and ‘creative geniuses – both in the sciences and arts – are those who have the unusual native talent for perceiving analogies that others do not recognize’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 19).‘As we narrow our vision to the human experience itself, to the way we strive to understand and make sense of one another – whether in the ordinary intimacies of our relationships or the more purposeful provinces of helping or psychotherapy – here we find the art of the metaphor in its full flavor’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 19). Here Howard’s words must take over again: The artist, the writer – and some creative therapists – search for enlightenment, understanding, insight, into the human experience on its many levels – the tragedic, the comic, the spiritual, and even the banal. The artist imaginatively – magically – transforms this experience into a single, exceptional work – a painting, a sonnet, a biography, and a lyric that leaves its audience in wonder. There are some rare but important moments when this sense of awe or wonderment occurs in the creative helping experience – when there is a moment in a conversation or group session that ‘feels so right’,‘breaks through’,‘is beautiful’, ‘touches something different’. Are such experiences the consequence of deliberate treatment plans, strategies, and techniques? Could they be repeated and relived by another therapist in another interview, with another group? (Goldstein, 1999b: 32)


03 Gray (JG/d)

11/12/02

3:44 PM

Page 424


Here he cites Joseph Epstein, the essayist, who he says ‘takes this interesting difference between high art and great science a step farther when he claims that the former is unique and unpredictable in a way that is not quite true of great science’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 32). The artist and scientist do not inhabit separate universes but merely different regions of a continuous spectrum: ‘artists use facts as stimuli for their imagination, while scientists use their imagination to coordinate facts’ (Koestler, 1980: 321–73 cited in Goldstein, 1999b: 35). Howard was aware that, in the face of managerial social work, ‘the art of understanding and the contributions of the humanities in the helping experience feels almost pointless. Understanding – technical or creative, empathic or artistic – is intrinsic, belongs to, and derives exactly from the unique relationship between specific helpers and specific clients. Thus, when this third managerial world takes over decisions about time, frequency, length, and desired outcome, understanding becomes instrumental rather than interpersonal’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 100). He would never have wanted this to happen for the art of social work has to do with heart, with sentiment and intuition. He offered the humanities as a means to develop ‘the art of understanding’ and he was interested in ‘how such understanding bears on the art of helping’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 49). ‘The humanities open pathways of thought and understanding that expand our grasp of the raw data of human experience, the stories people tell’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 97). Most important of all, for Howard, the arts taught us about the ‘ironies and whimsicalities of every day life’ (Goldstein, 1997a: 32) and helped us live with uncertainty and unpredictability for, at the heart of everything, were more questions than answers. He said: Irony occurs when there is contrast – or better, incongruity – between what is expected and how things turn out. The perceptive helper knows that when people voluntarily seek help for whatever reason – painfully personal or practical – they usually entertain some assumption about what is wrong and what needs fixing; when others are compelled to do the same, their expectations are likely to be less hopeful if not antagonistic. If these incongruities are not respected and, in some ways, harmonized, things begin to get bungled and especially ironic when felt or expressed attributions of ‘resistance’,‘hard-to-reach’ or ‘hostile’ begin to intrude. (Goldstein, 1997a: 30)

Thus he said, ‘in its metaphorical sense, we might consider the “ironist” as one who has learned to live comfortably with uncertainty, ambiguity, and the absence of final explanations: the perfect irony in Socratic terms is the acknowledgement, “I know that I do not know”. This does not mean that the ironist is a nihilist who has forsaken the possibility of knowing the world and its people. Rather, like the reflective practitioner, the ironist is boldly and energetically alert Downloaded from http://qsw.sagepub.com by Mel Gray on March 28, 2008 © 2002 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

03 Gray (JG/d)

11/12/02

3:44 PM

Page 425


to other possibilities, other meanings, and other subtleties that make up even the ordinary human experience. He is, in a manner of speaking, like the Talmudist . . . who can see both sides of the question at the same time’ (Goldstein, 2001: 19). In this way Howard conveys a picture of the social worker as artist. Social work becomes art ‘when it is about connecting with people rather than only applying rules, theories, frameworks, models, and techniques . . . It becomes a means of understanding our hopes and dreams and offers a way for us to express our spirituality, our connection with the world around us and with other people. It offers a view of the soul, of the inner core of our being, and a means of reflection on the meaning of life and the way we experience it’ (Gray and Askeland, 2002).

SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION Knowledge and training and skill are essential: the question is, how do we find balance? (Goldstein, 1997a: 30)

For Howard,‘the ability to recognise the ironic nature of human affairs is a sure test of what we consider the best attributes of the genuine helper: sensitivity, responsiveness, openness to ambiguity and metaphor, wit, an appreciation of paradox, and other humanistic traits’ (Goldstein, 1997a: 30). This then is the kind of practitioner social work educators should produce yet, asked Howard, in the wake of ever-burgeoning literature and the ever-increasing profusion of theories, models, and frameworks, ‘was there any assurance that theoretical literacy translated into ingenious down-to-earth practice?’ (Goldstein, 1992: 49). He lamented the fact that standard curricula for education for professional practice saw no reason to include (except perhaps at their margins) content concerning the sources of human spirit, perseverance, and determination that contradict the idea of people as reactors to or victims of their past. He saw growing interest in the strengths perspective as a beacon of hope, especially since it offered an alternative to the medical disease model (Goldstein, 1990b, 1997b; Saleebey, 1997). Howard’s last book on experiential learning provides a telling insight into his views on social work education as preparation for practice. He believed to the last that if social work were less infatuated with the promises of science and more in tune with the arts and humanities, then field instruction, or the practicum, would be elevated to its proper status as the centrepiece of professional education (Goldstein, 1992, 1993b, 2001). For him the field was the critical environment where learning occurred. Thereafter, as well as social work knowledge and theory, he saw a place for history, philosophy, and literature in the social work curriculum. History and philosophy were important because Downloaded from http://qsw.sagepub.com by Mel Gray on March 28, 2008 © 2002 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

03 Gray (JG/d)

11/12/02

3:44 PM

Page 426


they stirred a spirit of critical inquiry. Most importantly, he thought learners needed to take a long hard look ‘at the obdurate dilemmas of moral choice and ethical responsibility that radiate from our assumption that we have a right to enter into the personal lives of other human beings’ (Goldstein, 1992: 52). The arts and the humanities energized students’ imaginative, creative, reflective, and intuitive aptitudes. They provided the context in which the tools and techniques of social work were applied. For him the educational model most consistent with a humanistic approach was experiential learning since it ‘prepares learners to respect, respond to, and find meaning in the impelling life experiences of their clients – the situational, cultural, spiritual, aesthetic, linguistic, and moral as well as the psychological and social’ (Goldstein, 2001: 7). While the social and behavioural sciences allowed for an objective grasp of human experience, a humanistic, experiential model, receptive to the insights of the arts and humanities, could enlighten about the subjective meanings of that experience. At the end of the day, it was the field setting that set the parameters and helped students determine priorities for what they needed to know.

SOCIAL WORK WRITING Writing is my obsession and I write what I write largely to work out a troubling or pressing idea. (Howard Goldstein, personal communication, 2 June 1992) Whatever joy I collect from writing comes from the discoveries that the enterprise generates. (Howard Goldstein, personal communication, 25 September 1992)

In 1998, Howard became Editor of Families in Society, a position he maintained until his death. From the outset he used this position to make a plea for flexibility in scholarly writing and questioned whether it needed to be ‘as rigid and as formidable as we make it’ (Goldstein, 1998a: 451). For him writing was ‘an act of creating virtual reality. It is an intimately personal attempt to transform an idea – what is in your mind and often in your heart – into a coherent and informative account of what you want to tell’ (Goldstein, 1998a: 452). The challenge of the social work writer is to enliven and it is the author’s voice that makes the difference in creating ‘the virtual reality representing the human experience in question . . . striving for objectivity, distance, and a rigid scholarly posture silences the author’s voice . . . Without (it) the script shrivels, becomes flat and arid’ (Goldstein, 1998a: 452). Hence he wrote: I am starting a special section on Writers at Work in which authors write a narrative on what it is like for them to write for publications – the joys and frustrations


03 Gray (JG/d)

11/12/02

3:44 PM

Page 427


and their individual assortment of suffering and reward. My editorial for that issue will press for a more essay-like approach and ask for submissions from students, practitioners and other non-academic types. (personal communication, see Goldstein, 1999a)

Howard went against the mainstream. He accepted that people had different styles and voices, and he used his position as an editor to find a means to broaden the way in which writers expressed themselves. By accepting and encouraging me to develop my own style, he raised my self-confidence, but most of all he taught me that ‘good writing demands discipline of thought and argument, otherwise, you expose the flaccidity and general weakness of your argument far more obviously than through verbal expression’ (Goldstein, personal communication, 2 June 1992). While always advocating disciplined scholarly writing and striving for excellence, Howard favoured a victory of substance and content over form and style and constantly tested the rigid protocols or canons of scientific writing, the product of which he more often than not found ‘less than captivating’ not least because of its ‘dehumanizing categories and classifications’ (Goldstein, 1993a: 442). For him a narrative or first person rendition allowed content to dictate form. He lamented professional literature’s possible suspicion of texts of personal experiences (Goldstein, 1997a) and argued that ‘the essay, as a literary form, is a desirable means of communicating and disseminating the knowledge and ideas of social work’ that offers a means to draw together ‘the aesthetics of the humanities and the intellect of science’ (Goldstein, 1993a: 441). Since academic writers are more comfortable with the scholarly (scientific) style they make the greatest contribution to our professional literature. Consequently the wisdom of the experienced practitioner is lost in this rigid selection process and we are left with ‘dense and abstract’ rhetoric and burdened by ‘technical talk’ that ‘obfuscates rather than enlightens’ (Goldstein, 1993a: 442). Howard left many wonderful essays to exemplify this writing form (Goldstein, 1992, 1993a, 1996a, 1997a). He believed that passion was constrained by form (Goldstein, 1993a). He hungered for ‘the more humanistic metaphors of uncertainty and crisis so common to the profession’s activities’ (Goldstein, 1993a: 442). Once he wrote scathingly of what gets published saying that ‘I see this pap published and get angry when I consider how others struggle to get the words right and are reluctant to submit anything for publication that is not up to their own high standards’ (Goldstein, personal communication, 26 November 1992). At the time, he was happy that Families in Society had readily accepted his article on ‘Writing to be read: The Place of the Essay in Social Work Literature’ and he wrote of his growing bias (as this essay conveyed) against scholarly writing that is needlessly dense. Downloaded from http://qsw.sagepub.com by Mel Gray on March 28, 2008 © 2002 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

03 Gray (JG/d)

11/12/02

3:44 PM

Page 428


In my saner and more rational moments I have come to terms with the fact that I write almost compulsively because writing for me is intrinsically rewarding . . . Writing is the means by which I am able to work out certain questions. As well, like the one shot on an otherwise ordinary roll of film that ‘has it’ – ‘hits the sweet spot’ – just the turn of a fine phrase makes it all worthwhile for a moment. I must admit that the fact that (1) every major journal has chosen to review my book (a rare feat) and (2) every review in its own way is entirely glowing, is not hard to take – except that the glow fades in the light of the anguish of trying to write the next epic. (Goldstein, personal communication, 26 November 1992)

He taught me first to see writing ‘as a craft, a set of special skills that can be learned, developed, and evaluated’ (Goldstein, 1993a: 443), and that required practice. Then he showed me the art of writing, which meant finding my own voice and style. He drew on our common interest in photography to show me the relationship between art and social work and constantly challenged me to make this relationship explicit. Photography for me became a metaphor for seeing and encouraged me to see social work differently, to see social work, like photography or art, as a means of self-expression. Thus he would say, ‘if your study [referring at that stage to my PhD] serves your personal search for understanding and learning, that’s absolutely legitimate and if that is the case, go forward just as you are doing’ (Goldstein, personal communication, 9 February 1992). Thus social work and photography became an intertwining means of self-discovery and personal growth and development (Gray, 1996; Gray, 2001; Gray and English, 2001).

PERSONAL GROWTH I have learnt to place greater trust in the authority of my own perceptions and judgments. (Goldstein, 1997a: 25)

Growth and maturation, unlike progress linked to the pursuit of truth in science, ‘stand for another kind of discovery; the inward search to find one’s core of strength and wisdom’ (Goldstein, 1992: 48). Although not quantifiable, wisdom has its roots in reason, common sense, experience, and values, all of which make it compelling nonetheless, and ‘growth or maturation is an open-ended process in which the human condition is enigmatic, subject to question, doubt, and serendipitous insights’ (Goldstein, 1992: 48). Hence we need to learn to live comfortably with the uncertainty and ambiguity that leavens our insistent search for final answers and impressive diagnoses which only serve to short circuit the attempt to ‘get a sense of the ever-changing, even temperamental, qualities of the wider world of the client’ (Goldstein, 1997a: 26). More often than not helping ‘requires personal experience and a Downloaded from http://qsw.sagepub.com by Mel Gray on March 28, 2008 © 2002 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

03 Gray (JG/d)

11/12/02

3:44 PM

Page 429


special art and aptitude that, in some instances, may overrule or disarm . . . theory’ (Goldstein, 1997a: 31).

SPIRITUALITY The spiritual frame of reference, directs us to the most obscure level of existence since it marks a departure from any measure of objectivity. (Goldstein, 1999b: 100)

Howard saw spirituality as consonant with the deepest subjectivity of the person since it embodies one’s personal symbols and icons, the deeply-held and enduring beliefs that have more to do with one’s otherworldly, transcendent commitments than with the more mundane affairs of living. At the end of ‘The Arts and Ironies of Understanding’, Howard wrote: In sweeping up the last remnants of this essay, it strikes me that I have said little about the spiritual – what, levels, realms? of the human condition. I am not sure where spirituality is supposed to be located: it does not belong to anatomical portions of the brain, as we are learning, where other mental functions are located. Nor is spirituality an institution like religion that speaks for itself by way of its authoritative voices and literature. But if Edward Canda’s findings have merit then perhaps I have not entirely overlooked the question of spirituality: it is not an entity, an isolated phenomenon that lends itself to rational analysis or quantification but an inherent quality of, again, how we create meaning. Probing the thoughts of a panel of scholars of spirituality, Canda learned that they defined spirituality in accord with the interests of the humanities: as a concern with the human quest for personal meaning and mutually fulfilling relationships among people,4 the non-human environment, and, for some, God. As social workers, the panel considered practice itself a spiritual endeavor involving the growth and fulfillment of client, professional helper, and larger community. (Goldstein, 1999b: 100)

For Howard, social work was essentially a moral endeavour where values and the moral, spiritual and religious convictions of clients mattered a great deal (Goldstein, 1987, 1998b). In his writing, he found expression for the spiritual side of human nature through his use of stories and metaphors, which he said bridged the art and science of social work (Goldstein, 1999b). George Vaillant in his most recent book entitled Ageing Well wrote,‘Most religious beliefs involve dogma. Spiritual trust involves metaphor’ (Vaillant, 2002: 260). He expresses a view about the difference between religion and spirituality that, for our purposes here, might illustrate the boundaries between the scientific and artistic sides of social work. Let us see dogma as symbolic of empirical rigidity and metaphor as art in the sense that Howard described it. Downloaded from http://qsw.sagepub.com by Mel Gray on March 28, 2008 © 2002 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

03 Gray (JG/d)

11/12/02

3:44 PM

Page 430


Metaphors are open-ended and playful; dogma is rigid and serious. Metaphors mean ‘analogous to’ and ‘as if ’; dogma conveys ‘so I’ve been told’ and ‘it’s right there in the Bible (or in the Freud Standard Edition)’. Metaphors allow the truth of our dreams to become clearer with every retelling. In contrast dogma may insist that heretics be executed. Metaphors add leaven to theory and to poetry, but dogma adds dead weight to Thomistic and Talmudic prose. Metaphors conceptualise; dogma enshrines. Dogma retards science; metaphors advance science. (Vaillant, 2002: 260–1)

Howard believed that the arts, humanities, literature, poetry, and drama advanced the science of social work as much as, if not more than, more rigid empirical pursuits. Thus he observed that ‘social workers, by their own admission, depend on acts of faith, on moral affirmations, and on beliefs cherished long before their professionalisation’ (Goldstein, 1999b: 4). Through his writing, Howard entreated us to hold onto our faith in human nature, our belief that people could change and our moral convictions that people mattered. He tried to restore the balance as the scales tipped increasingly towards rational technical pursuits, always drawing our attention back to social work’s humanistic, expressive and spiritual side.

CONCLUSION Howard once ended a letter to me ‘We are delighted to have a special place in something as lovely as your heart’. Herein lies the essence of the man who taught me to ‘shoot for the moon for even if you miss it you will land among the stars’ and that ‘ultimately we become what we envisage’.5 Howard envisaged a world in which social workers cared. One in which people came first. One in which the central task of the social worker was to respond sensitively to the person at hand. He was not enamoured with trends in social work that took us ever further and further away from the reality of the suffering human being. Yet he had all this theory at his fingertips. In a sense he despaired of trends in academia that forced people to submit to procedures that exorcised any remnant of reflective judgment. He tried to the last to change the way we teach leaving us with his wonderful book on experiential learning. We are doing it at Newcastle and I believe we are unique in that we use the model for our whole social work programme. How nice to know that our programme stands as a tribute to everything Howard believed social work education should be. I am grateful that Howard crossed my path and believe sincerely that social work was truly enriched by his erudite writing. I believe it is for this, more than anything else, he would like to be remembered in the world of social work, for writing sustained him through his illness and never a day went by when he did not write at least a line or two. Downloaded from http://qsw.sagepub.com by Mel Gray on March 28, 2008 © 2002 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

03 Gray (JG/d)

11/12/02

3:44 PM

Page 431


We are turning to autumn – a lovely yet melancholy time of the year. There is a flush of beauty that goes with the last breaths of summer, a growing stillness that marks the welcome departure of the summer folk. On these lovely days it is hard to stay inside and write, knowing that these days become steadily fewer. The fuel man delivers his winter supply and the woodman will soon be bringing his for the pivotal day when we fire up the good stove. That will be, officially, fall. Dedication

This article is dedicated to Howard’s wonderful wife, Linda. Notes

1

2 3 4

5

From Goldstein, H. (1999). ‘The Arts and Ironies of Understanding’, unpublished manuscript, pp. 43–45. Howard studied social work in the early 1950s at the University of Southern California (USC). He completed his BA in Social Sciences (magna cum laude) in 1952, his Masters in Social Work in 1954 and his DSW in 1970. This presentation was subsequently published under the same title in the Journal of Education for Social Work (1966) 2(1): 21–31. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. Canda, E. (1998) ‘Spirituality, Religious Diversity, and Social Work Practice’, Social Casework (April): 238–47 as cited in Goldstein, H. (1999) ‘The Arts and Ironies of Understanding’, unpublished manuscript. Quotations by Les Brown and Claude M. Bristol, in Julia Cameron (1994) The Artist’s Way.

References

Berlin, I. (1996) ‘On Political Judgment’, New York Review of Books (October 3): 26–30. Cameron, J. (1994) The Artist’s Way. London: Pan Books. Goldstein, H. (1986a) ‘Towards the Integration of Theory and Practice: A Humanistic Approach’, Social Work 31(5): 352–7. Goldstein, H. (1986b) ‘Education for Social Work Practice: A Cognitive, Cross-cultural Approach’, International Social Work 29(2): 149–64. Goldstein, H. (1987) ‘The Neglected Moral Link in Social Work Practice’, Social Work 32(3): 181–7. Goldstein, H. (1988) ‘Humanistic Alternatives to the Limits of Scientific Knowledge’, Social Thought 19(1): 181–7. Goldstein, H. (1990a) ‘The Knowledge Base of Social Work Practice: Theory, Wisdom, Analogue or Art?’, Families in Society 70(1): 32–42. Goldstein, H. (1990b) ‘Strength or Pathology: Ethical and Rhetorical Contrasts in Approaches to Practice’, Families in Society:The Journal of Contemporary Human Services 70(3): 267–75. Goldstein, H. (1991) ‘Qualitative Research and Social Work Practice: Partners in Discovery’, Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare 18(4): 101–19. Goldstein, H. (1992) ‘If Social Work hasn’t made Progress as a Science, might it be an Art?’, Families in Society 73(1): 48–55.


03 Gray (JG/d)

11/12/02

3:44 PM

Page 432


Goldstein, H. (1993a) ‘Writing to be Read: The Place of the Essay in Social Work Literature’, Families in Society 74(7): 441–6. Goldstein, H. (1993b) ‘Field Education for Reflective Practice: A Re-constructive Proposal’, Journal of Teaching in Social Work 8(1/2): 165–82. Goldstein, H. (1993c) ‘The Qualitative Research Report’, in L. Beebee (ed.) Professional Writing for the Human Services. Washington, DC: NASW Press. Goldstein, H. (1996a) ‘How it Was: A Narrative Essay’, Reflections 2(4): 62–71. Goldstein, H. (1996b) The Home on Gorham Street and the Voices of its Children. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. Goldstein, H. (1997a) ‘The Ironies and Art of Psychotherapy: A Call for the Humanities’, Reflections 3(2): 21–33. Goldstein, H. (1997b) ‘Victors and Victims’, in D. Saleebey (ed.) (1997) The Strengths Perspective in Social Work Practice, pp. 21–35. New York: Longman. Goldstein, H. (1998a) ‘On Writing for Publication’, Editorial, Families in Society 79(5): 451–4. Goldstein, H. (1998b) ‘Education for Ethical Dilemmas in Social Work Practice’, Families in Society 79(3): 241–54. Goldstein, H. (1999a) ‘The Limits and Art of Understanding in Social Work Practice’, Families in Society 80(4): 385–95. Goldstein, H. (1999b) ‘The Arts and Ironies of Understanding’, unpublished manuscript. Goldstein, H. (2000) ‘Editorial Notes “Poetry and Practice” ’, Families in Society 81(3): 235–7. Goldstein, H. (2001) Experiential Learning: A Foundation for Social Work Education and Practice. Washington, DC: Council of Social Work Education. Gray, M. (1996) ‘An Alternative View of Durban’, audiovisual presentation to the Annual National Congress of the Photographic Society of Southern Africa, Durban, 7–12 October. Gray, M. (1999) ‘Writing for a Journal: Blood, Sweat and Tears’, Families in Society 80(3): 305–7. Gray, M. (2001) ‘Creative Teaching: A Case Study’, Social Work/Maatskaplike Werk 37(2): 206–9. Gray, M. and Aga Askeland, G. (2002) ‘Social Work as Art: Counterbalancing the Tick Infestation in Social Work’, paper presented at the International Conference of Schools of Social Work (IASSW), Montpellier, France, 15–18 July. Gray, M. and English, B. (2001) ‘Art, Irony and Ambiguity in Social Work: A Tribute to Howard Goldstein’, invited audiovisual presentation in the Arts section of the Annual Program Meeting of the Council for Social Work Education (CSWE), Dallas, TX, 8–11 March. Green, M. (1966) ‘The Humanities and Social Work Education’, Journal of Education for Social Work 2(1): 21–31. Koestler, A. (1980) Bricks to Babel. New York: Random House. Ozick, C. (1989) Metaphor and Memory. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Saleebey. D. (ed.) (1997) The Strengths Perspective in Social Work Practice. New York: Longman. Vaillant, G. (2002) Ageing Well. Melbourne: Scribe Publications. Downloaded from http://qsw.sagepub.com by Mel Gray on March 28, 2008 © 2002 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

03 Gray (JG/d)

11/12/02

3:44 PM

Page 433


Mel Gray is currently Head of the School of Social Sciences at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. She was formerly Professor, Chair and Head of the Discipline of Social Work at the University of Natal, Durban (UND), South Africa. She has an interest in social work theory and philosophy, social work and photography, social work education, social policy, and social and community development. Her research interests include social work and politics, community–business partnership development and the effectiveness of experience-based learning in preparing students for social work practice. Address: The University of Newcastle, School of Social Sciences, University Drive, Callaghan 2308, New South Wales, Australia. [email: [email protected]]
