Developing discipline-specific knowledge for social work: is it possible?

Developing discipline-specific knowledge for social work: is it possible? OCCASIONALLY, to pursue certain forms of scholarly inquiry insocial work, it is necessary to conduct a comprehensive review of thediscipline's literature. Sometimes the most recently publishedoutcome studies are surveyed to update knowledge on the empiricalfoundations of social work interventions (e.g., Gorey, Thyer, &Pawluck, 1998; Reid & Hanrahan, 1982; Videka-Sherman, 1988). Othertimes, citation analyses of social work departments or personnel areundertaken, often for the purpose of ranking schools (e.g., Ligon,Thyer, & Dixon, 1995), or to make a comparative analysis of thepublication productivity of journal editorial board members (e.g.Pardeck & Meinert, 1999). The preoccupation of some social workers (myself included) withdocumenting the unique knowledge base of our field has been in part aconsequence of our awareness that the possession of distinct andidentifiable knowledge is a prerequisite for a discipline to beconsidered a true profession. According to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. Flexner's stingingassessment, social work could not be considered a legitimate profession(as of 1915) because it lacked this characteristic: "Professionswould fall short of attaining intellectuality if they employed mainly oreven largely knowledge and experience that is generally accessible, --ifthey drew, that is, only on the usually available sources ofinformation" (Flexner, 1915, p. 579). That this remained anembarrassment for some decades after the Flexner report Flexner report,n.pr a 1910 publication, stemming from the Pure Foods and Drugs Act of 1906; established science is the foundation for medi-cal education and formulation of medicines. is evident inthe comment of Bertha Capen Reynolds (1942): "How frank dare we tobe in saying that our profession lacks all but the rudiments of theessential characteristics of a profession? Its body of knowledge ismeager and largely borrowed" (pp. 254-255). Twenty-seven yearsfollowing Reynolds's comments sociologist Amitai Etzioni Amitai Etzioni (born Werner Falk on 4 January 1929 in Cologne, Germany) is an Israeli-American sociologist, famous for his work on socioeconomics and communitarianism. categorized social work as a semi-profession rather than a matureprofession partly because "there is less of a specialized body ofknowledge" (Etzioni, 1969, p. v). Etzioni's assessment has remained despite repeatedexhortations in our journals and books for social work to evolve its ownknowledge base. For example, 40 years ago, Martin Loeb (1960) claimedthat "social welfare will have to make its own theories ... andbuild its own models. These will be quite different from those in thesocial sciences" (p. 11). Presumably pre��sum��a��ble?adj.That can be presumed or taken for granted; reasonable as a supposition: presumable causes of the disaster. , Loeb was in part interestedin having social work distinguish itself from other fields (and henceachieve professional status). Demonstrating that one's field possesses distinctcharacteristics and knowledge remains one of the hallmarks ofprofessional status. In his 1973 chapter on the profession of socialwork, Henry J. Meyer reiterated the importance of "specializedknowledge [italics added] requisite to successful practice" (p.959), and discussed "the emergence of casework case��work?n.Social work devoted to the needs of individual clients or cases.casework as a defensible de��fen��si��ble?adj.Capable of being defended, protected, or justified: defensible arguments.de��fen method to claim specialized and superior [italics added] skills andhence to justify the claim to professional status for social work"(p. 968). Miller (1977) acknowledged the continuing significance ofspecialized knowledge in his analysis of professionalism in the humanservices. For example, he noted that Without a recognized claim to intellectual superiority or special skill [italics added], a segment is unlikely to establish itself and so will be denied power.... Since most professions are based on specialized knowledge [italics added], those who excel in research or teaching will have more status than those who practice. (p. 1100) Howard Goldstein (1990) also acknowledged the major influence ofFlexner's assessment in stimulating our field's research foci: Not surprisingly, within a society that was enthralled with the aura and remarkable benefits of new sciences and technologies, certain leaders (among them Richmond) departed from the profession's humanistic roots and elected to define social casework as a science. The choice was influenced by the prominent educator Abraham Flexner (1915) who informed social work that it could not be a profession until it, too, possessed its own [italics added] foundation of scientific knowledge and educationally communicable techniques. (p. 33) See also Austin (1983, 2001). More recently, social work seems to have achieved some level ofcomplacency about acquiring the status of a true profession. To someextent this is attributable to the passage of licensure laws legallyregulating the practice of clinical social work, but it is also due toperceived advances in our attainment of a distinctive knowledge. Forexample, as Reamer reamerRotary cutting tool of cylindrical or conical shape, used for enlarging and finishing to accurate dimensions holes that have been drilled, bored, or cored. A reamer cannot be used to start a hole. (1994) suggests, the emergence of social work's knowledge base has clearly strengthened its identity as a profession. Social work's growing corpus of theoretical knowledge has enabled it to evince one of the essential ingredients of professional status: the existence of an identifiable and specialized body of knowledge that is transmitted systematically through formal education. (p. 2) A recent example of this claim to specialized knowledge is alsofound in Leon (1999): Unique [italics added] to social work ... is the understanding that all client systems ... consist of multifaceted characteristics that are influenced by biological, psychological, and social factors. Known as the bio-psychosocial approach, this perspective asserts that client problems are complex, usually involve more than one aspect of the client's functioning, and require multidimensional interventions that address the whole client system. (p. 19) Given the meager attention paid to biological variables in graduatesocial work education, the above claim seems a bit exaggerated, and inany event there are numerous interest groups within professionalpsychology, psychiatry, marriage and family therapy, and behavioranalysis who would make a similar claim to a bio-psychosocialperspective, a multiple systems orientation, or both. This underminesLeon's claim that the systems perspective is somehow unique tosocial work. The Council on Social Work Education's (CSWE CSWE Council on Social Work EducationCSWE Certificate in Spoken and Written EnglishCSWE Center for Student Work Experience ) CurriculumPolicy Statement for Master's Degree Programs in Social WorkEducation (CSWE, 1992) codifies the assumption that social workpossesses discipline-specific knowledge: "Social work education isbased upon a specific body of knowledge, values, and professionalskills" (M3.2). In the "About CSWE" section onCSWE's website, under "Frequently Asked Questions," oneof the questions posed is: "What is the value of studying socialwork instead of a related field such as sociology, psychology,counseling, or human services?" The answer provided asserts"Social work is a profession that distinguishes itself through itsown body of knowledge [italics added], values and ethics" (CSWE,n.d.). In my two decades of consuming and contributing to the social workliterature, a number of difficulties have become evident, suggestingthat it is neither logistically nor conceptually possible to undertake acomprehensive review of the uniquely social work contributions in agiven area of practice research. Accordingly, claims to professionalismbased upon the purported development of (in Reamer's phrase) an"identifiable and specialized body of knowledge" seem to bepremature, unwise, and perhaps simply impossible. Below are listed someof the difficulties which researchers may encounter in attempting toextract that which is uniquely social work from the scholarly journalliterature. By "uniquely social work" I mean knowledgedeveloped by professional social workers with implications andapplications to social work problems, policy, and practice. Difficulties in Defining Social Work Knowledge Problems in Defining a Social Work Journal One frequently encountered problem in attempting to prepare a listof social work journals (necessary to determine our so-called uniqueknowledge base) is that there is no generally agreed upon Adj. 1. agreed upon - constituted or contracted by stipulation or agreement; "stipulatory obligations"stipulatorynoncontroversial, uncontroversial - not likely to arouse controversy set ofcriteria defining such outlets. Some journals are relatively easy tolabel as social work journals. Any of the periodicals published by theNational Association of Social Workers (NASW NASW National Association of Science WritersNASW National Association of Social Workers (Washington, DC)NASW National Association of Social WorkersNASW National Association for Social Work (UK)) or CSWE, for example, canbe readily construed as contributing to our field's body ofprofessional knowledge, as can independent journals which contain thewords "social work" in their titles (e.g., Research on SocialWork Practice, Social Work in Health Care, Affilia: Journal of Women andSocial Work). Similarly, those journals published by accredited accreditedrecognition by an appropriate authority that the performance of a particular institution has satisfied a prestated set of criteria.accredited herdscattle herds which have achieved a low level of reactors to, e.g. schoolsof social work can be legitimately classified as social work journals.The University of Chicago's School of Social Service Administrationpublishes the widely respected Social Service Review, the College ofSocial Work at the University of South Carolina ''This article is about the University of South Carolina in Columbia. You may be looking for a University of South Carolina satellite campus.••produces Arete a��r��te?n.A sharp, narrow mountain ridge or spur.[French, from Old French areste, fishbone, spine, from Late Latin arista, awn, fishbone, from Latin, awn. , and theSmith College School of Social Work generates the journal Smith CollegeStudies in Social Work. Problems arise, however, when considering moreambiguous situations. For example, the highly rated Children and YouthServices Review is edited by a social work faculty member, DuncanLindsey, and the Institute for Scientific Information (publisher of theSocial Sciences Citation Index Social Sciences Citation Index ? (SSCI ? ) is an interdisciplinary citation index product of Thomson Scientific. It was developed by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) from the Science Citation Index. ) classifies this journal among its socialwork listings. However, it can be credibly argued that the field ofchildren's services is more correctly categorized as aninterdisciplinary field, not one of unique concern to social work.Similarly, the journal Family Studies is edited by social work facultymember Carol Anderson, and the Journal of Traumatic Stress Traumatic stress is recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [1] as an acute emotional condition associated with reactive anxiety. was formerlyedited by social worker Charles Figley Charles Figley is a highly published university professor in the fields of psychology, family studies, social work, traumatology, and mental health. He is the Florida State University Traumatology Institute Director. . Certainly social workers areactive contributors to these interdisciplinary journals, and sometimeseven edit them, but many articles appearing in these periodicals are notauthored by social workers. Apart from journals which focus on discipline-specific knowledge,and ones focused on fields of practice (such as those mentioned in theabove section), are those which are specific to a method or theory ofpractice. Journals such as Behavior Therapy behavior therapyor behavior modification,in psychology, treatment of human behavioral disorders through the reinforcement of acceptable behavior and suppression of undesirable behavior. , the Journal of AppliedBehavior Analysis The Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA) was established in 1968 as a The Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis is a peer-reviewed, psychology journal, that publishes research about applications of the experimental analysis of behavior to problems of social importance. , the Journal for Specialists in Group Work, theJournal of Cognitive Psychotherapy psychotherapy,treatment of mental and emotional disorders using psychological methods. Psychotherapy, thus, does not include physiological interventions, such as drug therapy or electroconvulsive therapy, although it may be used in combination with such methods. , and the many psychoanalytic andpsychodynamic PsychodynamicA therapy technique that assumes improper or unwanted behavior is caused by unconscious, internal conflicts and focuses on gaining insight into these motivations.Mentioned in: Group Therapy, Suicide periodicals fall into this latter category. Social workerCharles Garvin, for example, edits the journal Small Group Research.While it is certainly the case that there is some overlap between socialwork practice and the subjects appearing in such outlets, the overlap isoften small and usually not sufficient to legitimately claim suchjournals as falling within the scope of the social work journalliterature. Problems in Defining a Social Worker On the face of it, operationally defining a social worker would notseem to be a difficult undertaking--an earned professional degree from aCSWE-accredited institution would seem to be one essential criterion.But this issue is not always so clear cut. Some social work faculty arenot themselves social workers. Some social workers have an accreditedMSW (MicroSoft Word) See Microsoft Word. degree but have earned doctorates in another field. Do the scholarlyproducts of these researchers belong to social work or to the field inwhich a researcher earned her or his doctorate? From what field did suchindividuals derive the majority of their professional training, andwhich field should be credited with their scholarly contributions? A number of social work scholars do not possess an MSW at all,having earned a master's degree in another discipline, and thenearned the social work doctorate. Is it legitimate to claim such aperson's oeuvre as somehow unique or specific to social work? Thisis doubtful. The issue of non-MSWs earning doctorates in social work islikely to grow given the recruitment problems often experienced bysocial work doctoral programs in attracting qualified MSW applicants(see Shore & Thyer, 1997). Another factor contributing to theconfusion in defining who is a social worker was the original decisionsome years ago by NASW to award their advanced practice credentials(Qualified Clinical Social Worker, Diplomate dip��lo��maten.One who has received a diploma, especially a physician certified as a specialist by a board of examiners.diplomate(dip´l in Clinical Social Work) toindividuals lacking the MSW, the practice degree, but who have thesocial work doctorate, usually a research degree. In 2001 NASW revisedtheir standards and the MSW is now a requirement for these clinicalcredentials. The Problem of an Interdisciplinary List of Authors Very often multiple authors contribute to research articles andthese authors are trained in several different disciplines. Who amongsuch a list of authors can legitimately lay claim to exclusivedisciplinary ownership? If the first author of a work with multipleinterdisciplinary contributors is a social worker, does that make theresearch findings a brick in the edifice of discipline-specific socialwork knowledge? What if a majority of the authors are social workers,but they are the junior authors? Obviously, a plethora of possiblepermutations surrounds this issue, but it should be clear that socialwork cannot make an exclusive disciplinary claim to knowledge developedby one social worker in collaboration with several authors from otherfields. Problems in Reviewing Only Social Work Journals One difficulty in comprehensively surveying the social workliterature to gain a sense of the disciplinary knowledge base is thatmany articles about social work and many articles written by socialworkers are published in non-social work journals. For example (andremarkably), the Society for Social Work and Research's four awardsfor outstanding published research in 1999 were all won by authors whosework appeared in nonsocial work journals. A literature search of socialwork journals would likely have missed these excellent examples ofsocial work research. The exact proportion of articles written by socialworkers that are published in nonsocial work journals orinterdisciplinary journals is unknown, but we can be certain that it isnot an inconsiderable in��con��sid��er��a��ble?adj.Too small or unimportant to merit attention or consideration; trivial.in amount. Green and Secret (1996) found that wellover half of all juried articles published by 202 of social work'smost successful scholars appeared in nonsocial work journals! Morerecently, Green, Kvarfordt, and Hayden (1999) found that of almost 3,000journal articles published by social workers between 1990 and 1997, 44%appeared in non-social work journals. These facts present greatlogistical difficulties for scholars attempting a comprehensiveliterature search of articles authored by social workers. A related problem is that many articles appearing indiscipline-specific social work journals are themselves authored bynon-social workers. Can a work written by a sociologist or psychologistappearing in the pages of Social Work legitimately be claimed as socialwork knowledge? Problems in Reviewing Non-Social Work Journals If one makes an effort to review "all" or many journalsbesides those usually classified as social work journals, tocomprehensively survey our discipline's knowledge base as developedby social work authors, a number of problems arise. Many journals thatfollow the style manual of the American Psychological Association do notinclude authors' degrees or disciplines with their names. This maymake it difficult to identify social work authors publishing innon-social work outlets. Those journals that do list a degree (e.g.,PhD) may not list a discipline. If the corresponding author's address is given as a school ofsocial work, one may be tempted to infer that this person is a socialworker, but given that many social work faculty are themselves notprofessional social workers this can be an incorrect supposition. It maybe possible to track down the disciplinary affiliations of authors viathe Web, Internet, telephone, or postal mail, but the labor involvedwould be intensive, and likely result in accurate determinations lessthan 100% of the time. The Problem of Non-Social Workers Conducting Studies InvolvingSocial Workers Occasionally, non-social workers conduct outcome studies and otherforms of scholarly inquiry that involve services provided byprofessional social workers. Such studies are usually published innon-social work outlets. For example, the study by Foa, Rothbaum, Riggs,and Murdock (1991) is a randomized controlled trial A randomized controlled trial (RCT) is a scientific procedure most commonly used in testing medicines or medical procedures. RCTs are considered the most reliable form of scientific evidence because it eliminates all forms of spurious causality. comparing behaviortherapy with supportive counseling for women traumatized by rape. Thiswork was authored by psychologists and published in the prestigiousJournal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology The Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (JCCP) is a bimonthly psychology journal of the American Psychological Association. Its focus is on treatment and prevention in all areas of clinical and clinical-health psychology and especially on topics that appeal to a broad . If one were looking forcontributions to social work practice literature, such a work wouldlikely be missed in a computerized literature search, or even a manualexamination of the journal itself. Only one short sentence in thearticle indicates that intervention services were provided by clinicalsocial workers! A very similar illustration of this problem is the article byWeiss, Catron, Harris, and Phung (1999) reporting a randomizedcontrolled trial comparing traditional child psychotherapy Mental health interventions for children vary with respect to the problem being addressed and to the age and other individual characteristics of the child. Although such interventions share some approaches, treatment methods can be quite different from each other. byprofessional therapists with academic tutoring by college students. Thetherapists consisted of three licensed clinical social workers, twomaster's-level psychologists, one master's-level psychiatricnurse, and one doctoral-level psychologist. This article also appearedin the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology; two of the authorslist their affiliations as a department of psychology and humandevelopment, and two are affiliated with a department of psychiatry.There is no way to determine from the article if any of the four authorsis a professional social worker. Now the question arises, is an outcome study of services providedby professional social workers, but conducted and authored by non-socialworkers, and published in a nonsocial work journal, a contribution tosocial work's unique body of knowledge? Probably not, even thoughsuch studies have a significant bearing on the efficacy of servicesprovided by social workers. The Problem of Social Workers Conducting Studies InvolvingNon-Social Workers A problem related to non-social workers writing about social workis the circumstance of social workers conducting outcome studies (andother forms of scholarship) on services provided by non-social workers.For example, Vonk and Thyer (1999) used a quasiexperimental delayedtreatment control group design to demonstrate that short-term therapyprovided at a university counseling center resulted in significantimprovements in psychiatric symptomatology symptomatology/symp��to��ma��tol��o��gy/ (simp?to-mah-tol��ah-je)1. the branch of medicine dealing with symptoms.2. the combined symptoms of a disease.symp��to��ma��tol��o��gyn. among college students. Theservice providers represented a cross-section of the mental healthprofessions, including a licensed clinical social worker, doctoralpsychologists, and master's-level counselors trained in a varietyof disciplines. Is it reasonable to argue that a study designed,conducted, and authored by social workers, which demonstrated that theoutcomes of services delivered by other human service professionals,represented a contribution to social work knowledge? This issue is not a hypothetical problem, as it has already createdsome concrete difficulties. A clear example can be found inHogarty's (1989) critique of Videka-Sherman's (1988)meta-analysis of social work practice with the mentally ill. Hogarty isa MSW-level social worker, and one of the nation's leading figureson clinical research with the chronically mentally ill. Although heauthored several of the papers Videka-Sherman included in hermeta-analysis of the outcomes of social work practice, Hogarty statedthat it was incorrect to categorize this work as outcome studies ofsocial work practice. His grounds for this argument were that theclinicians providing services in the outcome studies were not socialworkers and that this information was included in the original articlescited by Videka-Sherman. The Problem of Social Workers Conducting Studies Involving GenericTreatments Many times, outcome studies authored by social workers involve theprovision of services that are seen as effective in a generic sense, asopposed to a disciplinary sense. For example, Larkin and Thyer (1999)published a randomized ran��dom��ize?tr.v. ran��dom��ized, ran��dom��iz��ing, ran��dom��iz��esTo make random in arrangement, especially in order to control the variables in an experiment. controlled experimental study to examine theeffectiveness of protocol-based cognitive behavioral group therapy forelementary school elementary school:see school. children. Both authors are social workers, and thetherapy was provided by an MSW, but the study was construed more as aneffort to legitimize le��git��i��mize?tr.v. le��git��i��mized, le��git��i��miz��ing, le��git��i��miz��esTo legitimate.le��git this model of group work generally, than to discussservices provided specifically by school social workers. Similarly, theevaluation studies on the outcomes of inpatient psychiatric treatmentconducted by social workers dealt more with generic inpatient treatmentper se, than services specifically provided by social workers (seeBuchanan, Dixon, & Thyer, 1997; Capp, Thyer, & Bordnick, 1997;Robinson, Powers, Cleveland, & Thyer, 1990). Should social workattempt to appropriate these studies with positive outcomes as acomponent of its own disciplinary knowledge? What about cases withnegative outcomes? Social worker Carl Leukefeld recently co-authored asophisticated, long-term, follow-up study of the effects of the widelyused school-based Drug Abuse Resistance Education The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are disputed.Please see the relevant discussion on the . This article has been tagged since September 2007. (DARE) program (Lynamet al., 1999). The DARE curriculum apparently had no impact in terms ofactual drug use, drug attitudes, or self-esteem--a very significantfinding, considering the importance of discovering genuinely effectiveways to deter drug use among youth. Is this study, authored mostly bypsychologists and published in a psychology journal, an example of theoften touted "specialized" social work knowledge we work sohard at producing? The Problem of Social Work Dissertations Doctoral dissertations produced by social workers graduating fromlegitimate social work programs are an important source of disciplinaryknowledge, but finding all of these is difficult. The major reference isDissertation Abstracts, but a search of this database using "socialwork" as key words will turn up many dissertations authored bynon-social workers graduating from non-social work disciplines. Theseauthors may choose to use the words "social work" as key wordsif their dissertation has some relevance to the field (e.g., a childwelfare-related dissertation). NASW also publishes abstracts of doctoraldissertations in social work but is dependent on doctoral programdirectors to submit the abstracts to them. There is no way of knowinghow many social work dissertation abstracts fail to be reported to be spoken of; to be mentioned, whether favorably or unfavorably.See also: Report usingthis all-too-human method. Another problem is defining a social work doctoral program. TheGroup for the Advancement of Doctoral Education (GADE) is a voluntaryassociation of doctoral program directors, but the several freestandingNorth American North Americannamed after North America.North American blastomycosissee North American blastomycosis.North American cattle ticksee boophilusannulatus. institutes of clinical social work that award doctoratesare not eligible to join GADE, whose membership is limited touniversity-based doctoral programs. Brandeis University Brandeis University,at Waltham, Mass.; coeducational; chartered and opened 1948. Although Brandeis was founded by members of the American Jewish community, the university operates as an independent, nonsectarian institution. houses a widelyrespected PhD program in social policy, but most of its faculty membersare not social workers, they do not require a MSW for admission, and theprogram is a member of GADE. There are many similar programs offeringgraduate degrees in social policy in the United States United States,officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. that are notaffiliated with schools of social work. Are the doctoral dissertationsproduced by such programs uniquely social work dissertations? Should We Abandon the Quest? In a word, yes. I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe thatit is not currently possible to survey the social work literatureaccurately and comprehensively. It does not seem likely that adequatetechnological advances loom on the horizon that will make this a morefeasible undertaking, even if the conceptual difficulties could beovercome. In the absence of clearly defining what constitutes socialwork literature, the quest to determine a unique body of professional,disciplinary-specific social work knowledge seems to be an impossibleundertaking. Accepting this proposition affords the opportunity toreconsider the rationale for even making the attempt, and to meditate med��i��tate?v. med��i��tat��ed, med��i��tat��ing, med��i��tatesv.tr.1. To reflect on; contemplate.2. To plan in the mind; intend: meditated a visit to her daughter. upon some alternative perspectives on research knowledge. Flexner's Legacy? As presented earlier, social work's preoccupation withdeveloping a unique discipline-specific body of knowledge may be tracedback to the report prepared by Abraham Flexner Abraham Flexner (November 13 1866, Louisville, Kentucky - September 21 1959) was an American educator. His Flexner Report, published in 1910, reformed medical education in the United States. He also helped found the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. , in his address to theNational Conference on Charities in 1915 (Flexner, 1915). His answer tothe question of whether social work was a profession was, shockingly,no, and he attributed this in part to the fact that social work reallyhad not developed a unique body of knowledge. Flexner cast down thegauntlet gauntlet/gaunt��let/ (gawnt��let) a bandage covering the hand and fingers like a glove. , in effect saying, "Develop unique knowledge or run therisk of never achieving professional status!" For the past 86 yearssocial workers have been busy attempting to develop a unique social workknowledge. We seem to have had very limited success. Most social workersseem hard pressed to identify the unique aspects of social workknowledge, but readily acknowledge the extent to which we"borrow" or assimilate knowledge derived from the behavioraland social sciences. Those aspects which are claimed to be unique (e.g.,person-in-environment perspective, concern for social justice and thepromotion of human welfare, the comprehensive scope of professionalservices (job) professional services - A department of a supplier providing consultancy and programming manpower for the supplier's products. ) are usually mentioned by individuals who are unaware of theextent to which related fields such as psychology, behavior analysis,and psychiatry also incorporate these principles. Perhaps it is time to lay Flexner's challenge aside and albeitreluctantly, acknowledge that social work does not currently possess andis unlikely to develop discipline-specific knowledge. Our belatedrecognition of this fact is unlikely to undo the incremental progressour field has made in its quest for Verb 1. quest for - go in search of or hunt for; "pursue a hobby"quest after, go after, pursuelook for, search, seek - try to locate or discover, or try to establish the existence of; "The police are searching for clues"; "They are searching for the professional status. Social worklicensure laws will not be allowed to lapse and our doctoral programswill not close up shop. Advances made in other areas of professionalismwill remain intact (e.g., large membership associations, codes ofethics, public recognition of professional status, and requirements forspecialized, university-based undergraduate and graduate education).Meanwhile, we can consider adopting a more realistic appraisal of thecriteria constituting professional status. Medicine, for example,considered by many in the sociology of the professions to be theexemplar ex��em��plar?n.1. One that is worthy of imitation; a model. See Synonyms at ideal.2. One that is typical or representative; an example.3. An ideal that serves as a pattern; an archetype.4. profession, lacks a truly unique body of professionalknowledge. Members of a growing number of other disciplines (e.g., nursepractitioners, optometrists, osteopaths, dentists, some psychologists,and physician assistants) can prescribe medications, and osteopaths,podiatrists, dentists, and even so-called psychics perform surgery! Theknowledge base of medicine is taught by many faculty members innonmedical disciplines (e.g., pharmacology, anatomy, and physiology),and many physicians acquire their familiarity with contemporarypharmaceuticals through contact with drug sales representatives andtheir promotional literature. The engineering professions do not seemharmed by their openly acknowledged reliance on other disciplines'knowledge, such as that of chemistry, physics, and mathematics.Professional status would appear to rest on factors apart from thedevelopment of unique, discipline-specific knowledge. Try to locate adefinition of medicine, law, or psychology that encompasses all fieldsof each discipline, yet also conveys what is unique and distinct abouteach one. This will prove difficult. In a phrase, knowledge does notknow discipline-specific boundaries. Empirically validated knowledgedoes not belong to any single discipline or profession--it belongs toall of science, and to all those fields which base their practices onscientific findings. Social work has made great strides in achieving professionalstatus, but it has not done so by developing a unique and disciplinaryknowledge base. Flexner was incorrect. Demonstrating a uniquedisciplinary-specific body of knowledge was not a prerequisite forsocial work to secure a place at the table of professionalism. Aftereight decades of post-Flexner effort, we remain hard pressed to definethe unique aspects of our knowledge base. It was a mistake to have triedor for us to continue the quest. Focus on Developing Problem-Specific Knowledge A preferred alternative to the self-serving search for a uniqueintellectual foundation for social work would be for members of ourdiscipline to contribute to the interdisciplinary development ofproblem-specific knowledge. After all, what attracts most social workersto the field is service to clients and societal improvement.Doesn't it make more sense for the profession to develop, throughscholarly research, evidence-based psychosocial interventions that canbe effectively applied by members of all of the helping professions? Knowledge is highly unlikely to be bound by the artificialconstraints of the academic departments found in today'suniversities. While inquiry is conducted by economists, politicalscientists, sociologists, psychologists, and others, the application andadoption of information is limited only by the ability of a particularscholar to learn about the latest developments. The overlap betweenpsychology, social psychology, and sociology is immense, but we do notsee members of these disciplines anxiously wringing their hands overtheir lack of a truly unique knowledge base. Sociology, politicalscience, and public administration are similarly situated similarly situatedadj. with the same problems and circumstances, referring to the people represented by a plaintiff in a "class action," brought for the benefit of the party filing the suit as well as all those "similarly situated. . The conceptof overlapping knowledge actually makes a great deal of sense, since weshare the same subject matter--human behavior. Admittedly human behaviorin differing contexts, but it is foolish to assume that the contriveddisciplinary divisions of the academy bind the fundamental principleswhich regulate human conduct. Since human behavior is unlikely to beguided by one set of principles in economic matters, another distinctand unique set of laws in politics, and another in social activities, itis unrealistic to expect that ultimately, meaningful differences willemerge in coherent accounts to explain human conduct in diverse areas.Perhaps, in time, disciplinary divisions will break down to be replacedby more interdisciplinary programs of study related to human affairs. Wakefield (1996a, 1996b) has called for social work to abandon itsefforts to develop and adopt grand unifying theories (e.g., systemstheory) of practice in favor of more circumscribed circumscribed/cir��cum��scribed/ (serk��um-skribd) bounded or limited; confined to a limited space. cir��cum��scribedadj.Bounded by a line; limited or confined. explanatory andinterventive accounts, what he calls "domain-specific theories andinterventions." I would take this a bit further, urging that afocus on the development, testing, and validation of psychosocialinterventions be the primary scholarly mission of ourfield--interventions which can be helpfully applied by members of allthe human services, not just social workers (see Harrison & Thyer,1988). A number of social workers have been involved in such efforts:Gerald Hogarty's development of the psychoeducational approach tohelping individuals with chronic mental illness, Myrna Weissman'sformulation of interpersonal psychotherapy interpersonal psychotherapyPsychiatry A semistructured treatment in which the Pt is educated about depression and depressive Sx, and the Pt's relation to the environment, especially social functioning; unlike traditional psychotherapy, IP focuses on the present for depression, GailSteketee's numerous controlled clinical trials of behavior therapyfor clients with obsessive compulsive disorder, and Janet B. W.Williams' influential work on the third edition of the Diagnosticand Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders/Di��ag��nos��tic and Sta��tis��ti��cal Man��u��al of Men��tal Dis��or��ders/ (DSM) a categorical system of classification of mental disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association, that delineates objective . All of these examplesoccurred in the context of interdisciplinary research teams and involvedinterdisciplinary applications. The interventions and assessment methodsdeveloped were intended for use by all informed individuals of theprofessional human services community, regardless of discipline. By chance, while conducting (admittedly incompletely!) a literaturereview preparatory to writing this work, I came across similarsentiments expressed by social workers over 40 years ago. As Loeb notedin 1960, "Karl Popper Noun 1. Karl Popper - British philosopher (born in Austria) who argued that scientific theories can never be proved to be true, but are tested by attempts to falsify them (1902-1994)Popper, Sir Karl Raimund Popperphilosopher - a specialist in philosophy has made a plea for a `technological socialscience' which will have as its focus `problems' rather than`subject matter' or `disciplines.' Social work can be anessential part of this `technological social science'" (Loeb,1960, p. 12). And even earlier Greenwood (1957) remarked that social work is not a science whose aim is to derive knowledge; it is a technology whose aim is to apply knowledge for the purpose of control. Therefore, on the research continuum social work research falls nearer to the applied end, because its purpose is practical knowledge. (p. 315) David Austin For the cartoonist, see David Austin (cartoonist).David C.H. Austin OBE (born 1926) is a rose breeder and writer who lives in Shropshire, England. His emphasis is on breeding roses with the character and fragrance of Old Garden Roses (Gallicas, Damasks, Alba roses, etc. (1998) has recently corroborated these views in hisimportant report on progress being made in the field of social workresearch: There is also a persistent issue as to whether general professional journals in social work ... are intended to serve primarily as publication outlets for the diverse interests of the academic faculty, rather than as consistent sources of tested information for the practitioner community. It may be that cross-disciplinary research journals with a specialized focus in a specific practice domain are more relevant for both researchers and practitioners than multi-topic journals limited to a single professional or academic discipline. (p. 31) Social work requires a greater integration with mainstreambehavioral and social science. Attempts to isolate the scientific,ethical, or practice principles which distinguish our discipline areunworthy of our field's further attention, in part because theyinadvertently serve to isolate us rather than integrate us into thewider scientific community. In a very real sense, we have already"arrived" as a mature profession. References Austin, D. (1983). The Flexner myth and the history of social work.Social Service Review, 57, 357-377. Austin, D. M. (1998). A report on progress in the development ofresearch resources in social work. Austin: University of Texas School ofSocial Work. Austin, D. M. (2001). Flexner revisited [Special Issue]. Researchon Social Work Practice, 11(1). Buchanan, J. P., Dixon, D. R., & Thyer, B. A. (1997). Apreliminary evaluation of treatment outcomes at a veterans'hospital's inpatient psychiatry unit. 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Wakefield, J. C. (1996a). Does social work need the eco-systemsperspective? Part I. Is the perspective clinically useful? SocialService Review, 70, 1-32. Wakefield, J. C. (1996b). Does social work need the eco-systemsperspective? Part II. Does the perspective save social work fromincoherence incoherenceNot understandable; disordered; without logical connection. See Schizophrenia. ? Social Service Review, 70, 183-213. Weiss, B., Catron, T., Harris, V., & Phung, T. M. (1999). Theeffectiveness of traditional child psychotherapy. Journal of Consultingand Clinical Psychology, 67, 82-94. Accepted: 8/01. Bruce A. Thyer is distinguished research professor, School ofSocial Work, University of Georgia OrganizationThe President of the University of Georgia (as of 2007, Michael F. Adams) is the head administrator and is appointed and overseen by the Georgia Board of Regents. , associate clinical professor,Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior, Medical College ofGeorgia In 1828, it was chartered by the state of Georgia as the Medical Academy of Georgia, with plans to offer a single course of lectures leading to a bachelor's degree. It opened the following year on October 1st at the Augusta hospital. , and visiting professor, Department of Social Work, Universityof Huddersfield The University of Huddersfield is a university in the town of Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK. It has around 20,000 students and is located near the town centre. The Chancellor is the actor Patrick Stewart, who is originally from Mirfield. , UK. Portions of this paper were presented at the Joint Conference ofthe International Federation of Social Workers and the InternationalAssociation of Schools of Social Work, July 29-August 2, 2000, Montreal,Quebec, Canada, and at the International Conference on Evaluation forPractice, held at the University of Huddersfield, U.K., July 12-14,2000. Address correspondence to: Bruce Thyer, School of Social Work,University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602; email: Bthyer@arches.uga.edu.