{"id":35950,"date":"2024-02-19T09:30:16","date_gmt":"2024-02-19T17:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=35950"},"modified":"2024-02-19T09:31:47","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T17:31:47","slug":"how-do-you-see-your-elephant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/how-do-you-see-your-elephant\/","title":{"rendered":"How do you see your elephant?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Life is all about perspective, how each person sees and understands something.\u00a0 Have you read or heard the Indian parable about the six blind men and the elephant?\u00a0 James Baldwin retells the story, The Blind Men and the Elephant<\/em>. \u00a0In the short story he describes six blind men\u2019s encounter with an elephant.\u00a0 As each blind man grabbed a different part of the elephant, they each began to use a simile to describe the elephant.\u00a0 The elephant is like a snake, like a wall, like a fan, like a tree, like a spear, like a rope; they each argue back and forth what the elephant was like based in their perspective.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

Edwin Friedman in his book, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick-Fix<\/em>, argues his viewpoints from a family systems perspective.\u00a0 A family systems perspective examines how families (really any two people engaged in a relationship) interact with one another.\u00a0 Friedman describes how these relationships develop what he terms chronic anxiety and impact the leader\u2019s ability to self-differentiate from the rest of the system and ultimately cause the system to fail to function properly[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

I on the other hand teach a strength perspective to my social work students.\u00a0 A strength perspective is defined as \u201ca philosophical approach to social work that posits that the goals, strengths, and resources of people and their environment, rather than their problems and pathologies, should be the central focus of the helping process.\u201d[3]<\/a>\u00a0 Our students are taught to focus not solely on the client\u2019s (individual, family, group, organization, or community) problem, but what have they done or are currently doing that is working to address their presenting problem.<\/p>\n

Friedman\u2019s family system perspective seems to focus on a system\u2019s deficits, while a strength-based perspective focuses on its strengths; which one is correct?\u00a0 I have struggled to answer that question this week.\u00a0 Friedman in speaking about chronic anxiety says, \u201cThe same is the case when an entire society stays focused on the acute symptoms of its chronic anxiety\u2014violence, drugs . . . rather than on the emotional processes that promote those symptoms and keep them chronic.\u00a0 In that case, the society will continue to recycle its problems, no matter how much legislation it passes, how it redistributes its resources . . . as a way of binding that anxiety off.\u201d[4]<\/a>\u00a0 I am teaching Analysis of Social Policy<\/em> Class this semester, Friedman\u2019s statement both depresses and challenges me.\u00a0 Throughout the semester we look at different social polies and analyze them asking questions such as whether the outcomes of the policy accomplish what its goals were and what issues or areas the policy does not address?\u00a0 The ultimate answer to the questions finds that there are deficits to the policy.\u00a0 So maybe Friedman is correct.\u00a0 Maybe I need to approach this class from a system\u2019s perspective and focus on the ultimate problem. \u00a0However, I found myself asking several questions when I considered this.\u00a0 Change is hard and if we continually focus on the problem and not on what we might be doing well, can hopelessness set in?\u00a0 Where does one even begin?\u00a0 Can I make a difference?\u00a0 Can I and the students I teach go against a system that really doesn\u2019t want to focus on the real problem? On the other hand, If I focus solely on a strength\u2019s perspective, Friedman might argue that one of our system\u2019s strengths is that we perpetuate the chronic anxiety well.\u00a0 You herd and sabotage well, you displace your blame well, or you\u2019re really good at finding quick fixes.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

I really struggled with the reading this week, I wrote two other blogs before this one, each one highlighting different aspects of the book. I need to process his writings more, however, I don\u2019t think Friedman is wrong. He wrote his book after almost 40 years of observation and practice.[6]<\/a>\u00a0 I also don\u2019t think working with a strength\u2019s approach is wrong either.\u00a0 Plus, there are other perspectives to work from as well.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0I think that it is up to coaches, leaders, therapists, social workers, etc. to carefully analyze the situation, not be reactive, and determine which perspective makes the most sense to use in addressing that situation, not just our favorite approach.<\/p>\n

We can also use those we have apprenticed under to act as a sounding board. Friedman talks a lot about self-differentiation and while he urges differentiation, he realizes that people cannot function alone, that there is a fine \u201cbalance between self and togetherness.\u201d[7]<\/a>\u00a0 Like in the parable of the six blind men and the elephant, our perspectives are all biased based on our personal experiences of the world, this method works better, or this is how I see the situation.\u00a0 This is where togetherness is important.\u00a0 I teach my students that even when they obtain their independent license and no longer need supervision, they need at least one person they can go to process and seek guidance.\u00a0 We need to see the world through other\u2019s perspectives and be willing to consider that we may not be seeing the whole elephant.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> James Kelly, \u201cSix Blind Men and the Elephant,\u201d\u00a0 American Literature, accessed February 19, 2024, https:\/\/americanliterature.com\/author\/james-baldwin\/short-story\/the-blind-men-and-the-elephant<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Edwin Friedman A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix.<\/em> (New York: Church Publishing, 2007).<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Rosemary Kennedy Chapin and Melinda Lewis, Social Policy for Effective Practice: A Strengths Approach,<\/em> 6th<\/sup> ed, (New York: Routledge, 2023), 2.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Friedman, 60.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Friedman, 61.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Friedman, 5.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Friedman, 158-186<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Life is all about perspective, how each person sees and understands something.\u00a0 Have you read or heard the Indian parable about the six blind men and the elephant?\u00a0 James Baldwin retells the story, The Blind Men and the Elephant. \u00a0In the short story he describes six blind men\u2019s encounter with an elephant.\u00a0 As each blind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":200,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2967,236],"class_list":["post-35950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlgp03","tag-friedman","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/200"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35950"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35953,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35950\/revisions\/35953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}