Humanistic social work: core principles in practice, by Malcolm Payne

Abstract

‘‘[Humankind] is a detotalized-totality,’’ wrote Jean-Paul Sartre (1992, p. 7). As I write this review, London is on fire. Only a few weeks ago, a demented young man shot innocent children in the world’s most peaceful city in Norway. Americans are grieving the death of 30 servicemen, including 22 Navy Seals, in a Chinook helicopter that was shot down a few days ago in Afghanistan; the disillusionment of the debt crisis has changed American world-view forever. While this psychodrama of murderous politics goes on in the West, about a million children are near starvation death in Somalia. In this troubled global context, it sounds uplifting that someone would talk about humanism. ButHumanistic Social Work, regretfully, fails to be that messiah of hope. The core principles of its ‘‘practice’’ as well as the notion microhumanism do not add up to be self-liberatory. ‘‘Anarchy in the UK’’ is on account of massive alienation as ‘‘Britain’s rioters [are] young, poor and disillusioned’’. ‘‘It’s notmy fault if reality isMarxist,’’ Che told Sartre when the latter visited Cuba at ‘‘the honeymoon of the revolution’’ (quoted by Hayman, 1987, p. 371). Humanism, Sartre pursued, ‘‘should be founded on need’’ (Hayman, 1987, p. 371). There is a class war in the streets of London and Tripoli as I conclude this review. In a world plagued by mindlessness, savagery, terror, poverty, hunger, genocide, war, and ubiquitous public corruption, one cannot remain inside the womb of self. Malcolm Payne is a thoughtful social work educator. But his new book, despite its well-intentioned premise, falls short of its promise. It is encouraging to see in Humanistic Social Work that someone finds the ‘‘contemporary social work’’ flawed as it focuses ‘‘too much on problems and deficits’’ (p. ix). ‘‘Freedom is conceived only as the nihilation of a given,’’ Sartre concluded (1966, p. 588). Arguably, a case for Logical Humanism ‘‘emanates from a retro-modern despair of post-modernity’’ (Mohan, 2006, p. 282). Philosophically, I have been an unabashed supporter of the humanistic approach to all our social problems that, dialectically, deals with dehumanization and its scourges. Any praxis devoid of this ‘‘negative’’ dimension is an invalid perspective. ‘‘Humanistic practice of social work,’’ Payne believes, ‘‘define[s] the positive only as the absence of negative . . .’’ (p. x). His postmodern emphasis on ‘‘human rights thinking, microsociology, and social construction thinking as an important requirement in fulfilling both individual personal development and the mandate of social agencies’’ (p. x) is an incomplete and self-contradictory recipe. The Parsonian system and its ‘‘mandate of social agencies’’ and emphasis on ‘‘client’’-centered ‘‘practice’’ is untransformational at best (Gouldner, 1971). Clientization is not a humanistic approach. Also, to emphasize ‘‘micro’’ at the expense of its ‘‘macro’’ dimension and their symbiosis is an intellectual impossibility. Social work, as we teach and practice, is increasingly becoming anti-intellectual (Mohan, 2007, 2011; Stoez, Karger, & Carrilio, 2010). Internationalization of this