Mirror Neurons and Social Work?

Mirror neurons – recently discovered neurons in the brain that fire in the same way when we are both doing a task and when we are watching someone else do the same task. The firing of these particular neurons allows us to have the same experience as the person doing the task. In addition the firing of this particular neuron teaches us how to perform the task. To more fully understand what I am writing about I urge you to watch the video on mirror neurons at the PBS – Nova site:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3204/01.html

In other words it is one of the most basic social neurons that have been discovered to date. In order to survive alone, a person needs neurons that allow us to perceive and respond to the world around us but there is no need for the mirror neuron unless there are other people present. These neurons allow us to perceive (an aspect of mind reading) what other people are feeling and thinking (to a degree), and have the same experience ourselves. The video said mirror neuron development may be one of the basic factors that separate us from the animals and contribute to the high levels of communication that take place between human beings.

Why is understanding mirror neurons important to social work? My perspective on social work is that the work is basically about reducing and hopefully relieving suffering. I find that the work is spiritual, practical, altruistic, and meaningful – and highly important to our success as social beings. If mirror neurons are one of the basic building blocks to human social behavior how can that knowledge move us toward less suffering?

A person watches sports and feels surges of adrenaline in his or her body and actually experiences winning or losing the game. A person watches a child playing in a lawn sprinkler and experiences the drops of cool water on their skin. A group of children watch a group of adults working together and learn how people can work as a team.

A boy watches his father drink and physically abuse his mother and learns how to treat women. A girl watches other girls and learns that having a boyfriend is the best way for her to feel good about herself. A man learns how to steal when he is in jail with other people who steal things (sic).

To my way of thinking, social work has a lot to do with changing how people perceive the world and what they have come to understand about how to live in the world. Much of what people learn comes from their family culture – the people they grow up with. The discovery of mirror neurons is simply more evidence of the importance of creating and supporting health living environments. Many people understand that we learn from each other but I am under the impression that most people don’t realize the degree to which the environment we place ourselves in affects our world view and the decisions we make. Cultures of tolerance and compassion come from living in a culture of tolerance and understanding.

I have heard for years that simply watching violence on television or in a video game does not result in more violent children. I beg to differ. If we are watching and/or participating in violence through games every day for hours (not unusual for many children) violence become our world view. Later in life, a person in the army may operate a drone from some remote location destroying people and villages then go in to eat supper and watch Seinfeld on TV. She/he has learned from childhood how to live in the world. Destroying things and people becomes a normal part of our lives.

This understanding on my part again underscores the importance of social workers and other human service workers to work toward creating environments that support the world we want to live in. The discovery of mirror neurons simply increases our understanding about how that happens. While toys are often ways that children learn about how to talk about and express their feelings, it is our task to provide balance through healthy interaction with adults and other children. If a family or person is in crisis how can we respond and create an experience of strength and understanding. We all know that if we, as a crisis responder, walk into a situation calm and competent, people in the situation often respond in kind. In other words “You must be the change you want to see in the world” (Mahatma Gandhi)

The Importance of Self-Detachment in Social Work Practice

“I’ve had it. I can’t do this anymore” Words I uttered to a fellow Master in Social Work student while riding down in the elevator after our last class of the day. Her eyes glazed over and when the elevator doors opened we went our separate ways. When is caring about and for our fellow human beings simply more than we want do deal with? Why on one day do I feel totally inspired to work in programs that respond to human suffering and the next all I want to do is spend the day alone riding my bicycle?

While researching for one of my papers I bumped into an article entitled “The Buffering Effect of Self-Detachment Against Emotional Exhaustion Amongst Social Work Students” by Yu-Wen Ying (2008). Huh? What? Self-Detachment? Not caring about the people we were serving is ok – even for a while? On page 138 of the study she clearly states “. . . that self-detachment and social support significantly protected against emotional exhaustion in social work students.” The study clearly shows there is a correlation between high self-detachment and low emotional exhaustion and vice versa.

The first thing I needed to examine was my definitions of self-detachment and caring about people. In the article, Ying makes the following comment “While the Western dualistic perspective tends to pit self-love against other-love, in the Eastern-Buddhist tradition, self- and other-compassion are inextricably intertwined. . . “ (Ying, 2008). So again I bump up against my western mind. I clearly believe in the importance of mindfulness in my social work practice (see my earlier blogs) but I clearly separate out self-love (going from a bike ride) from other-love (providing direct human services). And I appear to be very self judgmental about feeling two different ways; that is, feeling something must be wrong if I keep feeling different ways about my chosen profession. It must be evidence of a conflict in values and ethics, indecisiveness, wishy-washiness, etc.

Ying (2008) is saying that “. . . self- and other-compassion are inextricably intertwined. . .” and created a hypothesis and study whose results support this statement. If I understand this correctly, caring about myself CAN BE caring about other people (although Ying (2008) is careful to point out that “. . . the former should not be misconstrued as self-indulgent”). I have heard and talked about the concept of self care as being an important aspect of human service work for many years. I have always interpreted this as the importance of distancing oneself from other people for a period of time as a way of “recharging ones batteries”; again the dualistic world view. But I have never really considered self-detachment as not distancing oneself from another person but simply changing ones mindfulness focus while continuing to provide other-love to other people. In other words, not necessarily separating self-love from other-love as a form of burn out protection or burn out recovery.

So what does this mean to me in the real world? Several things come to mind. The first is the importance of mindfulness meditation. If I strengthen my ability to control the focus of my attention I will not be as likely to be swept away by another person’s feelings and/or situation increasing my ability to keep a clear and present mind and create meaningful solutions. Secondly it means that I can spend time alone doing things I enjoy but I don’t have to spend time alone in order prevent burn out. Thirdly I have to work on finding ways of providing self-love and other-love at the same time. How can I spend time with this person, care for myself and still provide meaningful solutions to their problems without being self-indulgence. (An example might be walking with the person while we talk providing me with much needed physical exercise while still focusing on the other person’s issues).

I’m sure there are other ways and benefits to providing compassion for myself and others at the same time but the key for me is to not think about pitting my care for self against my care for others. It truly is a change in my world view. I believe this is a very important focus for my ongoing meditation practice and needs to become a foundation to my mindfulness social work practice.

Reference:

Ying, Y. (2008). The Buffering Effect of Self-Detachment Against Emotional Exhaustion Amongst Social Work Students. Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Social Work: Social Thought, Vol. 27 (1-2). 127-146.

Never Assume You Understand Another Culture

I am a 64 year old man who in his later years has become fascinated by the very work he has be doing for almost 40 years. I have worked in humans services during that time as a counselor, therapist, outreach worker, teacher, case manager, mediator, community health worker, program director, community organizer, group leader, living skills educator, HIV prevention coordinator, and treatment program supervisor. Each job I have done simply because I enjoy working with people and enjoy challenges. When considering retirement I realized there was only one thing I wanted to do in my retirement – the same thing I have been doing my entire work life.

I am currently in the final few semesters of a Masters in Social Work (MSW) program at Humboldt State University and with credentials in hand I plan to expand my community organizing and clinical work efforts within my local community by responding to the expressed needs of community members. I will continue to go where my strengths can best be utilized – nothing really new there. What the MSW program has done is allowed me to take time out to reflect on the work I have done in the past, learn what is happening nationally and globally, and focus my thinking on what my strengths, interests, and values really are. A couple of themes have emerged that I find, as I said before, absolutely fascinating: the unique nature of social work in rural counties and mainstream cultures relationship with indigenous populations. I have spent many hours reading, writing, studying, talking, and thinking about both of these items.
My daughter is a MSW social worker working with male Latino youth. During one visit she handed me a book by Anne Fadiman entitled The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. My daughter simply said “Read It.” I put it aside and promptly forgot about it. About two months later I found the book and started thumbing through it. I couldn’t put it down. The book has become one of the few I have found that speaks directly to the heart of my interest in social work - the unique nature of social work in rural counties and mainstream cultures relationship with indigenous populations.

I am not going to retell the story in the book. If you have similar interests I have one simple recommendation: read it. But I am going to describe a few of the points the author made in the book that I found to be especially enlightening to this western, Euro-American mind. First I would like to say that the book is not about indigenous cultures in the United States but goes to great lengths to describe the relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous cultures in Southeast and Eastern Asia. But I believe that applying those descriptions to the United States would be simply a matter of substituting names, locations, and cultural practices. The following is one example: “For the many Hmong who live in high-unemployment areas, questions of advancement are often moot. They have no jobs at all. This is the reason the Hmong are routinely called this country’s “least successful refugees.” It is worth noting that the standard American tests of success that they have flunked are almost exclusively economic. If one applied social indices instead – such as crime, child abuse, illegitimacy, and divorce – the Hmong would probably score better than most refugee groups (and also better than most Americans), but those are not the forms of success to which our culture assigns its highest priority. Instead, we have trained the spotlight on our best-loved index of failure, the welfare rolls.” (Fadiman, 1997)Indigenous populations in the United States and other countries succeed or fail based on which definition of success you want to use. Yes, Native Americans have unemployment rates of up to 80% in some areas and have had to depend on welfare or other forms of income to survive. But in areas where local indigenous people have been able to maintain or strengthen their tribal community and family, crime, child abuse, illegitimacy, and divorce is often lower than surrounding non-indigenous communities (Red Horse, 1997). It is only in areas where their traditional values and beliefs have been decimated by mainstream culture that you find high rates in the problems described above.

The parts of the book I found the most interesting were the descriptions of the moments of face to face contact between mainstream American culture and Hmong culture. Besides the obvious lack of understanding due to the difference in language it is quickly apparent that language is just one facet and may be not even the most important. The other barriers are cultural and include spiritual beliefs, health and medical practices, the importance of the community versus the individual, literacy, appropriate treatment of children, diet, what constitutes responsible living, and more. I have stood face to face with another person and realized I cannot communicate at any level and also understood that the other person is having the same experience. We both want to but other than smiling at each other it cannot happen.

In her book Fadiman (1997) makes a salient point about healing that I hadn’t really considered before. I have always held the belief that some illnesses were more emotionally or intellectually based, some illnesses were more physically based and many are some combination of the two. The cultural healer is the best person to address the emotional or intellectual problems and western medicine is very good at addressing the physical problems. The problem is that both systems think they are addressing both problems. Confusion erupts and sometime dangerous situations develop when one system comes into conflict with the other. My understanding was that one system really didn’t buy into the validity of the other. Fadiman (1997) states that in her conversations with Hmong cultural leaders the two systems don’t really conflict, they are simply treating different parts of a person’s illness and a Hmong healer’s practice doesn’t really conflict with Western medicine as long as it doesn’t prohibit the Hmong practice. The Hmong healer often supports Western medicine as part of the healing process. I’m not sure how this applies to indigenous healers in the West but it has given me inspiration for further study in the area.

So why are this and other descriptions in Fadiman’s (1997) book about cultural contact and misunderstandings so important to me? It goes a long way toward describing the problems I face as a social worker every day. My efforts to lend a helping hand are seen as another effort of mainstream culture to assimilate their culture. The lack of participation on the part of Native Americans in a project I created is not necessarily a show of non-interest; it might be a show of disapproval. Hmong did not want to move to the United States to become American, they wanted a safe place to be Hmong. As the world shrinks and we all come into contact with more and more cultures it is essential that we learn to live in multiple worlds and to never make assumptions about another culture. We have to learn how to live together and create opportunities for cultures to value each other and see the potential for strength in communities comprised of multi-cultures not fear. This goes against our ancient reptilian brain and only through mindful thought and practice can we retrain our minds to look for and find that strength. We truly are a global community and finding strength in cultural collaborations is essential to our survival as human beings.

References:
Fadiman, A. (1997). The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. New York, NY: The Noonday Press.

Red Horse, J. (1997). Traditional American Indian Family Systems. Family Systems and Health, Vol. 15, 243-250.