What is it about?
This article presents a phenomenological analysis of social work students' reflections on their changing and fluid identities ; the ways in which they have harnessed professional confidence and come to terms with their emotions and consolidated their self-identity in the process of training to become a social worker.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
This article is important for any health and social care professional trying to understand the linkages between the personal and professional selfhoods of students on their journey to become professionals. It unpacks and challenges the quagmire of assumptions underpinning 'emotional resilience' as an outcome of 'successful students' and instead presents the ways in which emotional intelligence, self-awareness and congruence with one's own purpose make emotional resilience a learnt skill.
Perspectives
Emotional resilience is undoubtedly becoming one of the most important professional skills of trainee social workers. However without contextualising emotional resilience within the politics of representation and cultural politics of emotive labour and the embodiment of those who perform it; the study of resilience will remain incomplete. I strongly believe that emotional resilience is not a personality trait or an outcome of successful people; but a process of politicised awareness and congruence between self-ascribed identity, reflexivity and professional identity.
Dr Sweta Rajan-Rankin
Brunel University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Self-Identity, Embodiment and the Development of Emotional Resilience, The British Journal of Social Work, May 2013, Oxford University Press (OUP),
DOI: 10.1093/bjsw/bct083.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
