Paradigm Shift

Working from a Strengths Perspective requires a paradigm shift, moving away from the medical model and disease paradigm in a process of inner transformation that implies the recognition of our clients’ promise, strengths, assets, hopes, and dreams, as well as our own strengths, talents, assets, potential, hopes, and dreams. In Saleebey’s (2006) words:

… to begin to surrender it can be a wrenching experience-in a moderate fashion, as disruptive as larger, more cosmic shifts in consciousness. But it is nonetheless a shift in consciousness , a change in the way we see our clients and regard our work. Fortunately, we are not alone in this transformation of our professional consciousness . In other disciplines and professions, fault lines have appeared, and new conceptual and practical structures are becoming visible (p. 293).

References

Saleebey, D. (Ed.). (2006). The Strengths Perspective in social work practice (4th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Quote

"To collaborate in this process [of client growth], the practitioner must make a revolutionary shift. Rather than seeing oneself as having expert knowledge about the nature of someone’s problem, and therefore able to diagnose it and/or solve it, the practitioner must relinquish this role and, instead, start from a very different place—the place of skilled unknowing."

Ann Weick, James Kreider, and Ronna Chamberlain, Solving Problems from a Strengths Perspective in D. Saleebey (ed.), The Strengths Perspective on Social Work Practice. (2006). Boston: Allyn/Bacon & Longman, p. 125.