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This narrative offers a palette of possibilities for linking micro and macro practices that arose from interviews with social workers who were viewed as addressing the profession’s dual purpose of individual well-being and social justice in their practice. I begin with my own experiences and desires to link micro and macro together as a clinical social worker and community organizer. An interlude describing the way the social workers stretched my thinking comes in between the themes. I conclude with a final reflection on the impact of their stories and implications for future research and practice.

This article explores the question of how human beings change, how change is constrained, and how change emerges out of and subsequently creates new forms of stability with adults. The emergence of Dynamic Systems Theories (DST) from developmental biology and neuroscience provide the tools to engage in such an understanding by attending to the issues of time, balance, influencing parameters (within person and sociocultural and material environments), and multiple adaptive and maladaptive pathways. DST provides the framework to understand the dynamic processes of bio-psychosocial factors that provide human beings with the stability and the flexibility to navigate the challenges and stressors of living. Complexity, the ability to experience inner continuity as one is changing, is a fluid balance that supports effective functioning. Findings: Key principles and concepts of DST describe multiple pathways of stability and change. A case example illustrates how DST helps social workers understand client experiences and responses to stressors, formulate initial and ongoing assessments, and monitor clients' participation in change activities. Application: Social workers seek to help people who experience an imbalance due to an inability to effectively respond to the negative impact of a stressor. By understanding the various pathways of balance and imbalance along the continuum of continuity to change, social workers can better understand how stressors are impacting specific clients, and subsequently the kinds of change that would best assist each client.

Although research is beginning to capture the complex interactions of biopsychosocial variables operating within experiences of stressors and trauma, the bodies of research have remained largely separate and limited. This study describes a scaffold of factors and pathways based on principles from dynamic systems theories (DST) to organize the literatures on stress and coping and trauma and resilience. As a process model, DST provides the language to understand both impact and response to stressors and trauma: Not as a list of symptoms but as interactive processes within persons and between persons and their surroundings. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

For more than a century the social work profession has had a dual purpose: to promote individual well-being and social justice, but the micro-macro divide is fragmenting the profession. This article suggests that the profession's aim might best be realized by adopting a unifying purpose, a just sense of well-being. Research on complex adaptive systems conceptualizes a unifying purpose as vertical integration carried out in differentiated ways in discrete moments of practice in various settings. Interpersonal neurobiology and Aristotle's interdependence of character virtues and practical judgment inform a corresponding shift from the dualities of personal and professional to the social worker as a person with differentiated professional capacities and activities. Integration with differentiation enhances capacity to promote the profession's purpose.

Constructing mutual, spiritually focused psychotherapy goals is a practice activity fraught with numerous ethical and countertransferential challenges. This article seeks to inform the thinking and enhance the ability of clinical social workers to engage in collaborative and responsive dialogues with their clients regarding the goals of spiritually focused clinical practice by (1) identifying the multiple value frameworks that influence decisions regarding practice goals, (2) articulating some of the ethical complexities and common countertransferential reactions associated with goal setting, and (3) providing self-reflection questions and guides to help therapists navigate the complexities of this material.

From the report: "Project title: Walking the walk or just talking the talk? An exploratory study of the ways social workers understand social work practice." The report describes the research problem, identifies three reserach questions, and discusses the project outcomes and reporting.

Direct practice social workers today are challenged to address the requirements of the complex array of professional, organizational, institutional, and regulatory demands placed on them in the broader socioeconomic context of fewer resources and diminished public support for social welfare services in the United States. The common factors model provides an accessible, transtheoretical, empirically supported conceptual foundation for practice that may help to resolve this conundrum and support effective practice. Common factors are conditions and processes activated and facilitated by strategies and skills that positively influence practice outcomes across a range ofpractice theories. The model provides an expanded conceptualization of the "active ingredients" required for change to include a focus on conditions and processes as well as practice strategies and to focus on all who are involved in the work. The model is described and implications for practice are discussed.

Most undergraduate students pursue a social work major because of their desire to help others. Students tend to be more interested in doing than in understanding the research and knowledge of the profession and the complexities of social work practice. Instructors are often faced with the challenge of enhancing student motivation to learn challenging course material. This study explored student perceptions of instructor influences on their motivation and engagement in learning. Through online surveys, students described their experiences of being known and how those experiences affected their participation in practice, research, and human behavior in the social environment courses. Results showed that instructor caring (providing recognition, expressing relational qualities, and responding to students) positively influences student motivation and affective learning by increasing comfort, willingness to ask questions, take risks, and overall participation. Conversely, of those who reported mixed experiences or who felt unknown, most reported a negative impact on their motivation and participation. These findings suggest that social work faculty can influence student motivation and engagement with essential social work curriculum by expressing care and helping students feel known in the classroom. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

This chapter describes a two-step process including videotaping and process-recording activities to facilitate self-awareness and the expression of empathy and acceptance toward other points of view. These activities are designed for beginning student clinicians who are currently completing their coursework and their first clinical internship. The first step of videotaping helps clinicians become more aware of their inner thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and personal values. This first step also helps participating clinicians become more aware of their nonverbal communication with clients, helping them assess how their internal experiences of empathy and acceptance match what is being conveyed nonverbally to their clients. The second step of the activity, process recording, helps clinicians reflect on their ability to use self-awareness to analyze their inner experiences and their outer expressions of empathy and acceptance (both verbal and nonverbal) while still being attuned to their clients' communication.

In this final article of the special issue Beyond the Manual: Using Data and Judgment in Clinical Social Work Practice, we extend the discussion regarding the use of data and judgment. We discuss the multiple sources of data used in practice, including research evidence, client perspectives and experience, moment-by-moment process observation, and client feedback regarding progress towards specific, desired outcomes. We move beyond current debates purporting one framework over another to propose a synthesizing framework that situates evidence-based practice, empirically supported interventions and common elements/mapping and adapting practice within a common factors scaffolding framework. This framework provides a way for social workers to effectively make sound judgments using research and client data within the demands of contemporary practice. The article provides a brief overview of the four practice approaches followed by the proposed scaffolding framework and rationale, and concludes with implications for practice, professional education, and research.

There is a growing divide in social work between those that believe social work interventions should be based on either art or science. We argue that these positions create a false dichotomy within the profession, possibly due to the language associated with clinical work and research. In this introduction article of the Special Issue: Beyond the Manual, we outline the debate within social work around the art and science split and then offer a new approach to framing the issue. We argue that social workers are regularly approaching their work with clients using art and science simultaneously and describe a new frame for the profession. In an effort to articulate and promote this new frame, this special issue was born. This introductory article concludes with a brief description of the topics and articles included in the issue to orient the reader to the content included within it.

Ongoing racism, structural inequity, dehumanizing institutional bureaucracies, unresponsive service delivery systems, and gaps in services for emerging needs are just some of the pervasive challenges in need of social work leadership. The multidisciplinary nature of social work practice also requires value-based leadership processes on multiple ecological levels to address the challenges inherent within social delivery systems. Social work encourages all social workers to lead these change efforts, but research on front-line social work leadership is lacking. Constructionist conceptualizations of leadership as social influence processes provide a unit of analysis to examine front-line leadership. A secondary analysis of qualitative data examining social work practice that promotes well-being and social justice revealed leadership processes in multiple social work practice settings. Findings Front-line social workers demonstrate three overarching leadership processes in their practice: challenging injustice and changing mindsets, conduit for change, and organizing resources and relationships. Applications Conceptualizing leadership as social influence processes identifies and acknowledges the leadership of front-line social workers, expanding the profession's capacity to collectively articulate and initiate change with a range of social problems and systemic challenges in organizations and communities.

For over a century the social work profession has had a dual purpose, to promote both human well-being and social justice, but we have not found research that explores how social workers understand and work toward both purposes across multiple practice roles and settings. Authors of this article conducted qualitative research to examine how 18 social workers in various roles and settings understand and implement both purposes in their practice. Instead of a dual purpose, participants described a unifying purpose: a "just sense of well-being" that transcends role and setting. Valuing the dignity and worth of all human beings frames and fuels their work toward a just sense of well-being through three interactive themes: challenging injustice on every level; constructing justice through relationship and resource organizing; and constructing justice through the creation of accepting environments where professionals, clients, and community members can reflect and question, and change mind-sets and actions. Participants provided an array of possibilities for action with clients, professionals, and public leaders within organizations and communities. The implication here is that social workers are charged to reinvigorate purpose and values back into practice with value-based assessment thinking that frames possibilities for action across methods and settings. Copyright © 2016 National Association of Social Workers.