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Although clinical social work seeks to center the transformative potential of human relationships, practitioners are experiencing heightened systemic and organizational impingements from the dehumanizing pressures of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism and racism diminish the vitality and transformative potential of human relationships, disproportionately affecting Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) communities. Practitioners are also experiencing increased stress and burnout related to increased caseloads and decreased professional autonomy and organizational practitioner support. Holistic, culturally responsive, and anti-oppressive processes seek to counter these oppressive forces but need further development to synthesize antioppressive structural understandings with embodied relational interactions. Practitioners can potentially contribute to efforts that apply critical theories and antioppressive understandings within their practice and workplace. Through an iterative flow of three sets of practices, the RE/UN/DIScover heuristic supports practitioners’ efforts to respond in those challenging everyday moments where oppressive forms of power are imposed and embedded within systemic processes. With themselves and other colleagues, practitioners engage in compassionate REcover practices; use curious, critical reflection to UNcover full understandings of power dynamics, impacts, and meanings; and draw on creative courage to DIScover and enact socially just and humanizing responses. This paper describes how practitioners can use the RE/UN/DIScover heuristic in two common challenging moments of clinical practice: systemic practice impingements and implementing a new training or practice model. The heuristic seeks to support practitioners’ efforts to preserve and expand socially just, relational spaces for themselves and those with whom they work within the context of systemic dehumanizing neoliberal forces.
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The dehumanizing effects of neoliberal, white dominant regulations, laws, policies, and cultural assumptions seep into the everyday practice of social workers in frontline and mid-level positions. Many social workers are learning various antioppressive practices and becoming aware of how microaggressions and other oppressive dynamics can manifest in workplaces but lack models to guide efforts for small-scale action. This article describes how the RE/UN/DIScover heuristic can be used to interrupt and shift oppressive processes during everyday moments of practice within organizations and systems by social workers and their interested colleagues who have some awareness of oppressive and antioppressive dynamics. The RE/UN/DIScover heuristic is an iterative set of three practices: (1) tend to self with compassionate REcover practices; (2) engage in curious, critical reflection to UNcover full understandings of the power dynamics, impacts, and meanings of specific challenges; and (3) DIScover and try out just, humanizing responses with creative courage, individually and with other colleagues. The heuristic uses a dual focus on self and situation with an ad hoc group of other colleagues to raise awareness; cultivate humanizing spaces; and implement antioppressive, relational responses. The article describes the heuristic practices and how to apply the heuristic with two composite practice applications.