Authenticity

I received the greatest compliment this week.  You are a great colleague?  You're so smart? Talented? Well-dressed? Organized? Do you give up?  It was none of these things.  The compliment I received was (drum role please)....."You are so real".

Social work students often want to know what it takes to be a great clinician.  How do you do it, they ask?  What is most important?  What makes you good?  I love these questions because they have very simple yet very difficult answers.

A clinical social worker spends years in training.  At a minimum they will complete a masters degree from a University with a social work degree program accredited by the Council on Social Work Education.  They will clock a minimum of 900 hours of supervised education in the field as a student, take a state licensing exam, and then spend a minimum of 24 months working in a clinical position while receiving over a 100 hours of supervision.  When they have completed that, they will take an additional licensing exam.  So yes education is important, and yes supervision is important.    As a social work educator I am acutely aware of the intensive curriculum my students are trained in. I am also careful to remind them not to forget some simple qualities that may present quite a difficulty.

Social work is a human profession.  One human being guiding another on their journey.  It's not just books,  or computer algorithms,  it is human to human.  So when my students ask me what it takes to be great, one of the things I talk to them about is authenticity.  I tell them not to get so lost in theory, skills, and treatment plans that they forget to be real. 

This may sound simple and in some ways it is, after all we have been told by our mothers since we were young to "just be ourselves".  We learn that we are unique and that no one will be as good at being us as us, but in a world where we are often judged by what we "do" instead of who we "are" we can find ourselves constantly stretching for the next mile marker, wanting to hide our flaws, and anticipating where others will find us lacking.  All of this makes the simple task of being "real" very difficult.

This can be especially challenging for new social workers.  Armed with a passion to help others and a great education, they are still new.  Even when we are seasoned in our chosen profession we can be humbled by what we don't know.  After all we are always learning and growing....it's a journey.  The humility of recognizing we have a lifetime of knowledge to learn from our clients is good for us.  Great in fact, but humility is different from fear.  For the freshly graduated social work student realizing that they will enter the field with more questions than answers can be more than humbling.  It can be terrifying.  More than one of us as entered a new experience wondering when everyone will realize we don't belong there, we are just an imposter.  The problem is that fear can interfere with our ability to connect with people and connecting with people is essential to good social work practice.  When we are afraid we may be defensive or put up unnecessarily rigid boundaries.  Being "real" is  just not consistent with making sure no one discovers you are a fraud.  So I encourage students to take a risk, to trust themselves, and just be "real".  They will make mistakes, they will stumble, they will learn, and they will end up exactly where they are supposed to be.

So here is to being real.  Messy, imperfect, and quite amazing!




Information on social work education can be accessed at the Council of Social Work Education at:
http://www.cswe.org/File.aspx?id=31580