Announcer:
This episode is brought to you by the University of Louisville.
Aliah Wright:
From the National Association of Social Workers, I'm your host, Aliah Wright, and this is Social Work Talks. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode, which focuses on emotional intelligence and what social workers need to know about this critical skill. Today we're chatting with Los Angeles based social worker, George Anderson. Mr. Anderson is the author of several books on emotional intelligence, anger management, and domestic violence. As a psychotherapist, he uses emotional intelligence as the theoretical basis for the work that he does. Thank you, Mr. Anderson for joining us today.
George Anderson:
Thanks so much for giving me this opportunity.
Aliah Wright:
Tell us first about why you became a social worker.
George Anderson:
I had been a probation officer in Los Angeles County for 10 years, and I worked exclusively with adolescents, and I was always concerned that the amount of influence that I had was really not great. And so I was encouraged to go to graduate school. And first I thought of psychology, but it was actually a social work professor who asked the question, "What exactly do you want?" And I said, "I'd like to do psychotherapy." And he says, "You're better off with a master's degree in clinical social work with a specialization in working with children and adolescents." So that's how I got into social work.
Aliah Wright:
Tell us about Anderson and Anderson and the work that you do.
George Anderson:
Anderson and Anderson is actually a professional corporation, and it's actually a social work corporation, and we've been charged by the state of California for about 40 years. And it has changed over the years; initially I was on the faculty at UCLA School of Medicine and the psychotherapy is the only thing that we did. And we specialize with children and adolescents. That later became a psychiatric clinic in which we provided inpatient and outpatient psychiatric treatment in 12 States. And we had corporate clients like United Airlines, British Airways, Mexicana, Amtrak, and so on. So that was a huge business. It lasted for 12 years and then came Managed Healthcare, and so that would close the operation. And then I wrote first a curriculum on Batterers Intervention at the request, actually, of the NASW in California. And that curriculum became the largest that's used in California with emotional intelligence as the theoretical base.
Aliah Wright:
What exactly is emotional intelligence?
George Anderson:
Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize and manage your own feelings, and to be able to sense the feelings and moods of others, and to use that information in a way that leads to a positive outcome. I personally, since 2008, have worked exclusively with physicians relative to emotional intelligence for what's called disruptive behavior or leadership or burnout. I was asked to see a heart transplant surgeon. So I actually sat in the operating room and observed this heart surgeon do surgery on four patients and then he did one leg amputation. And then finally, using a computer, did orthoscopic surgery on a burst appendix. I'd never had an experience like that in my life.
Aliah Wright:
Wow.
George Anderson:
But what I noticed, yes, what I noticed though, was how he treated the rest of the treatment team. And so all I did was observed, I never said anything at all on that day. It was the next day that I spent an entire day with him, away from the hospital and his private office. During that particular time, as I'm going through the assessment, instead of saying, "I disagree," he said, "That's wrong." So he did it three times and I became aware that I was feeling uncomfortable. And when I thought about it more, I was feeling uncomfortable because I thought it was like a put-down. He says, "I disagree." When in fact I had devoted so much of my time to be really astute and good at what it is that I do.So I used assertive communication. I said, "Doctor, you are a heart transplant specialist. I'm not even a physician. If I told you that something that you did was incorrect, that I disagreed, it would make a lot of sense." And I said, "I'm sure you have not thought about it, but when you tell me that's wrong, it makes me feel somewhat uncomfortable." Could you instead think in terms of saying, "I disagree"? He continued to do it. And so this is important because one of the first tasks to be successful in an interaction in social work like this, is you have to have a trusting relationship between yourself and the client. And so that I decided that I need to do everything that I can to influence him in a way that would make the relationship positive for the two of us. And so I said, "Let's move now to focusing on the skills that you score highest in." And so that's what I proceeded to do. And so there was less of a reason for him to say "that's wrong" or "I disagree." Emotional intelligence is consistent with social work practice in that it doesn't really matter what the specialty is until you got to have a relationship with a client. And it's important to constantly be aware and empathetic to the client. For example, I realized that one of the reasons that he was responding negatively was he was mandated to see me. No one wants to be mandated for any intervention. And so I need needed to make sure, to him, that this was something in his best interest. Is that I wanted him to perceive me as being helpful, not a person who came just to provide negative or bad information. And so then we articulated a plan in which he decided, of the scores that you have, that you may need or may want to improve, can we narrow it down to three initially. And then we will develop exercises in which you can practice in those areas. For example, since he was negative in relation to interacting with the people on his team, one of the goals was to help him see that there may be reasons for any particular behavior. So as another example from the same situation, in the afternoon of the day that I'm observing him, he kept saying to the surgical tech, "Pay attention, pay attention, pay attention." I brought it to his attention and he says in the afternoon, the surgical techs, or the people in the operating room, are thinking that the shift time is over at 3:00. Where are they going to shop for dinner? What're they going to make or pick the kids up and things like that. And they're not paying attention. And so that, again, the focus for me is, are there ways that you may be able to present what it is that you need from them in a way that is more positive, being empathetic to the concerns of that surgical tech? So again, it's emotional intelligence, but it's very, very practical. And teaching at him each step of the way, how to change the behavior that is in question. So one of the most dramatic things that could possibly dream of, on my part, while having a person's heart in his left hand and suturing a part of the heart with his right hand, he got in an argument on the telephone. The kind of telephone that you used to wear around your head. Got into an argument, yelling, screaming argument, in the operating room. I almost had a nervous breakdown. So all of that became fodder for our work together. And so it turns out the argument was with someone who was calling again, with yet another complaint, in which he had been disrespectful to another physician.
Aliah Wright:
Why do you think social workers need this skill?
George Anderson:
Because we tend to work with clients who have less than what is optimal. Right now, during the pandemic, it is the people of color and persons who have less, in terms of financial means, that are most likely to die and most likely to have difficulty in finding services. In order to get, for example, clients or patients going forward to buy into the vaccine, it's often that is going to be the social worker who's involved in discharge planning in terms of, okay, here are the services that you need. Best example that I can give you, is that even in health, if you want a patient to follow through with following the recommendations for medication, the one who has a good relationship with the doctor is likely to follow through. The one who doesn't is likely not to follow through. And so that we work with clients like this every single day.
Aliah Wright:
So empathy is a critical skill as well. That's part of it, is what I'm hearing.
George Anderson:
Yes, self-awareness, self-control, social awareness. That's the part in which you're picking up the displeasure or what the life situations are with a person, it's relationship management. What can you do? What can they do? What can you have them do in order to see the value of making slight changes and understanding and perceiving in a different way what they may have thought of as punitive, for example.
Aliah Wright:
Mr. Anderson, what can social workers do to practice being more emotionally intelligent?
George Anderson:
First of all, I think you can start reading as much as you can about emotional intelligence. And the book that I recommend to everyone is by Daniel Goleman, and it's the Emotional Intelligence in 1995, I believe. I also have my own curriculum that I use in working with physicians, it's called The Practice of Control and it's available on our website, which is andersonservices.com. It's very practical and down to earth, easy to follow. I also have an anger management workbook, it's called "Gaining Control of Ourselves," that is based on emotional intelligence.
Aliah Wright:
Listeners, we'll be right back.
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Aliah Wright:
And we're back. Mr. Anderson, what are some of the social work tasks that knowledge of emotional intelligence can address?
George Anderson:
Making decisions, as well as ... Maybe I should start at the beginning. Assessments first, it's like, once you meet a client for the first time, in addition to developing a working relationship, you need to define the problem. That entails a good interaction between you and the client. The next one is, once you define what the problem is, then it should be in that assessment, what is needed? How can we accomplish the task at hand? And then decision-making. All of those are elements that are in almost every interaction between a social worker and a client. And so when you start with the assessment, identification of the problem, as well as then, now let's focus on the solution, which is going to take a longer period of time. You're going to be using emotional intelligence all the way through; self-awareness, self-control, social awareness, relationship management, empathy. As well as assertive communication and stress management and so on. And when we deal with stress management, for example, which is what is happening now, worldwide, anxiety and stress and depression is higher than it's ever been in our history. Social workers are not immune themselves, so you need to start off with self-awareness, it's going to be a lot more difficult for you to help the other party if you're overwhelmed with your own situation. But the self-awareness gives you the opportunity to control yourself. I am recommending that all schools of social work implement emotional intelligence as part of social work training, and it can be initiated in the field placements, which is essentially the internship social workers take.
Aliah Wright:
Can emotional intelligence be useful in social work assessment, client engagement and decision-making?
George Anderson:
It can determine the success of psychotherapy if that's what you're doing. And so that, let's take the work that I do, we started with an emotional intelligence assessment and after six months we do an emotional intelligence post assessment. Which is the same assessment. So we have now, evidence-based, did the client make progress? The answer's yes or no, and here's the evidence. And so the same thing can be done, or really should be done, and it's beginning to occur more, with some of the procedures in social work. Keeping in mind that social workers really have been, since World War II, the largest provider of mental health services in the country. 70% of [inaudible 00:14:50] services in the United States have been provided by a social worker since World War II. But we don't give ourselves credit for it. Which means that if you adopt the same principles to the clients that you are seeing, who are in social service agencies for counseling or psychotherapy, and hospitals for discharge planning, or psychiatric hospitals, and so on. All of those are settings in which social workers are working. Or even if you think of prisoners in jails, we are encountering people who have actually problems managing their lives that's based on having some type of psychiatric impairment.
Aliah Wright:
Is emotional intelligence something people can put in place to manage their lives better?
George Anderson:
It can be learned right away. And so that, basically only about 15 skills and so that if you pick out just five, these are the ones that I would focus on. Self-awareness, self-control, social awareness, relationship management, and empathy. If you first start off by defining all of those in a way that is natural for you, then recognizing it when you see it, and then beginning to practice ... Just those five, you'll be able to see the difference between you and the other party, and it gives you the impetus to make even a greater skill enhancement in those particular areas.
Aliah Wright:
Mr. Anderson, is there anything you'd like for our audience to know that we haven't covered?
George Anderson:
It's time, I believe, to take advantage of something negative that has occurred, which is the pandemic, and making it into a positive. It isn't me who introduced the idea of emotional intelligence for social work. This has been something that we've had research on it from the British Journal of Social Work for probably 20 years. But few schools, or I don't know any schools in the US, that actually have introduced emotional intelligence into practice. And so that we should also encourage master's level social work students, as well as those in doctoral level programs, to begin doing research so that we have, as a part of the social work literature, the value of adding emotional intelligence. Even if we initially did it just in terms of basic interviewing techniques when you [inaudible] with a new client.
Aliah Wright:
Mr. Anderson, thank you so much for joining us. And listeners, again, you can find details about the resources we've discussed in the show notes on our website.
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You have been listening to NASW Social Work Talks, a production of the National Association of Social Workers. We encourage you to visit NASW's website for more information about our efforts to enhance the professional growth and development of our members, to create and maintain professional standards, and to advance sound social policies. You can learn more at www.socialworkers.org. And don't forget to subscribe to NASW Social Work Talks wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for joining us, we look forward to seeing you next episode.