Methods of Intervention: Working on Feelings

The two methods chosen for consideration in this chapter are the psychosocial method and crisis intervention. In contrast to the previous chapter, the emphasis here is on the impact of previous life experiences on actions and perceptions of present situations. While crisis intervention is still often claimed to be used by workers, the psychosocial method would appear to have lost its popularity in recent years. It may, however, be a bit premature to assume that this method is obsolete. Many of its constituent elements continue to be part of the practice repertoire of workers, enabling them to understand and work with those service users whose chaotic lifestyles do not seem to change, despite the extensive use of short-term methods. When discussing the potential use of the two methods, we feel it is important to consider the issue of evidencing practice. We are in no doubt that workers should as far as possible be able to justify their intervention by demonstrating its effectiveness. This activity, however, has considerable limitations for social work, as many aspects of the service do not lend themselves to measurement, the quality of relationships and feelings being two difficult areas to quantify and measure (Drummond 1993).