Focus Shifts From Disease to Functioning
Social Workers Drive Classification Systems' Evolution
NASW members advance classification systems based on functioning.
By Sheryl Fred, News Staff
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| Illustration: John Michael
Yanson |
Until recently, health professionals treated physical and mental
health conditions as just that disabilities or diseases that
were biological in nature and required treatment using a medical
model. A focus on fixing and curing rather than on considering
the whole person with potential for improved functioning dominated
the annals of medical and psychiatric research. In turn, patients
were seen as little more than the sum of their diagnoses.
While social work has long acknowledged that other factors both
contribute to and can affect the outcome of a person's condition,
it has taken physicians, psychiatrists and other disciplines years
to embrace this notion.
"Social workers were among the first professionals to emphasize
the biopsychosocial model," said NASW Senior Policy Associate
Tim Tunner, "and they have always been instrumental in looking
at how the environment impacts clients' functioning."
Today, major health and mental health professions are experiencing
a shift from disease models to models that focus on functioning
both in activities of daily living and in social roles as
social workers continue to work actively to bring a more holistic,
person-in-environment perspective to the physical and mental health
arenas.
"Social workers make an effort to emphasize social functioning,
and they encourage an understanding that helping clients is about
more that just giving them medications," Tunner said.
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From June 2005 NASW News. © 2005 National
Association of Social Workers. All Rights Reserved. NASW News
articles may be copied for personal use, but proper notice of
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