SELF-ASSESSMENT/SELF ANALYSIS REFLECTION PAPER:
Using your graduate student writing skills and APA formatting, this assignment requires that you write a concise self-assessment/self-analysis of your attitudes towards people with mental disabilities. This includes possible biases and expectations you may have about people based on labels or diagnoses that are applied to them. You are asked to write about attitudes you have learned and/or on a particular group of people with mental disabilities that you believe you would never want to have as clients in your social work career.
Use your understanding of ecological theory and theories of human development, and your critical thinking skills to help you think about how you developed these attitudes:
(a) evaluate which life experiences contributed to your attitudes
(b) thinking ecologically, was it your personal experiences, your family, your social class, your school, your town, your culture, your religion etc. that influenced you the most in forming these attitudes? How did these influences affect your attitudes? Why were they so influential?
Use the sections below as subtitles to organize your paper
1. Your attitudes towards people with mental disabilities: Which population(s) and/or problem(s) that might carry a DSM diagnosis do you feel are (or might be) uncomfortable for you to work with? Please explain why.
2. Individual system –Discuss the influence of your individual physical, psychological, cognitive and spiritual development on your attitudes towards this population. Conclude with a paragraph summary statement.
3. Family system – Discuss the influence of your family of origin and your family of procreation or current close friends on your attitudes towards this population. Conclude with a paragraph summary statement.
4. Mezzo and macro systems – Discuss the influence of your community and culture, including things like school settings and the media. Conclude with a paragraph summary statement.
5. Apply critical thinking to analyze why you were vulnerable to these influences, how they might affect your practice as a social worker and how you might learn to broaden your views. How can your practice be consistent with social work ethics despite any biases you have had in the past?