Regarding countertransference, do you think social workers have a professional responsibility to work with all types of clients, regardless of their personal reactions to the client?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

This question almost always makes for an interesting class discussion. The instructor should encourage and affirm all student responses, so they do not feel constrained from answering honestly. The instructor may in fact begin the discussion (as above) by describing a type of client with whom he or she had great difficulty working, or could not work with. In the course of the discussion students should be encouraged to exercise self-awareness, practice professional self-disclosure, and insure that any client they could or would not work with (if this seems reasonable) would be transferred in a professional manner. Students should be reminded of their professional responsibility to try to develop sufficient competence to work with most types of clients (the value of competence).