Narrative Social Work Practice for HIV/AIDS Clients

摘要

This article aims to present and discuss an innovative narrative social work theory, and to demonstrate its effectiveness through a case study of liberating a client who was dominated by HIV/AIDS discourse. The innovative construction entails four components: basic theory, clinical theory, intervention skills, and a measurement method. The selected basic theory, derived from Foucault's theory of the power of knowledge as well as Bateson's theory of difference, is aimed at theorizing a process that could help an individual to construct a new story by activating a force of differentiation in the vertical and horizontal feedback loops. Clinical theory, which provides a practical framework for problem solving, was formulated as the generation of a difference within the circular process of horizontal and vertical feedback loops. This article identifies a set of intervention skills and their effective application for generating a difference in a strategic direction. Circular questions are considered as key skills for generating a difference, while the categorization of each skill indicates a strategic application. The measurement method is theorized using modified Bales' theory to demonstrate the dynamics of the transformation process. Three-dimensional graphs are used to visualize the activation of the force of the difference.