We are pleased to introduce our newest book and the first to be published under our new imprint, The New Social Worker Press. Available now!
REAL WORLD CLINICAL SOCIAL WORK : FIND YOUR VOICE AND FIND YOUR WAY
by Dr. Danna R. Bodenheimer
Do you love your clients, and is that okay? How much money do you need to make? Are you getting the supervision you need? How do you know which settings are clinical? What makes people unwell, and well? Do you have a theoretical orientation? Can you find your true life's work in a social services agency? These are a few of the questions on the minds of new social work clinicians.
Social work graduate school is only the beginning of your preparation for professional life in the real world as a clinical social worker. Dr. Danna Bodenheimer serves as a mentor or a supportive supervisor as she shares practice wisdom on topics such as thinking clinically, developing a theoretical orientation, considering practice settings, and coping with money issues. She addresses the importance of supervision and how to use it wisely. A frank discussion on the important and rarely-talked-about issue of loving one’s client is followed by a practical look at next steps—post-graduate options and finding your life’s work in clinical social work. Altogether, Real World Clinical Social Work will serve to empower you as you find your own voice, your own way, and your own professional identity.
"Danna Bodenheimer has written an insider’s guide to clinical social work that doesn’t make the reader feel like an outsider. This book is the clinical supervisor you always wanted to have: brilliant yet approachable, professional yet personal, grounded and practical, yet steeped in theory, and challenging you to dig deeper."
Jonathan B. Singer, Ph.D., LCSW, Associate Professor of Social Work, Loyola University Chicago, Founder and Host, Social Work Podcast
Contents
Acknowledgments 7
Foreword by Lina Hartocollis 9
Preface—What Do We Have Here? 13
PART 1—THINKING CLINICALLY
Chapter 1—Introduction: The Story of Rita 23
Chapter 2—The Lens of Clinical Social Work 27
PART 2—GETTING YOUR THEORETICAL GROOVE ON
Chapter 3—Thinking About Theory 45
Chapter 4—Object Relations 49
Chapter 5—Ego Psychology 57
Chapter 6—Self Psychology 67
Chapter 7—Cognitive Behavioral Therapy 71
Chapter 8—Burning Questions and Case Conceptualization 79
PART 3—PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Chapter 9—The Settings 103
Chapter 10—Money, Money, Money 117
PART 4—PRACTICE MATTERS
Chapter 11—Making Use of Supervision 135
Chapter 12—If I Had Known Then: Adventures From
the First Years 151
Chapter 13—What If I Love My Clients? 173
PART 5—THINKING AHEAD
Chapter 14—What’s Next? Post-Graduate Options 197
Chapter 15—Your Life’s Work: What Is Enough? 209
References 217
Index 219
About the Author 223
About the Author
Dr. Danna Bodenheimer, LCSW, lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. After leaving New York City in 2004, she had no idea that love for another city was possible. But working and living as a social worker in Philadelphia has demonstrated, for her, the beauty of her city.
Danna graduated from Smith College, earning her bachelor’s degree in Women’s Studies. After wholeheartedly planning on attending a Ph.D. program in psychology, going so far as to get her post-baccalaureate degree in psychology from Columbia University, Danna discovered the intricate beauty and possibility that social work offers. Turning down psychology programs to receive her MSW from Smith College, and returning to her educational roots in Northampton, Danna found her clinical self. After completing two internships in Philadelphia, one in a partial day treatment program and another at a school for psychoanalysis, Danna began her career at the Tuttleman Counseling Center at Temple University.
Three years later, while in the middle of her doctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where she received her DSW, Danna began a teaching career and her own private practice. Having taught at Rutgers, Temple, and the University of Pennsylvania, Danna has settled into teaching at Bryn Mawr’s Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. She teaches clinical practice and classes on gender and sexuality. Danna is now the head of the Walnut Psychotherapy Center, a trauma-informed outpatient setting that she founded, specializing in the treatment of the LGBTQ population.
Danna spends her time supervising, practicing psychotherapy, teaching, and consulting. She is the mother of two amazing young boys and lives in Philadelphia with her wife. She uses Philadelphia as a landscape to study issues of oppression, intersecting identities, and complex socioeconomic struggle.
Danna received the 2011-2012 Award for Excellence in Teaching from the University of Pennsylvania. She was also selected as a fellow for the American Psychoanalytic Association for 2012-2013. She is a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) in Pennsylvania.
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