Philip D. Farmer, Stephen F. Austin State University

In John Milton's famous work, Paradise Lost, the fall of humankind from Paradise is discussed. In Milton's much debated work, the function of evil in the world and how humans responded to it is examined. Milton's great work, in rather simplistic terms, is a review of how an ideal situation can be lost.

In terms of social work knowledge development, this article will examine what has long been considered the ideal situation in social work, the use of scientific method and empiricism as the guiding force for developing knowledge in the profession. Through this examination, the historical entry and use of the empirical viewpoint will be discussed in relation to the social work profession. Following that discussion, the current and ongoing role of empiricism will be examined in view of current changes within the profession and society in general.

For the purposes of this paper the term paradigm will be used in the classic sense given it by Thomas Kuhn (1970). Kuhn utilized this term to represent the commonly accepted viewpoint that is dominant within a given profession or field of study. Accordingly, the term represents a viewpoint that has been developed and usually tested over a period of time and has gained acceptance by the professional community that adheres to it.

In the initial years of the young social work profession, a paradigm developed that was not empirical or scientific. While this new paradigm was rational, it was closely tied to the morality of those early days, the late 1800's.

Jane Addams (1964) viewed the role of the social worker as one in which the worker was to mix in with others in order to understand their problems. At the same time, Mary Richmond (1920) saw the work as one that was rational and organized.

These early approaches, based as they were on philosophy, represent a different conceptualization of how clients should be viewed and treated. Hollis (1951) indicates that these early philosophies represented ideas of moral control. Goldstein (1990) discusses those early views and concludes that the mission of the profession at that time was developed out of concern for the individual, family, community, environment and social reform. This mission reflects the humanitarian commitments and humanistic philosophy of the time, as they related to moral control issues within the greater society. It is important to remember that the motivation of these early social workers was to fulfill their "noble obligation". These early social workers reflected the tendency of their society to moralize about the problems of those in need and to encourage those needy persons to conform to a higher moral code.

Another result of these early efforts in social work was to create an underlying perspective that still permeates all social work practice today, Person-In-Situation. This early conceptualization of person-in-situation still reflected the beliefs of the time, that clients are poor, unfortunate, wayward souls in need of moral rescue. Social workers of the time believed that the poor were suffering from personal shortcomings that were the result of a lack of proper moral development. While these early social workers had progressed beyond the early view that the person's situation was the result of sin, they were firmly entrenched in the mechanistic belief system of the time that problems were the result of personal flaws (Capra, 1982). The advent of psychoanalytic treatment models simply reinforced the notion of people being flawed.

While Jane Addams (1964) was engaged in the social work process from a viewpoint that focused on changing the situation or environment of the person (social ethics), the underlying viewpoint of moral control was still present. Goldstein (1990) discusses the idea that a shift did occur that led the profession toward a new context. The advent of positivistic philosophy led to a discrediting of intuition, values and moralizing. Instead of moralizing and wanting the client to develop new values as way to improve their lot in life, objectivity became the standard and led to the scientification of the social work profession.

The focus of the profession began to turn, dramatically, to the objective and rational ideas of scientific method. Moralizing gave way to more rational and logical approaches to viewing clients and their problems. This shift in how clients were viewed had several underlying causes. An initial cause for the adoption of the scientific method for use was because it was the prevalent university approach to knowledge. This was important for a fledgling profession that needed to be accepted into the realm of graduate education. Another reason for this shift to the rational/empirical and away from moral control was directly related to the initiation of cash social welfare payments paid directly to individuals (Hollis, 1951). These cash payments, along with the concomitant right to spend the money as the individual sees fit, were the final loss of moral control over social welfare clients. A final reason for this conceptual shift is discussed by Dean & Fenby (1989) in relation to the profession's growing need to be accepted as a profession that is firmly based in scientific method.

The conceptual shift to a scientific and empirical viewpoint about clients forever altered how the profession and its clients were to be conceptualized. Kivisto (1998) notes that the same shift was occurring in society as well. Society was moving from traditionalism to modernism and in direct relation to the growth of industrialization and urbanization.

This trend was not limited to the social work profession. In the early 1800's, hypnosis was a medically accepted form of anesthesia. As new drugs were invented and came into common use, hypnosis began to viewed as an unscientific and irrational procedure that had no place in medical science. Today, a treatment that had been repeatedly demonstrated effective in the past is now marginalized as a fringe treatment to be used in situations where conventional medicine is not effective. This focus on scientific method directs attention toward objective proof and empirical understanding and away from faith, morals, values and traditions.

The social work profession was beginning to grow and become more formalized in its approaches to working with clients. After Flexner's (1915) criticism of the profession, entrance into the social sciences began in earnest. Richmond's book, Social Diagnosis written in 1917, was a first step toward a rational and logical description of the social work process. At the same time, universities were beginning to offer specialized courses and degrees through departments that housed social work with sociology, social welfare, and other social sciences.

In a society that was increasingly mechanistic and reliant on scientific method, the social work profession needed foundation knowledge. Kaplan (1963) describes the demand by saying that if knowledge was to be scientific, then such knowledge must contain empirical elements that are empirically derived. Lacking any extensive scientific background, social work was in need of immediate resources for use as part of the knowledge base. To answer this need, the profession turned to other sources. Kahn (1959) describes this situation by saying that the profession had to borrow knowledge from other social sciences in order to thrive. Kadushin (1959) indicated that in order to fill the need for scientific knowledge, social work has borrowed much of its knowledge from other social sciences. This process of borrowing was made easier by the fact that many social work programs were housed with other social sciences in departments and colleges within universities. This borrowing made it simple and convenient to communicate social work ideas to persons in other fields of study, since the same language was being used. This new emphasis on empiricism and logical positivism changed the paradigm of the profession.

The time had come for a paradigm shift as described by Kuhn. The former conceptual framework based on moralizing and moral control was giving way to a new rational process of scientific social work practice. At this same time, the work of Sigmund Freud began to be integrated into the process of working with people. While, by today's standards psychoanalytic theory is hardly considered to be scientific, those early social workers finally had a tool with which they could systematically and rationally explain what was happening to their clients.

This new tool for dealing with clients shifted the focus of social work to individuals and their psychosexual development. While the basic viewpoint of the profession, Person-In-Situation, was still being utilized within the profession, the concept was no longer seen as a balanced and holistic concept. Instead, the situation and environment were seen as secondary influences on the psychosexual development of the person. Greater importance was now being placed on the events of an individual's childhood.

This focus on the individual also served to reinforce the mechanistic viewpoint of the time. Individuals were part of the great machine of society (Capra, 1982) and became parts to be repaired. This view of the individual was supportive of the Protestant Work Ethic that placed a premium on individualism and personal responsibility for productivity in the society.

With this shift in conceptualization, the underlying viewpoint of person-in-situation moved toward a more empirical and rational focus. From this focus, the trend was toward helping the individual change and adapt to the environment. This focus on the person portion of the person-in-situation concept opened the door for the development of a large variety of social work practice models whose focus was on individual development.

As has been noted previously in this study, the ideas, values, and practices of social work reflect those of the greater society. Additionally, social work was closely tied to the social sciences and continued to borrow knowledge from these fields. Kivisto (1998) discusses the state of the sociology field during this time. Marx, Weber, and Durkheim were all modernists who shared the mechanistic and scientific view of society and the belief that modern society was possible because of industrialization and advances in science and technology. Best and Kellner (1991) also note that the classic world ordered the social world and classified and regulated knowledge. This ordering and classifying serves to control knowledge.

For the purposes of this discussion, it is important to note the control and order modernism (the classic world) exerts over knowledge. This control serves to promote individualism by reconfiguring the relationships of individuals with others in society. As Freudian theory continued to dominate the practice of social work, the focus on individuals was strengthened. One function of any paradigm is to control and direct the development of knowledge.

In time, behavioral treatment and cognitive treatment were added to the skills being used to intervene with clients. These treatment modalities continued to maintain the focus on the person. During these years, there was a broad proliferation of practice models, all focusing more on the individual and directing the development of knowledge accordingly.

The next phase of paradigm development had to wait for a contribution from the field of biology. General systems theory developed in the field of biology to explain various biological functions and especially to identify the relationships between different biological systems. These new systems explanations were readily adopted by the field of medicine. As these medical and disease models became more prevalent, they began to dominate the medical fields and those fields closely related to them. In the case of social work, the adaptation of the disease or medical model into the field was virtually inevitable. The disease model and the systems models that were related to it served to tighten the focus on science, empiricism and individualism. The combination of individual therapies, a medical model and the advent of medication usage in the late 40s and early 50s with psychiatric patients served to drastically reinforce logical positivism and the scientific method. The primary reason for the acceptance of this disease model and the general systems model was the way it fit neatly into the mechanistic mindset of industrialized society.

There were seeds of change contained within the apparently more scientific viewpoint of systems theory. Just as quantum mechanics had a significant impact on the field of physics, so too did systems theory impact the scientific viewpoint of the medical model. The seed of change lies in the notion that systems theory helped to open the door to more holistic conceptualizations.

According to DeHoyos and Jensen (1985), the development of systems theory as a social work model began in the 1960s with the work of Gordon Hearn. At the same time, social welfare began to change across the country. The new social welfare programs of the 1960s were not focused on the individual. They were, instead, focused on changing society itself. Systems theory was readily adaptable to this change in conceptualization.

As it was originally developed, General Systems theory concerned itself with change. With the changes in social welfare programs and society, a need arose for a more dynamic expression of systems theory. The result of this need was the development of ecosystems as a means to become more specific and to express more scientifically the underlying social work viewpoint of person-in-situation. The work of Bartlett (1970), Meyers (1983) and others in the 1970s provided for the strong development of the ecosystemic theoretical models. The focus of ecosystems is on the interactions between systems. While still scientific and empirical in its intent, this focus on interactions led the ecosystems models to begin to deal with relationships and other non-empirical issues.

The subtle shift in the focus of the scientific paradigm coincides with shifts in the society itself. Society has begun shifting from the philosophy of modernism to a focus on post-modernism. In post-modern philosophy, the focus of life and living reflects a shift toward searching for meaning. Society is becoming less and less satisfied with scientific and empirical answers to problems. Society is interested in "why" more than "what".

The political world reflects this shift as well. The renewed movement toward conservatism, especially the advent of the "Religious Right", reflects a desire to place values and morals back into the rationalism of the modern society. The writings of Capra, and Gergen (1982) are reflective of the societal change toward meaning rather than scientific method.

In recent years the social work profession has begun to question this reliance on empiricism and scientific methodology. Tyson, (1992), Heineman (1981), and Imri (1982) have all written significantly about the need for a paradigmatic shift. A further development within the profession that reflects this subtle shifting is the strong focus on Generalist social work practice. The Council on Social Work Education has determined that all undergraduate social work programs must provide a Generalist social work education to their students.

The Generalist perspective contains two significant areas of focus that reflect this shift. First, the Generalist perspective holds as its foundation the person-in-situation view of clients. This holistic approach contains within it the important social work values of the uniqueness of the individual and the right to self-determination.

Second, this Generalist perspective utilizes the ecosystemic theoretical framework of systems theory as its primary practice model. This focus on the interactions and interrelatedness of systems is an attempt to synthesize the scientific method with other ways of knowing.

This article began with the notion that perhaps the "paradise" of scientific method and empiricism as the paradigm for the social work profession has been lost. There are numerous signs that the profession has grown beyond the old paradigm. With renewed emphasis on values and ethics within the profession; a strong focus on Generalist practice; and, the addition of several new models of practice, the scientific approach seems to have reached its limits for growth.

There is significant precedent for a paradigmatic shift away from purely scientific method as the focus for knowledge development. The work of Capra suggests it but a more meaningful description of such a change can be found in Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time (1988). In his book, Hawking reviews the change experienced in the field of physics when that field finally and fully embraced the issues of other ways of knowing that it encountered with the advent of quantum mechanics.

A new direction has begun to present itself in the field of social work with the expression of the Strengths Perspective. This new perspective embraces a significantly different view of people and knowledge about them. Saleeby (1996) discusses this new perspective with its focus on the life experiences of people as reliable and acceptable knowledge. In this model, it is the process of knowing that is important, not what is already known or can be proven by scientific method. Every client (individual, group, or family) is seen as capable of growth and change toward positive life answers.

No one in the field of social work wants to eliminate scientific method or empirical inquiry. Instead, a new paradigm, a new "paradise" must be found. This new paradigm must reflect not only science but the post-modern focus on meaning and values. This change is necessary if the social work profession is to grow with the society it serves.

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