For some time I’ve been pondering where I stand in relation to the largely cautionary media reports and research about the use of AI, such as ChatGPT. At the same time it is apparent that no amount of caution will turn back to rising tide of people needing helping who are resorting to AI. As a social worker it is important to educate myself about this development and to explore how to contribute to its discerning and safe use. It also causes me to reflect on how the traditional helping professions may be impacted, but more interestingly, what might need to change in how we offer help which so often is stigmatising and in other ways can hurt rather than help.

I outline some of the pros and cons for using AI as a form of self help and self care. Some cons are: it is a pseudo connection, it is not confidential and if distressed a person may not be asking the questions that can elicit the kind of help they need. Some pros are: it’s accessible, relatively cheap, it is non-stigmatising, and the person is proactive in seeking help.

I conclude with some implications for how traditional helping professions can form a partnership with people which embraces the use of AI in ways that serve them and give them the best of both ways of seeking help - both the human and non-human.

You can support my work by following me on Substack, or on TikTok or Instagram. My book - Broken-heartedness: Towards love in professional practice - provides more in depth analysis of what helps and why so much helping is harmful, as well as ways to address this issue. You can email me on [email protected] if you would like to create a podcast around today’s topic or other topics offered in this podcast series.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelovetheorist.substack.com

This podcast shines some light onto the troubling issue of workplace violence which can take many forms, and for our purpose today, I call bullying. The continuing harm caused by workplace bullying suggests it is a complex phenomenon that is multi-causal, involves multiple actors and targets, can be direct or indirect and not recognised as occurring or proactively addressed in trauma organised and trauma causing workplaces. I outline my early theorising about bullying by identifying the two key factors of desirability and threat. These factors exist on a continuum from high to low levels that intersect and create a grid whereby we can map the kinds of characteristics that workers who might get bullied have in each grid. [See the map map below]. The grid quadrant occupied by the classic target of bullies is described and alongside that the 3 other grid quadrants identify other potential targets.

While the Grid describes workers’ behaviours and characteristics it is important to note that the issue of bullying is about power and abuse of power by the person who is acting in bullying ways or failing to stop it occurring. The Grid does not show the characteristics and behaviours of people who bully as it deserves its own attention. At the same time I would suggest that a focus on individuals’ behaviours can belie how authoritarian management and toxic workplace cultures are not only about individuals. The Target Threat/Desirability Grid is best considered a partial explanation of the reasons why bullying happens. In short, the Claras, Veras, Cathys and Sams of the workplace are not the reasons why bullying happens. But to the extent that their experiences holds a mirror to the causes, the Grid has some value.

A draft mud map of the Grid:

Do let me know what you think.

I explore the issue of workplace violence on TikTok and Instagram and expand on it and the need for a love ethic informed approach in my book - Broken-heartedness: Towards love in professional practice published by Revolutionaries.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelovetheorist.substack.com

Love is an action and in professional helping, or when helping a friend or family member, it involves a range of capacities and values. This podcast focusses on the key ability of the non-judgmental attitude. In social work, a seminal text on the casework relationship by Felix Biestek (1957) was where I learnt about this professional attitude. However, lately I’ve been pondering whether I have actually helped anyone during my career and how hard it is to even bear this thought. I went back to Biestek’s ideas to clarify a long held belief in this idea of the non-judgmental attitude to see if I could improve my understanding of its relevance all these years later. It has remained puzzling to me how we do a lot of judging and evaluating in helping yet are meant to be non-judgmental.

The podcast refers to relevant parts of Biestek’s book which provides a still useful definition and some insights into why it matters and how it is similar to acceptance. Interestingly, he defines acceptance in turn as a ‘special kind of love’ and thereby makes the link for me between the non-judgmental attitude and acceptance as love informed skills. I outline some ways to practice from a non-judging approach such as non-judgmental listening; self and societal awareness to ensure biases and prejudices don’t unwittingly seep into our interactions, and; understanding the socio-political and economic factors. These factors can create circumstances not of a person’s choosing and not under their full control to change. Thus, to judge the person by blaming or shaming them can cause a lot of harm and detract from our intentions of helping.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelovetheorist.substack.com

If you are a fan of BTS this podcast is for you. If you have never heard of BTS - check it out to find what a BTS scholar and social worker have in common. We trace the ways we have influenced each other and our respective understandings of love from quite different antecedents and influences. Both of us sharing a passion and enjoyment of BTS as fans has enriched our writing and social media pieces and our understanding of love in a capitalist world where celebrity is mass produced but it can still provide messages of hope and the importance of self love.

Many new subscribers have come to this podcast on the recommendation of The BTS Theorist. So it seems timely to make the links more explicit and perhaps to inspire some of my longer term subscribers to check out BTS - especially their music from the ‘love yourself era’.

We discuss social work and BTS, and explain how BTS showed me how to speak up about the importance of love in social work in ways I had previously been reluctant to do. A big shout out to all ARMY’s today as it is ARMY day - BTS is lucky to have you all as their fans!

You can find Wallea’s essays and other posts by googling The BTS Theorist, or accessing it via Substack, and by following her on Instagram. Thank you so much Wallea for your time and ideas today!!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelovetheorist.substack.com

My co-author, Dilip Karki, and I are excited to share our recent published research article with you. In many ways it distils evidence of why love matters in social work and how love is needed for justice to matter. I introduce the publication by sharing some of my backstory to how love became such a big focus of my research and teaching for more than two decades. Early on the idea of a love ethic in social work education was recognised when I gained the award of a Doctor of Philosophy from Edith Cowan University in 2002. Since that time I’ve adapted the idea in applied research of various kinds and in turn this has inspired me in my current efforts to build a theory of love. These podcasts record my thinking, who inspires me and why love is both an ethic and set of actions needed when it is absent in situations of violence and injustice.

I detail the main points of the article and share how a systematic literature review was undertaken to find 16 articles in social work journals that explored love in practice and in theory development. Dilip and I wanted to know what the current state of argument and research is on love in social work and whether it could inform an anti-oppressive (pro-justice) ethical positionality. While it is an emerging field of scholarship, the selected articles show how important love was in their work. In one article, their country’s government (Norway) has legislated for love to be used in working with young vulnerable people. In another, it was found that the young research participants were asking for love from the social workers as they had so little experience of it in their lives. Cautions were also offered regarding the risk of an overly emotional interpretation of love devoid of its broader promise of enabling a power analysis underpinning discrimination and oppression.

We argue that with all the viewpoints considered it could be useful to think of love as an ethic, in the tradition of bell hooks’s seminal writing, providing a guide for further dialogue and scholarship.

If you would like to access a copy of the published article, please use this link:

https://academic.oup.com/bjsw/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bjsw/bcaf113/8166617

Let us know what you think or drop us a note if you have questions or would like me to elaborate more on any points or the overall research project.

Thank you for your time and interest.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelovetheorist.substack.com

The real cause of burnout in the workplace can be summarised as failures of responsibility in the human services. These failures of responsibility by many actors in positions of authority in a hierarchy of service delivery have multiple unintended, and nevertheless seriously harmful, consequences. Burnout of front line workers is the most concerning symptom of systems’ failures. A system fails when the collectivity of all responsible actors are either acting in inadequate ways or failing to act when it is their responsibility to do so.

Failures of responsibility create a cascading series of losses and harms down the hierarchy such that people can be situated as the weakest link and the problem. I’m using the words ‘weakest link’ from Sandra Bloom’s important writing on trauma-causing workplaces, and here caution us not to interpret it as us being weak. Rather it is a systemic manifestation of problems largely beyond our control. The weakest link can get located in our person because we might be least desirable to the powers that be, or the least important, or the least agreeable, one way or another we will be at the bottom of the pecking order, where it is ultra hard to be safe and to be heard.

The podcast outlines a number of ways to resist burnout in these kinds of workplaces. For example - get support; monitor your self talk; support others (behind the scenes); stand your ground; trust your senses; recognise patterns in the workplace and be cautious in trusting smiling faces. All these resistance strategies have some cautionary notes so do check out the podcast for more details.

Burnout is experienced personally but it is in a workplace which makes it professional ie work related, legal, organisational ie occupational health and safety, and ultimately a societal issue.

You can read more about organisational violence and other issues that can cause us to feel burnout and morally injured in my book - Broken-heartedness: Towards love in professional practice. Available form the publisher - https://www.revolutionaries.com.au/books/p/bh

And by following me on TikTok and Instagram.

Thank you for your support and interest.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelovetheorist.substack.com

There is a common misunderstanding that if you are burnt out you can’t cope, that you are weak, that you can’t do your job. Burnout needs to be re-defined so we don’t keep blaming ourselves when our workplace has betrayed us. In fact signs of burnout are not the end of your strength rather that you are needing all your resources to do your job in taxing circumstances. Burnout can be thought of as our bodies protesting when our hearts have been over-ruled or hurt too many times.

In this podcast I suggest that by recognising several key feelings, namely, anguish, hopelessness, despair and shame that we can then trace the source of those exhausting and confidence depleting experiences. Drawing on Brene Brown’s idea of institutional betrayal, I suggest our heart-of-heart feelings are warning signs that the workplace is hurting us by unfair and unkind actions, perhaps also sometimes by failures to act to show care and regard for us. Our values can be betrayed when we can’t act to uphold them due to workplace toxicity or extreme demands. There can also be a betrayal in not recognising our effort and contribution. And the betrayal of the broken promise that our caring work of others would be held, supported and honored.

When institutional betrayal is rampant, this is not about individual failings to do our job well or to cope better, this is about a culture of complicity and shame (Brown 2021). The purpose, whether intentional or not, is to control workers through fear and undermining through blaming people for workplace short-comings. Burnout is experienced in our bodies and is thus very personal. Burnout is not a personal experience only though as it occurs through relationships and the patterns inherent in the workplace culture. It is an act of strength to survive or flourish in workplaces when feeling burnout and being impacted daily by betrayals.

Thank you for listening to my podcast and for supporting my work. You can follow me on TikTok and Instagram. You might find my book - Broken-heartedness: Towards love in professional practice - interesting for ideas and skills to resist harmful people and places, by being guided by the love ethic. Available at https://www.revolutionaries.com.au/books/p/bh

Cited reference:

Brown, B. (2021). Atlas of the heart. London: Penguin Random House.

Do feel free to drop me a comment here or I can be contacted directly at [email protected]

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelovetheorist.substack.com

These last months I have had the privilege of tutoring in two counselling courses which are about the nature of helping and the kinds of experience which cause people to seek out a counsellor, social worker or psychologist … and many other professions in the human services sector. We spent a lot of time looking at theories, models, techniques and resources to help people. I had an uneasy sense for most of the time that we weren’t considering the whole picture of what helping is about. I stood in front of my bookshelf one night puzzling over what was bothering me. I picked up the beautiful book by David Brandon - Zen in the art of helping - which he wrote in 1976. That’s how long I’ve been inspired by his writing.

Brandon is a social worker and a practising Zen Buddhist monk. He explores the nature of helping from both these viewpoints and in so doing gives us an appreciation of what the idea of Zen - about nowness (and more) - can bring to our practice and lives. This podcast belongs in my set of podcasts in this collection of From my bookshelf, where I read excerpts from the book and make some additional comments of relevance to me and hopefully you, the listener.

I find the idea of Zen - the presence that is shared between people who are of equal intrinsic worth - as being about love, really interesting. I hadn’t made that connection in my earlier re-readings of Brandon’s book. The place of compassion is an integral dimension of love in this Zen space and is where healing and connection can happen. Much of Brandon’s book recounts what gets in the way of helping that really helps. In particular, he uses his own experiences to caution about our own internal motivations, judgements, biases and vulnerabilities that can undermine the best of intentions. I also appreciate that he recognises the societal factors that make it so hard to really help another person.

From this reading, I now aim to include the idea of Zen into my theory of love with its call to be aware, to be willing to keep learning, especially with and from the person we might be seeking to help. And to also always be alert to power inequalities both interpersonally in our work and home places … and to act to cause no harm arises due to these inequalities.

Drop me a note in comments and tell me what you think.

Thanks for your support.

Information about the source book for this podcast:

Brandon, D. (1976). Zen in the art of helping. England: Arkana Penguin Books.

My theory of love is presented in my book:

Ross, D. (2023). Broken-heartedness: Towards love in professional practice. Brisbane: Revolutionaries.

Contact me:

[email protected]

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelovetheorist.substack.com

I’ve had the beautiful book, Atlas of the heart by Brene Brown, sitting on my bookshelf for ages. I pick it up at times and find myself reading a section in depth or a quote in big print or just looking at the thoughtful pictures and diagrams. This is an inspiring book about the importance of connection through increasing our emotional language and building bridges with each other to know love. Lately I’ve been thinking about Brown’s book in relation to my work on building a theory of love to address issues of lovelessness caused by violence and injustice. I found some of the feelings Brown writes about - eg love, lovelessness, heartbreak - are directly ones I have used in a more socio-political way and in so doing I have understated the power of emotions in experiences of broken-heartedness.

In this podcast I share some examples of Brown’s work about emotions and focus on several that are directly related to broken-heartedness - such as anguish, betrayal and hopelessness. In so doing I am beginning the task of placing our emotions at the centre of my theory of love instead of our emotional internal world being largely absent.

Do let me know what you think! Thanks for listening!

You can support my work by grabbing a copy of Broken-heartedness: Towards love in professional practice via the publisher’s website - https://www.revolutionaries.com.au/books

You can also follow me on Instagram or TikTok.

If you would like to be interviewed for a podcast on what love means to you, please reach out to me on [email protected]

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelovetheorist.substack.com

Tropical Cyclone Alfred provides an opportunity, albeit unwelcome, to make some comments on my experience and gives me a chance to also comment on a concern I think needs some attention. As one of 4 1/2 million people in the direct line of threat as the cyclone approached the south east area of Queensland, my own experience is perhaps indicative of others, even though the impact directly on me and my home was limited to heavy rain. My main concern is that there is perhaps not enough credence given to the extreme, intense emotions people went through in the mainstream media. The reporting was very comprehensive in terms of the weather system and how it was impacting the built and natural environments. Yet I had trouble finding a sufficient acknowledgement of the extreme threat, profound unsettling and deeply exhausting emotions many people would be experiencing. This can lead to a misfit between what we are feeling and what is being acknowledged in public. As a result we can underestimate the stress, emotional strain and even trauma we are experiencing that more than likely needs us to take extra care of ourselves and each other at this time.

I share some of my emotional intensity and challenges as an example of what I have not communicated yet to anyone, in the days after the cyclone reaching landfall. Not to take away from many people wishing me safety during this time. That matters but it is probably the case that thousands if not millions of people are still grappling with the trauma, if not from their own circumstances, then because of what we have witnessed happening to others.

Disaster upon disaster can take its toll and erode our resilience. Enquiring how others are and being willing to acknowledge the depth and severity of their experience is something we can all do going forward.

You can support my work by following me on TikTok and Instagram and my book, Broken-heartedness, gives other examples of harm and trauma that causes our hearts to break, and what we can do about this.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thelovetheorist.substack.com