New speak

Again I am not sure if this is the right forum. could anyone recommend a book on language in caring work....ideas such the inversion of words so they have new or no meaning, how staff learn that they have to use the "correct words"... The sort of thing I am talking about are how words like valued social roles become fashionable how the language changes from person centre to person directed and so on.

A book that take a balanced but critical view of the topic if possible.

JuliusCaesar

This kind of thing? Is it to do with how people think about the implicit meaning of words?

Or, I wonder, is it that phrases become cliches and thus lose their meaning, so we have to think of a new way to express the concept <cough> going forward? (Or 'in future' as we used to say!)

JuliusCaesar, thats link is very funny,....I suppose what I am getting at is say a caring organisation has a set of values underpinning what it dose and those values are based on proven research and are supposed to be indicative of a good practise, now the people who formalise the underlying values of the caring organisation would usually be psychologists and social science reacher's, all that is well and good... but somehow as it goes down the line to staff that actually work with the users of the care services, it can almost become like the communist party...for example reports being scrutinised for any hint that they are not positive enough, staff using language and speaking in a contrived manor that they would never use in real life, staff self policing the way they speak, a lot of ticking boxes and form filling and so on.

I suppose I am curious how this happens in organisations and about how certain theories become fashionable and the use of language is an interesting subject.

krd

There are long and complicated answers to the question. And they may not be correct or complete, but they are answers. I'm not going to do any long and complicated one, because it's late and I should be in bed, asleep.

I'm only going to give short answers.

I'll start with a quote Charles Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.

"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."

Never assume, the people who surround you on a daily basis, have not all lost their minds simultaneously and at once......Because, unfortunately this happens with alarming regularity.

mariaalice wrote: »

but somehow as it goes down the line to staff that actually work with the users of the care services, it can almost become like the communist party...

Maybe it has become like the communist party. There's something oppressive and totalitarian going on in the organisation.

for example reports being scrutinised for any hint that they are not positive enough,

Do you know where the idea for all these nonsensical "motivational posters" (Especially the NLP ones) came from?




I could dig for some great Russian ones, but you get the idea. They were all over offices and factories, and this is where the idea for the motivational poster comes from.

staff using language and speaking in a contrived manor that they would never use in real life, staff self policing the way they speak,

That's complicated. But I'm not going to do a complicated answer.

It could be that they are signaling, that they do not believe a single word of what they are saying or doing. But this is the system. And you are meant to respond in a contrived and false manner, to signal that you do not believe a word you say, or what you're doing, but you believe in the power behind the system. (You do not believe the system works - no one in Soviet Union ever did). It's an honest form of lying.

But there are lots of other reasons they could be at that game, that I won't get into. It could be organisational shibbolething.

The Holy Bible, Book of Judges 12:6 : they said, "All right, say 'Shibboleth.'" If he said, "Sibboleth," because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed at that time.

a lot of ticking boxes and form filling and so on.

The same happened in Soviet Russia. (it's believed to be one of the core reasons the Soviet economy collapsed. )

I suppose I am curious how this happens in organisations and about how certain theories become fashionable and the use of language is an interesting subject.

Well, something like Neuro Linguistic Programming, is really just an attempt at mind control through Soviet style slogans, and Orwellian edited language.





The translation of the Russian says "Shut your mouth"

Keep your eyes open.
These days
Even the walls have ears.
Chatter and gossip
Go hand in hand with
Treason.


Comrade, it's getting late.....I'm not like Stalin, who never slept. He was always at his bureau, late into the night, working on theory.

What I'm really thinking: The social worker

'I pretty much always blame the parents, and some days I just wish I could take all the children into care'
Share17









The Guardian, Saturday 27 February 2010



Illustration by Lo Cole


Like everyone else who goes into it, I became a social worker because I wanted to help people. Very soon, I realised that's not why you do it at all. You can't. As a rule, people can't change – at least, adults can't.

I've worked in child protection in an inner city for five years. Your left­wing views go out of the window. You get a skewed view of the world in which everyone is on drugs, ­psychotic, violent. ­Especially men. In my mind, they're all wife-beaters.

I pretty much always blame the parents, and some days I just wish I could take all the children into care. But I know that isn't the answer. We can't just take kids away from their parents at the smallest inkling of a less than happy home. You've got to try everything else first. And when the decision is made to put a child into care, it's not an easy one. You've got someone who's lost everything they know, plus they're usually ­suffering the lasting effects of abuse.

We have a bad reputation – even Mariah Carey makes a dowdy social worker – but where I work we take pride in the fact that we're doing an important job and doing it well. On a good day, I can see the job as a series of triumphs – we can never know ­exactly what tragedy we're averting, but we know that without our intervention things would be a lot worse.

I can't just switch off when I go home, and it can be horribly ­upsetting, but that's part of having the least boring job I can imagine. If I stop feeling that, maybe it's time to do something else.




The above is interesting its the thought of an anonymous social worker. It is from a series called what am I really thinking in the guardian newspaper.

I was talking to someone today who basically said as long as you are working within a strong ethical and legal frame work, it does not matter what your real inner beliefs are but I don't know? Its very interesting that the social worker in the article has to be anonymous.
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krd

mariaalice wrote: »

I was talking to someone today who basically said as long as you are working within a strong ethical and legal frame work, it does not matter what your real inner beliefs are but I don't know?

No. And Winterbourne would be an example. 6 staff jailed and five given suspended sentences. And some of the staff claimed they abused patients out of boredom. If you're the kind of person who tortures vulnerable people out of boredom, the ethical or legal frame work won't matter much.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/oct/26/winterbourne-view-care-staff-jailed

I knew an American nursing manager. And in her hospital she was suspicious that one of her nurses was up to something. Alzheimer patients would seem distressed after being around her. So, one day she caught the nurse, rubbing a soiled nappy into one of the Alzheimer patients face. The nurse was fired. And she went nursing elsewhere - and she'll probably be at the same tricks somewhere else.

Some people are very very bad.

Its very interesting that the social worker in the article has to be anonymous.
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Because the social worker might get fired, or it might damage their career. Whistle blowers are seen as "disloyal".

Terry Bryan, is the nurse who blew the whistle on Winterbourne. He may now have trouble finding work. Because you will have plenty of managers who would prefer terrible abuse to happen, then take responsibility for their own failures. To be honest they think ethics are a joke. They make have got their management job through some kind of trickery. They may think it's all just a game, and anyone who doesn't think the same is just a fool.

The other problem about these kinds of managers, is they will go out of their way to hire b*stards - people who "know how the world really works".

I know of a high profile case in Ireland. I won't name names - as the full story is not in the public domain. Two doctors in a hospital. Something very serious was happening. The nurses approached the hospital management with their concerns. And they were told to keep their mouths shut or they would get the sack. The nurses went public, and it snowballed from there. The management did not lose their jobs. They just didn't want the blushes or the hassle.

There are certain kinds of people who should never be allowed to work around the vulnerable or suffering. The out right sadists, and the people who really don't care. In terms of psychopathy, these people could be just two sides of the same coin.

Krd that is interesting but its not what my thread is about.

Basically I want to know how certain theories become the dominant ones and how once the Theory/ideology is established its very hard for staff to say they have doubts about some of theory/ideology.

and

I am asking about is coding and semiotics in organisations.

JuliusCaesar

I suppose Organisational Psychology would be the most apt field, but it isn't what I work in. Would this kind of thing go any way to answering your question, mariaalice?

Otherwise all I can think of is that there are fads in psychology as well as anywhere else; sometimes I think it's a bit like organisations spending massive amounts of money changing their logo (Aer Lingus?). Do I fly with Aer Lingus because, by tilting their logo slightly, they look more vibrant, more go-ahead, more.... or do I fly Aer Lingus because they're not the cattle-transport of their main rival?

As for how certain themes become dominant - well, certain researchers/academics tend to publish more, be more vocal in support of their own theories, be more attractive to young researchers who then contribute to their field and disseminate it. Sometimes really good theories fall by the wayside. Susan Cain (did a TED talk too) says how the extrovert has become a cultural ideal in Western culture nowadays, and how the quiet people find it difficult to get heard on a wider platform. I think we've all seen the extrovert push through some mad stuff in organisations, leaving others open-mouthed! (If you work in a large organisation)

JC, At the heart of the matter is that there has to be a space for someone to say hang on a minute this is a FAD without being seen as some how just a crank.

Why I was thinking about this latley...I am thinkings of going back to study to bring my qualifications up to an hons degree it would take a year and a bit...but I went to do this before and I was invited in for an interview and to a talk I decided not to proceed because it came to me during the talk how ideological driven the whole thing is something I find very difficult for some reason.

My friend wanted to apply for a job in the care area and she showed me the ad from the paper and I counted 8 current buzz words in the area and it got me thinking how does this happe?

JuliusCaesar

mariaalice wrote: »

JC, At the heart of the matter is that there has to be a space for someone to say hang on a minute this is a FAD without being seen as some how just a crank.

Absolutely!

In my own field, a lot of behavioural techniques and skills training was superceded by the cognitive stuff, and the behavioural stuff was seen as very old-fashioned. Until Jacobson did a dismantling study on CBT of depression and found that it was the behavioural bit that was effective in the treatment. But guess what? Students haven't been learning the behavioural approach in years, and now people qualified since the mid-90s(sometimes/often) make a pigs' ear of it, because they just aren't well enough versed in behavioural principles.

Meanwhile, oldies like myself make this kind of face: :rolleyes:

So, maybe the academics also need to revise their views, and maybe that's a very good reason for you to undertake your course!

krd

mariaalice wrote: »

My friend wanted to apply for a job in the care area and she showed me the ad from the paper and I counted 8 current buzz words in the area and it got me thinking how does this happe?

Buzz words are for internal and external marketing. They're kind of semi-gnostic. They grant the user a semblance of knowledge (the slight obscurity, and novelty adds to this). Even if they don't have a clue what they're on about, if they've learned the 10 or 20 words, they'll seem like they do.

And it can have an element of Cargo Culting. If we use language that sounds like engineering or science jargon, that sounds systematic, then we have a coherent system, even though the words are actually meaningless. We'll just keep using these words until the cargo comes.

JC, At the heart of the matter is that there has to be a space for someone to say hang on a minute this is a FAD without being seen as some how just a crank.

Well, you might be wrong. For new ideas, you may need very specific and precise language. Like describing depression in terms of uni-polar, and bi-polar. A uni-polar, is someone who just experiences depression, a bi-polar is someone experiences depression and then problematic elation. When the terms were introduced they probably sounded very artificial. But they're very precise. It even became fashionable to be bi-polar.

Or you could be completely right. And all the new jargon is nonsense, and there is no substantial underlying theory. Which in this case, you just parrot the phrases like a robot, and cling onto your job.

And it's funny, organisations involved in psychology, fall for the same mechanistic illusions and fallacies that their study should make them well aware of. Or maybe they're doing it deliberately - it's hard to tell.