© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of
The British Association of Social Workers. All rights reserved.
British Journal of Social Work (2007) 37, 245–263
doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcl016
Advance Access publication March 30, 2006
Emotional Intelligence, Emotion and
Social Work: Context, Characteristics,
Complications and Contribution
Tony Morrison
Tony Morrison is an independent trainer and consultant working with a background in children’s
services. He works with social services, health and other agencies both in the UK and overseas
on issues including staff supervision; inter-agency collaboration; change management; and team
development. He has a special interest in attachment theory and has been involved in work to
develop services to young people who sexually abuse. He is a Visiting Research Fellow at the
School of Human and Health Sciences at Huddersfield University and is an external examiner
for the MSc in Advanced Social Work at Queens and Ulster Universities in Northern Ireland.
He has published widely in the fields of supervision, staff development and inter-agency
working.
Correspondence to Tony Morrison, 3 Aintree Drive, Rochdale OL11 5SH, England. E-mail:
[email protected]
Summary
Emotional intelligence (EI) has become one of the new management ‘buzz’ terms. It is
suggested that this is the missing ingredient that separates average from top management or performance. However, despite its potential relevance for social work practice,
there has been little investigation and few reports about its application in social work
settings. This paper seeks to stimulate debate about the role of EI in social work practice by considering its development, definitions and problematics. Whilst the empirical
evidence supporting the existence of a separate and measurable EI is ambiguous and
emergent, the role of emotion in the organization of human behaviour is more firmly
established. The paper examines the role of EI and emotion in relation to five core
social work tasks: engagement of users; assessment and observation; decision making;
collaboration and co-operation; dealing with stress. The paper situates itself in the rapidly changing context of social work: the merger of social services departments with
larger more powerful bureaucracies; the movement towards integrated service delivery; and the new social work degree. It is argued that social work needs to identify its
claims to professional competence at a time of such change, one of which is the ability
to use relationships to address users’ needs. This requires the capacity to handle both
one’s own and others’ emotions effectively.
Keywords: emotional intelligence, emotion, social work practice, relationships, change
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246 Tony Morrison
Introduction
Emotional intelligence (EI) has been defined as ‘Being able to motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustrations; to control impulse and delay gratification; to regulate one’s moods and keep distress from swamping the ability to
think; to empathize and to hope’ (Goleman, 1996). Given the centrality of
emotions and power relationships in the social work task, the exponential
growth of academic and popular literature about EI suggests that the need for
a discussion of the potential relevance of EI to social work is overdue.
Additional impetus for this discussion arises from two sources. The standards underpinning the new social work degree include requirements for practitioners to ‘to develop and maintain effective working relationships; reflect on
your own background experiences and practice that may have an impact on the
relationship’ (Training Organisation for Personal Services Services, 2002). Second, the Common Core of Skills and Knowledge for the Children’s Workforce
(Department for Education and Skills, 2004) provides a multidisciplinary
framework of competence targeted at all those working with children and
young people. The framework stresses the intra and inter-personal skills
required of practitioners, including:
• listening and building empathy;
• understanding the effects of non-verbal communication;
• self-awareness about how working with children may affect you emotionally and how to seek help.
This paper seeks to stimulate and inform debate at all levels about the role and
contribution of emotion in general, and EI in particular, within the practice of
social work. To date, the voice of social work, which, in theory at least, has
extensive experience of working intelligently with emotions has been largely
silent. The intention of this paper is thus to begin to identify the potential applications of EI for social work. The contention of this paper is that EI is, alongside professional values, one of the cornerstones for effective social work,
which current social work teaching, practice, management and research can ill
afford to ignore.
Following a brief reflection on the rationale and stimulus for writing this
paper, the opening section provides a description of the origins and characteristics of EI models. The complications and limitations of existing models which
have, to date, been largely American and corporate in nature will be discussed.
The paper goes on to explore the relevance of EI to five core social work activities. The paper concludes with some cautionary notes about possible pitfalls
that should be avoided.
Although the primary context for this paper is children’s social work in England,
the challenges and changes facing social work in general, across jurisdictions both
within and beyond the UK (Eire, Canada, USA, Australia and New Zealand),
share many similarities. These include uncertainties about its professional
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Emotional Intelligence, Emotion and Social Work 247
identity; relocation of social work services within integrated service delivery
systems (Ehrle et al., 2004; Cm 5860, 2003); problems of recruitment and retention (Gibbs, 2001); ambivalent and confused public understanding of its role
(Davidson and King, 2005); and negative perceptions particularly with regards
to its competence in child protection work (Scottish Executive, 2002). It is
therefore hoped that readers operating in other service contexts or jurisdictions, and indeed in other social or health care contexts, will find much in the
paper to which they can relate. Indeed, my own experience of teaching EI principles to practitioners and managers as far apart as Canada and New Zealand
confirms the universality of much that is contained within this paper.
Connections and context
It is often the case that interest and conviction about the relevance of a theory
come alive when a connection is made with lived experience. Indeed, it would
be somewhat incongruent to write a paper on the relevance of EI without some
individual reflection. As a social work trainer, mentor and external examiner
who has been following the emergence of EI over recent years, three situations
provide compelling evidence about the relevance of EI in social work.
As an external examiner for a masters-level advanced social work course, it
has become clear that the best dissertations describing, evidencing, explaining
and reflecting upon effective social work interventions in complex care settings
are characterized by candidates who display a congruence of professional, academic and personal mindfulness that sets them apart from their competent colleagues. These candidates, whilst highly conscientious and well organized, also
bring a level of unconscious competence, expertise and effortlessness that sets
them apart. These are fluent practitioners who ‘fly’. Moreover, these candidates frequently refer to the role of EI in their practice. Finally, they demonstrate, under the same pressures and constraints as their ‘competent’
colleagues, an ability to make a positive impact above and beyond their competent colleagues. By contrast, candidates at the borderline levels of advanced
competence find individual reflection difficult, and often fail to take into sufficient account the views, wishes or feelings of users and colleagues. Interestingly, whilst some of these may have also have struggled academically, this is
not always the case.
Second, as a mentor for managers and supervisors dealing with difficult staff
management situations, it is increasingly apparent clear that the most troubling
and intractable situations exist when performance difficulties occur in the context of staff who lack accurate empathy, self-awareness and self-management
skills. This lack of emotional competence renders the specific performance
problems, such as poor recording practice, all but unmanageable. In the worst
cases, these become almost ‘toxic’ in such a way that whole teams or even agencies can become enmeshed in the distorting dynamics surrounding the individual staff member.
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248 Tony Morrison
It was such situations that stimulated a link between the EI literature (Goleman,
1998; Bar-On, 2000; Cherniss and Goleman, 2001; Caruso and Salovey, 2004;)
and social work practice. The third powerful stimulus was Benner’s research on
competence and expertise in nursing practice (Benner, 2001). This research
was conducted during the mid-1980s at a point of crisis in US nursing services.
Shortages in nursing staff and the need to train new nurses quickly resulted in
the development of technical competences against which nurses could be
trained and easily measured—a context wholly familiar to contemporary
British social work.
Benner’s analysis of critical incident interviews with experienced nurses
identified that, in acute medical or care situations, the expert nurse had a level
of anticipatory, observational, analytical and inter-personal patient care skills
that were both care enhancing and frequently life-saving. In part, this was
achieved by intervening speedily during medical crises, but equally it was by
making powerful emotional contact with the patient during such crises that
motivated the patient’s self healing determination. This is borne out by other
research in which it was found that cardiac patients nursed by staff with
depressed mood had a mortality rate four times higher than expected (Goleman
et al., 2002). It is clear, then, that the handling of emotion and the process of
care are inextricably connected. Yelloly and Henkel (1995) strike a similar vein
about the nature of the best social work practice using a musical analogy to
describe the art of social work:
There are laws of harmony which the musician must follow. But the act of
musical creation is in no way determined by these laws, and at times they
clearly do not apply, and a new musical language may be introduced. It is
likely that the effective worker, like the accomplished musician, combines
an informed understanding of principles and theories with an intuitive gift
which enables her to tune in to the experience of troubled people (Yelloly
and Henkel, 1995, p. 7).
However, Benner (2001) argues that unless such expert or intuitive practice
can be described and articulated, it will be lost in the context of the pursuit of a
purely technical set of competences in which such expertise is neither described
nor valued:
Narrative accounts of nursing practice reveal major aspect of the nursing role
that cannot be captured in formal descriptions of techniques and procedures or task analysis approaches to job descriptions (Benner, 2001, p. ix).
Similar unease has been expressed about the adoption of competency based
models in social work training. Joss and Hey (1991), quoted in Yelloly and
Henkel (1995), comments on the way in which ‘competence’ denies the holistic
nature of the work, shows what people must do, but not how or why. These
comments fit into a much wider debate about the recent direction of social
work (Jordan, 2001; Parton and O’Byrne, 2000). As far back as 1996, Howe
observed that the competence movement was in danger of developing practitioner technicians:
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Emotional Intelligence, Emotion and Social Work 249
. . . confined to performing surface responses according to pre-coded procedures. Practice no longer responds to the inherent meaning of the case.
Rather meaning is imposed according to the skills, resources and interests
of the organization . . . . Relationships between social workers and their clients change from inter-personal to economic, from therapeutic to transactional, from nurturing and supportive to contractual and service oriented.
The personal relationship once a central feature of social work practice is
striped of its social, cultural, emotional and inter-personal dimension
(Howe, 1996, p. 92).
Gregson and Holloway (2005) echo previous voices (e.g. Banks, 1995) in identifying the trend from a professional towards a managerial culture and language in social work, driven by the public policy imperatives of risk prediction,
public protection, consumerism and care management. It is not surprising in
such a context that many social workers no longer believe or see themselves as
change-agents for their users (Platt, 2003).
Despite these trends, writers such as Trevithick (2003) maintain that relationship-based practices remain at the heart of social work. Gregson and
Holloway (2003) place the conversation between worker and user at the core
of social work practice, and the essential tool for the formation of a relationship within which any movement or change can take place. The healing power
of such relationships is recognized by Fosha (2003, p. 223), who states:
‘Through just one relationship with an understanding other, trauma can be
transformed and its effects neutralized.’ The International Federation of Social
Work (IFSW, 2000) similarly lays emphasis on the centrality of relationship
skills, defining the social work profession as one which promotes social change,
problem solving in human relationships and the empowerment and liberation
of people to enhance well-being.
Trevithick (2003) identifies a number of areas of social work activity in
which relationship- based practice is relevant. These include: assessment; help
and care for people experiencing difficulties relating to self and others; advocacy and mediation for people experiencing discrimination; holding and containing anxiety in times of transition or crisis; and creating a foundation for
capacity building.
But the importance of relationship skills extends beyond practitioner–user
interactions, to working with other colleagues, disciplines and systems. Relationship competence is equally important for supervisors, administrators, leaders and managers. Indeed, evidence from the emerging science of quantum
physics identifies relationships as the basic building blocks to all life. Such
thinking is being increasingly adopted by organizational theorists such as Margaret
Wheatly in writing about leadership. Quoting Jantsch (1980), Wheatly (1999)
writes: ‘In life the issue is not control, but dynamic connectedness’ (p. 25).
It might be suggested that the future health of social work rests, in part, on
restoring a sense of dynamic connectedness with both its task and those whom
social workers seek to assist. It is therefore precisely at a time of professional
and occupational turbulence that an understanding of relationship-based practice
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250 Tony Morrison
and the contribution of EI to social work can make their most important contribution. In the next section, the origins, nature and emerging schools of EI
are explored.
Emotional intelligence: definitions and complexities
The notion that there are forms of intelligence, not captured by IQ and which
are important in life skills and life chances, has long been established. For
instance, Thorndike (1921) coined the term ‘social intelligence’ to describe the
idea of acting wisely in human relationships. Wechsler (1940) proposed that the
non-intellectual abilities were essential for predicting the ability to succeed in
life. More recently, Gardner (1983) developed the idea that humans possess
multiple intelligences, including inter-personal, intra-personal, physical, visual,
special, artistic, environmental and kinesthetic in addition to cognitive intelligence. He argued that inter- and intra-personal intelligences were as important
as IQ. However, it was Salovey and Mayer (1990) who first used the term ‘emotional intelligence’ to describe a form of social intelligence that involves the
ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate
among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action.
These writers were among a growing group of researchers who were becoming concerned with the inability of traditional tests of cognitive intelligence to
predict performance, whether in life or in jobs. Hunter and Hunter (1984) estimated that, at best, IQ accounts for about 25 per cent of the variance. Others
such as Sternberg (1996) suggested that whilst studies vary, 10 per cent may be
a more realistic estimate. An example of the limits of IQ as a predictor of life
chances is a forty-year longitudinal investigation of 450 boys who grew up in
Sommerville, Massachusetts (Snarey and Vaillant, 1985). Two-thirds of the
boys were from welfare families, and one-third had an IQ below 90. However,
IQ bore little relation to how well they did at work or in the rest of their lives.
What made the biggest difference were childhood abilities, such as being able
to handle frustration, control emotions and get along with other people.
Rosenthal (1977) discovered that people who were best at identifying others’
emotions were more successful in their work as well as in their social lives.
Thus, empathy is particularly important in contributing to occupational success.
However, it was Goleman’s publication (1996), Emotional Intelligence: Why
It Matters More than IQ, that brought ‘EI’ into the public arena and spawned
an explosion of media, business, popular and academic interest. Although his
first book (Goleman 1996) focused on the role of EI in parenting, Goleman’s
subsequent books (Goleman, 1998; Cherniss and Goleman, 2000; Goleman et
al., 2002) have largely focused on the application of EI in the field of leadership
in the American corporate sector. Goleman (1996) claimed that EI was twice
as predictive of the best leaders as IQ or technical knowledge.
The basic EI paradigm within which all the main schools mentioned below
broadly fit comprise four domains, which are visually represented by Figure 1.
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Emotional Intelligence, Emotion and Social Work 251
There are two intra-personal domains—self-awareness and self-management—and
two inter-personal domains—awareness of others/empathy and relationship skills.
The arrows indicate the interrelationships that exist between all four domains.
The arrows indicate the interrelatedness across the four domains, particularly between self-awareness and empathy for others as a basis for managing
self and relationships. Shulman (1999, p. 156) encapsulates the relevance of this
for practitioners when he states: ‘The capacity to be in touch with the client’s
feelings is related to the worker’s ability to acknowledge his/her own. Before a
worker can understand the power of emotion in the life of the client, it is necessary to discover its importance in the worker’s own experience.’
A decade later, three broad schools, each with its own assessment instrument, have emerged. These are Goleman and the ECI: Emotional Competence
Inventory (Goleman, 1998); Bar-On and the EQ-i (1997) and the MSCEIT
Mayer Salovey and Caruso Emotional Intelligence Scale (2002). Goleman’s
definition of EI is the widest ranging, and most performance orientated,
encompassing abilities beyond the specific processing of emotions including:
• self-awareness;
• emotional resilience;
• motivation/drivers;
• empathy/sensitivity;
• influence/rapport;
• intuitive re: decisions;
• conscientiousness.
These abilities are assessed using the Emotional Competence Inventory, which
is a 360-degree instrument in which colleagues are asked score the individual on
a range of EI measures, following which a composite EI profile is constructed.
Bar-On’s EQ-I (1997) is a self-report instrument evolved in a clinical rather
than an occupational context. It was designed to assess those personal qualities
Intrapersonal Intelligence Interpersonal Intelligence
Self awareness Other awareness
Self management Relationship
management
Figure 1 The Emotional Intelligence Paradigm
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252 Tony Morrison
that enabled some people to possess better ‘emotional well-being’ than others,
and includes an additional scale measuring general mood.
In contrast to both the above, Salovey and Mayer’s definition (1990) focuses
on a discrete set of emotion processing abilities:
• perceiving and identifying feelings in self/others;
• emotional integration and facilitation of thinking;
• emotional understanding: thinking about feelings;
• emotional management.
Moreover, their MSCEIT Scale is an ability test based on ‘objective’ criteria
rather than a self-report or 360-degree measure. The test-taker performs a
series of tasks that are designed to assess the person’s ability to perceive, identify, understand and work with emotion. One other framework deserves mention. Schutte et al. (1998) developed a self-report measure based on Salovey
and Mayer’s (1990) early work, which has been used to rate the ability of student counsellors working at mental health agencies.
It will be noted that all of the above define EI as an individual phenomenon.
An interesting departure from this is found in the work of an organization
called Antidote, which has been using EI principles in work with troubled
schools. Antidote offers a collective definition of EI:
EL is the practice of thinking individually and collectively about how emotions shape our actions and of using emotional understanding to enrich our
thinking. EL involves using whatever relationships are available to help
transform feelings that incapacitate to feelings that empower (Antidote,
2003, p. v).
Significantly, this definition places emotions alongside thinking and action. In
other words, EI is not an end in itself; it is means to enrich thinking, action,
service delivery and outcomes.
In summary, the main differences between these EI approaches and their
respective measures lie in whether EI is seen as a personality-type trait or an
ability; the range of human functioning (narrow versus broad) covered by the
definition; whether it describes individual or collective phenomena; and the
degree to which EI is claimed as a distinct type of intelligence. The question as
to whether EI is a measurable and separate form of intelligence has been subject of a robust critique by Matthews et al. (2004). Nonetheless, despite their
reservations about the concept of EI, they conclude:
There is a growing realisation that psychological processes considered to
be purely cognitive or intellectual in fact depend on a synergy between
cognition and emotion. Whether or not programmes are actually fostering EI competence, various useful skills are learned. These include: labelling and describing emotions, appraising basic emotions in oneself and
others, conflict management, taking perspective of others, decision making and problem solving techniques, effective peer relation trainings
(p. 542).
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Emotional Intelligence, Emotion and Social Work 253
Petrides et al. (2004a, p. 577) summarize the current state of EI research as
follows: ‘We believe that the future of EI lies in its conceptualization as a
personality trait.’ Petrides et al. (2004b) also claim that there is emerging evidence that trait-based EI is implicated in academic performance in that pupils
with lower-trait EI have been found to be likely to have unauthorized absences
and to have been excluded. However, in recognizing some of the difficulties
with the concept of ‘intelligence’, the same authors suggest that emotional ‘selfefficacy’ or emotional competence may be a more appropriate terminology.
However, regardless of the degree to which a separate and measurable EI
exists, research on the role of emotion, rather than EI, in human behaviour is
compelling. Panksepp (2000) describes emotion as a central organizing system
responsible for the co-ordination of behavioural, physiological, affective and
cognitive responses to major adaptive problems.
Thus far in this paper, the broad relevance of EI/competence to the practice
of social work has been argued. The emerging concept of EI has been presented as a potential framework around which emotional competence can be
articulated, enhanced and assessed.
The point has been made that emotional responsiveness and capacity are not
merely a product of individuals, but are powerfully influenced by collective and
contextual processes, including workplace, professional and socio-cultural factors.
Bearing this in mind, the paper now considers five core aspects of social work practice and considers the contribution of emotional competence to these activities.
Social work and emotional competence
Engagement
Whilst assessment is commonly described as the first stage of the care or intervention process, in fact, assessment cannot be effective unless there has first
been attention to a process of engagement and rapport building with the service user. We all know how the demeanour and language of the family doctor
have a powerful and immediate effect on the manner in which our health concerns are presented and the details we offer about them. Gask and Usherwood
(2002, p. 1567) state: ‘The success of any consultation depends on how well the
patient and doctor communicate with each other. There is firm evidence linking the quality of this communication with clinical outcomes.’ Furthermore, the
pattern of interaction is established very early in the consultation so that once a
doctor has interrupted, patients rarely introduce new issues.
Given that emotions are often generated around power and status interactions (Kemper, 2000) and the presence of anxiety (Morrison, 1997), social
workers also need to pay particular attention to both their own and their user’s
emotional states. The degree to which vulnerable users have suffered multiple
experiences of dysregulated emotions, inconsistent care and unpredictable
danger, in response to which they have developed emotional antennae which
are highly attuned to the emotional demeanour of those on whom they may
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254 Tony Morrison
have to depend, must not be forgotten. Their life experiences have imprinted
on them the potential dangers of misreading the emotional demeanour of a
carer/helper. It is likely that many users can detect the practitioner’s emotional
state faster than the practitioner can elicit the emotions of the user.
Spratt and Callan (2004) examined twelve parents’ experiences of their families’ first contact with their social worker. Whilst five of the parents felt the
first encounter had been positive, three were ambivalent and four were left
concerned and very anxious parents. Spratt and Callan concluded:
Irrespective of the nature and source of referral and the families’ previous
attitude to social workers, it was their relationship with their particular
social worker that parents were to return to again and again . . . in particular
their ability to empathize and communication skills (Spratt and Callan,
2004, p. 217).
Assessment and observation
Assessment practice should serve to reinforce, rather than reduce the importance of both intra and inter-personal skills. This is borne out by McKeown’s
(2000) review of key change factors in family support work with vulnerable
families. He found that four main factors accounted for the change process:
• characteristics of the user (IQ, history, socio-economic status and social
support) (40 per cent);
• relationship between worker and client (especially empathy and planfulness) (30 per cent);
• method of intervention (family therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy,
etc.) (15 per cent);
• verbal hope expressed by the client (15 per cent).
Thus, the combination of understanding the characteristics of the user and
their context (assessment) combined with establishing a purposeful and
attuned relationship together account for 70 per cent of the change effort, outscoring method by over four to one. This is echoed by Brandon et al.’s (2000)
study of 105 children who had suffered significant harm. This study found that
the depth of the problems, the determination of the key worker and the comprehensiveness of services, rather than any particular method of work, were
related to positive outcomes. There is a clear link between the quality of the
worker’s relationship and comprehensiveness of assessment information. In
particular, information about emotionally or morally laden material such as
trauma, loss or problem drinking, is hugely influenced by the degree to which
the assessor is empathic and non-judgemental. Insensitive assessment practices
can result in a failure to elicit crucial aspects of the details, feelings, context and
meaning of the user’s story, leading to inadequate plans, reduced user commitment and ineffective services.
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Emotional Intelligence, Emotion and Social Work 255
Current assessment frameworks in children and youth justice services
(Department of Health, 2000; Youth Justice Board, 2000) give limited attention to the significance of history, or understanding of the interaction between
current problems and experiences of loss, trauma and bereavement. Brandon
et al. (2000, p. 205) argue that insufficient attention has been paid to the ‘many
dimensions of biography . . . and that such an understanding could lead to differential patterns of intervention’. A survey of 1,000 young offenders supervised
by Youth Offending Teams found that 90 per cent of the young people under
supervision had significant experience of loss or rejection, and identified emotional literacy as a key variable affecting change. In short, the report stated:
‘This is an awareness and acknowledgement that emotions play an important
part in behaviour’ (Youth Justice Trust, 2003, p. 31).
It may be that the limited attention paid to the role of emotion in assessment
frameworks also stems from an inadequate understanding about ‘feelings’.
Emotions are more than feelings (Siegal, 1999). They are deep level signals
about information that demands attention, as to whether a situation is to be
approached or avoided. The rapid appraisal of such signals conveys the meaning of the situation and is often a trigger for action. Emotion, meaning, perception and action cannot be neatly segregated. Needs cannot be elicited or
addressed without an appreciation of their emotional and cultural meaning.
The result is that workers may see the need, but not the meaning of the need.
In failing to elicit the meaning, well intentioned plans may fail.
Assessment requires both accurate observation and recall. Research has
identified recall about emotional events is reduced when we try to suppress
emotion (Richards and Gross, 2000, quoted in Caruso and Salovey, 2004;
Baumeister et al., 2000, quoted in Caruso and Salovey, 2004). The suppression of
emotional information may stem from either personal discomfort or cultural,
organizational and professional beliefs which fail to distinguish ‘being emotional’ from using emotion. Attachment theory (Siegal, 1999) would suggest
that emotion is information, and that discomforting emotions provide signals of
possible danger which require attention and appraisal. A lack of self-awareness
or suppression of emotion may result in important information being missed,
either about the presence of external dangers or about intrusions from the
worker’s own experience which may distort observation and assessment. Additionally, the capacity to accurately identify one’s own and others’ emotions also
enables one to spot false emotions (Ekman, 1985). Practitioners need to make
sense of not only the meaning of emotions in others, but, equally, the meaning
for emotions in themselves, in order to make and interpret observations.
Decision making
Mood and the management of emotions play a significant role in decision
making. For instance, Isen (2000) found that positive affect is associated with
a range of mental capacities that have a direct impact on judgement and
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256 Tony Morrison
decision making. These include: expanded and creative thinking; ability to
link between different sources and types of information or ideas; better elaboration about information; greater flexibility in negotiation situations;
improved diagnostic/assessment ability. For example, doctors in whom positive affect had been induced (via a gift of sweets!) identified the nature of the
medical problem more quickly, were more open to information than the controls and were less likely to distort information that did not fit their hypothesis (Isen, 2000). Clore and Schwartz (1988) and Frederickson (2001) have
demonstrated that feelings influence what we pay attention to and how we
think, remember and make decisions. Caruso and Salovey (2004) argue that
emotional awareness increases the ability to predict the future|—either our
own or others’, e.g. the potential consequences of our interventions on service users: ‘If we can generate an emotion or set of emotions that mimic some
future or possible event we can transport ourselves and walk around in this
future world’(p. 46).
Taken together, this research suggests that the boundary between feeling
and thinking, and the oft-heard call for the removal of emotions from so-called
objective or professional decision, needs re-assessment. The notion that emotion does not employ reasoning is weakened by the emphasis on the role of
cognition in emotional appraisal (Frijda, 2000). Emotions play a central role in
decision making. The illusion that they can be somehow removed or put on ice
whilst rational decision making is in progress is neither helpful nor possible.
Equally, the failure to manage feelings compromises the balance between
thought, feeling and action. Perception and receptivity become distorted and
people become less able to make effective use of evidence and information that
do not fit with their view (Schofield, K., personal communication, 2005). What
is required, instead, is the ability to harness all emotion as sources of information, and to seek to promote a positive climate within which the best decisions
are likely to be made. Thinking devoid of emotional knowledge is as problematic
as emotion devoid of thought.
Collaboration and co-operation
Emotion is not simply an expression of individual experience. It is also an
expression of collective and institutional experience. Social care organizations
carry considerable stresses due to the emotionally charged nature of the work,
and the institutional anxiety resulting from the politically and publicly
exposed context in which it is undertaken (Morrison, 1996, 1997; Menzies,
1970). Reynolds and Vince (2004) comment on the centrality of emotion in
the workplace:
Every organization is an emotional place because it is a human invention,
serving human purposes and dependent on human beings to function . . . .
Emotion is what creates and sustains a system in its current form. Individuals and groups continually organize themselves both on the basis of their
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Emotional Intelligence, Emotion and Social Work 257
emotional responses to organizational issues, and on the basis of avoiding
emotion (p. 447).
Long ago, Menzies (1970) identified the presence of social defence systems
which are unconsciously reflected in organizational rituals, processes and systems designed to avoid feelings and experiences that are too deep and dangerous to confront. These protect the institution from its worst fears. Fineman
(2005) notes that organizations are shaped by members’ unconscious desires,
hopes and fantasies for attention, security and order, which replicate early family experiences. Through these mechanisms, it is possible to see how individuals’ feelings and relationship capacities are intertwined with the emotional
needs and rules of the organization in its struggle for survival. Thus, problematic micro-level interactions between staff often act out unspoken macro-level
tensions within and between organizations.
Social work is a collaborative practice. It is not enough for social workers to
be able to work individually with their service users, if they are unable to make
and sustain constructive within and outside their organizations. In particular,
social workers operating within statutory roles will act as care managers or key
workers responsible for commissioning services, and co-ordinating multidisciplinary assessment and planning processes. Both National Occupational Standards (Training Organisation for Personal Social Services, 2002) and the
Common Core of Skills and Knowledge for the Children’s Workforce (Department for Education and Skills, 2004) emphasize the importance of the ability to
work co-operatively with others, including colleagues, supervisors and other
agencies. However, the organizational and inter-agency context in which social
workers must make and maintain these collaborative relationships is particularly demanding. There are often hidden organizational dynamics that that
complicate and undermine the regulation of feelings and relationships in the
workplace.
Goleman et al. (2002) uses the ideas of resonance and dissonance to describe
the contagious nature of emotions, which can be particularly powerful phenomena in organizations. Contagion occurs through a process of mirroring in
which emotions spread amongst people who are in proximity to each other,
leading to not only a sharing of mood, but also to an alignment of body posture
and even heart rates. Friedman and Riggio (1981) suggest that the person who
is most emotionally expressive transmits his or her mood to those around.
Thus, positive resonance occurs when two people’s moods align around positive feelings which create optimism, mental efficiency, fairness and generosity
(Goleman et al., 2002). In contrast, dissonance occurs when one person is out of
touch with the feelings of another, putting that person off-balance and onguard. Just as resonance is part of what makes work meaningful, dissonance
leads to defensive pre-occupation, inefficiency and poor decision making.
Isen (2000) found that positive affect reduces inter-group hostility and
discrimination, enables people to identify shared commonalities and enables
members to treat other groups as members of their own group. In support
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258 Tony Morrison
of this, Wells (2004) has identified a positive association between EI and
openness to differences. This has obvious implications for the ability of
workers to practise in an anti-discriminatory manner. Values and knowledge about discriminatory forces have to be integrated with inter-personal
skills, if practitioners are to be able not only to identify, but also challenge,
such forces appropriately. This also has implications for workers located in
multidisciplinary settings who need to be able to work across boundaries
with a range of different groups and disciplines. In short, the ability to
understand and manage one’s emotions and to be aware of the power of
both resonant and dissonant emotions is an important element of the practitioner’s role.
Dealing with stress, building resilience and coping strategies
The emotionally and morally demanding nature of social work requires that
practitioners give thought to issues of resilience and coping strategy. High
workloads, increased bureaucracy and the nature of decisions that social workers
have to make have resulted in rising levels of stress within the workforce
(Stevens and Higgins, 2002). In a survey of 151 child welfare staff in Kentucky,
Anderson (2000) found that 62 per cent scored in the high range both for emotional exhaustion and depersonalization—appreciably higher than a comparison group surveyed in 1986.
A survey by Gerits et al. (2005) found that symptoms of burnout amongst
female nurses caring for people with severe behaviour problems were greatest amongst those with low EI and low social skills, but that those with high
EI and high social skills could also be vulnerable. From the perspective of the
user, it is desirable both to avoid recruiting those with low EI but also to
ensure that those with higher emotional competence possess positive coping
strategies and personal resilience. The benefits of a highly emotionally competent worker are lost if the worker is regularly off sick. Isen (2000) has identified that positive effect increases intrinsic motivation, enables people to
work harder, raises positive expectancy that effort can lead to improved performance and also that the outcome will be one that is valued. In addition,
Isen (2000) suggests that positive effect enables people to deal more directly
with stressful situations.
Rudowicz and Au (2001) argue that although social workers’ own helpseeking attitudes and behaviours are likely to influence their perception of
users who seek help, little attention has been paid to professional helpers’
attitudes to help seeking. In their view, social worker training should give
students the opportunity to examine their own attitudes and feelings related
to help-seeking experiences and how these may affect their relationship
building with clients. This also suggests that assessment of a worker’s resilience and coping mechanisms should be included in recruitment and selection processes.
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Emotional Intelligence, Emotion and Social Work 259
Shapiro (1999) distinguishes between engaged and disengaged coping styles.
Engaged coping styles involve planful problem solving as opposed to avoidance; cognitive appraisal rather than wishful thinking; seeking support rather
than withdrawal; expressing rather than suppressing emotions. Wolgien and
Coady (1997) report that when nurses, psychologists and social workers were
asked to peer-rate the best practitioners, the top practitioners were all individuals who, in addition to their professional knowledge, had experienced and
resolved difficult personal issues and utilized these skills and insights in their
practice. They were also practitioners who actively worked to create positive
social and professional support networks and pursued their own professional
development. The best practitioners are not only technically proficient; they
also possess maturity in their help-seeking skills and attitudes. This is reinforced by other studies (Yoo, 2002; Grasso, 1994) which have found that the
key buffers to stress for social workers include personal commitment to their
work, and the support received from supervisors and co-workers. Indeed, these
buffers have been identified as more powerful than general organizational
characteristics (Yoo, 2002).
Conclusion
This paper has argued that understanding and handling one’s own and others’
emotions is a critical aspect at every stage of the social work task: engagement,
assessment, observation, decision making, planning and intervention. It is also
an essential skill for managers who need to ‘develop and maintain a practice
which is self aware and critically reflective’ (Training Organisation for Personal
Social Services, 2004) but that must be the subject of another paper. Emotional
intelligence or competence is also pivotal to gaining the co-operation of other
colleagues and services on which social workers depend to achieve their outcomes, and to surviving and thriving in a very tough occupation. It seems ironical in a profession so steeped in relationship-based theories that such
arguments need to be re-stated. But the place of relationships and emotion in
social work is in danger of becoming increasingly marginalized. If it takes the
concept of EI, despite its limitations, to refresh and re-engage with emotion as
a central concern in the social work task, then this can only be beneficial.
Accepted: February 2006
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