From self-awareness to ethical practice: use of integrated self as an enabler of values-based social work

Much of my previous research has focused on the use of self in social work. In this article, representing the culmination of work towards a doctoral award, I present a three-stage developmental pathway (self-awareness → self-knowledge → self as knower) supportive of, what I term, use of integrated self. Brought into being and informed by one’s experiences of integration (feeling authentic) and dissonance/dissociation (feeling inauthentic), use of integrated self is seen as an enabler of values-based social work. Within this unique analysis I assert that it is the social worker’s developed self-knowledge, as informed by emotions pertaining to (in)authenticity, which supports them to recognise their own influence on what is – and how it is – known. Armed with these insights I argue that social workers are better placed to utilise feelings of (in)authenticity as ethical signals for practice.