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Zapf Spiritual Dimensions

967 Words4 Pages

The article, “The Spiritual Dimension of Person and Environment”, written by Michael Kim Zapf focuses on just that, the spiritual aspects or lack thereof in the professional field of social work. Before being able to discuss the object the author had in writing this article, it is important to know what the word spiritual means. According to the oxford living dictionary spiritual means, “relating to or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things”. Zapf’s main point is how most in the western culture separate self from the environment and how that incorrect view of life is negatively impacting not only social work but the daily lives of people.
At the start of his article, Zapf starts by discussing social work …show more content…

While he focused heavily on the Western world and it view of spirituality, he spent very little time on how that differed from other areas of the world. This is an important aspect of the argument because he is trying to explain how the Western approach to spirituality in social work is incorrect. He uses the example of types of aboriginal social work to give another perspective on interventions which include the use of spirituality when trying to find solutions to the problems a person is experiencing. While this was a good tactic in trying to convince the reader that there are more ways to intervene than the Western approach, he didn’t give enough evidence to prove that we should leave behind our western ways and beliefs. There was no study or evidence shown that the aboriginal view of life is more effective than any other viewpoint. It may seem like common sense, and to most social workers the best way to go about providing interventions and solutions to problems but to others they may not see this as a crucial or even valid argument because of the lack of evidence being provided. While this article is most likely directed towards social workers, who are trained to look at the whole person including their environment, others who may read it will most likely not see it in the same light as people who are trained to want to improve quality of life in this

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