Importance Of Self-Awareness

The importance of self-awareness in the social care practitioner
In this assignment, I will be discussing the importance of self-awareness in the social care practitioner. Self-awareness is defined as: ‘the process of getting to know your feelings, attitudes and values. It is also learning about the effect you have on others’ (Burnard,1992). To build on our positive qualities, we need to understand our characteristic’s and be aware of any negative ones that may interfere with effective practice. It is vital you are self-aware in your occupation, as you need to have a positive impact on the service user. In this assignment, I will talk about the need for self-awareness, how we affect others, how self-awareness affects us, the think-feel-do framework and the Johari window.
The need for self-awareness:
A commonly used phrase in what can broadly be described as therapeutic or problem-solving work is ‘use of self’ (Thompson,2015). When interacting with people, our personality is often used as a tool, a means which

Certain action’s affect us more than other’s but we often turn our eyes away from it. “Each day we encounter situations in which what others say or do has a significant bearing on us” (Thompson,2015). These are some of the factors that affect us: transference, triggers, blind spots, fear and own needs.
In the workplace, you are faced with fear and difficult situations. We need to handle them professionally. Often we need to face violence, humiliation and failure, these are a few of the possible threats we could face. We should not be ashamed of having fear in the world place and if we are feeling scared, we should express our fear to colleagues. “Being aware of what causes us fear and developing strategies for responding positively and constructively can be seen as an important strength in people work”