03/03/2026
I'm studying to become a social worker and am feeling kind of emotional. My super power has always been acquiring patients' trust and motivating them to change.
And now I know why... I've been using the strengths based approach and consumer driven approaches without even knowing it while dentistry currently operates on the deficit-focused perspective. 😭😭
The deficit-focused perspective is concerned much about the client’s problems, assuming that the (dental hygienist) has the professional power to name the client’s problems and to design and organize the intervening plan, while the client does not have such abilities
Therefore, the deficit-focused perspective would primarily serve the (dental hygienist), not the client.
The strengths perspective instead constitutes of the following a) to give preeminence to the client’s understanding of the facts; b) to believe the client; c) to discover what the client wants; d) to move the assessment toward personal and environmental strengths; e) to make assessment of strengths multidimensional; f) to use the assessment to discover uniqueness; g) to use the language the client can understand; h) make assessment a joint activity between worker and client; i) to reach a mutual agreement on the assessment; j) to avoid blame and blaming; k) to avoid cause-and-effect thinking; and l) to assess, not diagnose
Parantheses added by me: previously stated social worker.
Article from Canadian Social Science
Vol. 7, No. 2, 2011, Pp. 15-22
