Reflection, mindfulness, and shame processing in social work practice

Social workers internationally suffer from high rates of stress and burnout. One of the main drivers of these phenomena, is that social work is a rewarding but challenging profession that can heavily deplete practitioners’ emotional resources, particularly if they haven’t been trained on how to reflect on, label, and process challenging emotions, which are commonly experienced in practice. This paper will outline how enhanced capacities for reflection, engendered through mindfulness-based practice can support practitioners to engage with their emotional experiences as part of their routine practice. Using practice case studies, this theory paper will illustrate how challenging emotions, using shame as an example, which social workers often avoid, can be safely reflected on, labelled, and processed. The personal and practice benefits of the deeper engagement with, and processing of challenging emotions will be outlined. This paper also highlights the corrosive effect that unprocessed shame can have on the professional and personal life of a social worker. It also provides a theoretical framework and suggestions on how social workers and social work organisations could be supported to enable effective emotion regulation in social work practice.