From Desperation To Rebirth:Social Work Intervening In The Study Of Psychological Assistance Of Elderly Who Have Lost Only Child

In recent years,the issue of the elderly who have lost only child has presented a serious trend.The elderly who have lost only child is refered to elders over 49 years old,whose only child sudden death,and no longer give birth or adop any children.In terms of quantity,the number of elderly who have lost only child is huge and presents a rapid growth trend.According to relevant statistics,there are more than 1 million families have lost their only child in China and the growth rate is about 76000 per year.In terms of problem appearance,the elderly who have lost only child face many different kinds of difficulties,including physical,psychological,economic and society problem.Further more,the psychological problem is the most serious and almost destroys their normal life.Recently,this issue has gradually attracted the attention of the government and society.The government has already formulated many relevant policies,carried out relevant helping practice and academics also have done some relevant researches.However,the existing policies,practices and researches pay more attention to the physical help rather than psychological.Under the background that the government has already improved the social policy of the elderly who have lost only child,finding methods to give psychological assistance to them is need to be solved.This paper focuses on the elderly who have lost only child,exploring the methods of social work intervening in the study of psychological assistance.To be specific,utilizing the clinical treatment model and the volunteer link model,combining with the action research methods to get involved in the psychological assistance of the elderly who have lost only child under the perspective of social support theory.A five-stage action model proposed by Gerald Susman(1983)was used in the research process that including the diagnosis and definition of the problem,the development of action plans,the promotion of action planning,the re-evaluation of the problem,the summary and the reflection.Through professional intervention,the elderly who have lost only child have restored mental health,which proved that social work gets involved in the psychological assistance is effective.Through the summary of action process,it is found that the process mainly includes three stages,crisis intervention stage,grief counseling stage and psychological recovery stage.The content of crisis intervention mainly includes life care and emotional support.The content of grief counseling mainly includes talking to the dead and the dead farewell.The content of psychological recovery mainly includes spiritual consolation,social recovery and economic assistance.Social workers mainly use the clinical treatment model during the crisis intervention and volunteer link mode during psychological recovery stage.The social workers play two roles,therapist(service direct tenderer role)and linker(service indirect tenderer role).What is more,social workers should intervene timely,proactively and build a professional relationship with research object during the psychological assistance process.There are three major findings through the reflection of the whole practice process.First of all,it is found that the funeral rituals in Chinese traditional culture have important revelation to the assistance to psychological problems of the elderly who have lost only child.The social workers could introduce some funeral rituals elements into the social work methods and explore the local psychological counseling methods of the elderly who have lost their only child.Secondly,social workers could act as service providers and policy advisors in the whole assisting system of the elderly who have lost their only child.Finally,social workers need to improve their professional standards and pay attention to the application of sincerity principle in the social work practice.