Social workers play a crucial role in delivering social services by providing assistance to people in need. However, they may also experience psychological disorders due to various factors such as work-related issues and family of origins. Despite the importance of the mental well-being of social workers, research on this topic in China is limited. Additionally, there is a lack of research on the transformative experiences of social workers with psychological disorders. Hence, this study aims to explore the impact of psychological disorders on the lives of social workers, the meaning of their life transformations, and the influence of these transformations on their helping work.
This study adopts a narrative research approach in qualitative research, conducting in-depth interviews with five social workers with psychological disorders. Based on their self-narrated texts of suffering life experiences, the study uses thematic analysis to explore the impact of psychological disorder experiences on their lives, the experiences formed in the process of life transformation, and the impact of these experiences on their own and future helping work. The results of the study showed that all five social workers successfully transformed their suffering lives, resulting in various life experiences and meanings. These experiences enhanced their motivation to help and improved their subsequent helping work. This study discusses the life transformation context and related themes of the five social workers with psychological disorders, highlighting the importance of promoting the psychological health of social workers in social service agencies. Furthermore, the study emphasized the need for stress-reducing activities and for social work educators to focus on cultivating the observation and examination abilities of the self-psychological state of social work students, as well as their ability of self-therapy and healing.
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