The Love Theorist

After a lecture on power, human rights and ethics, a social work student said: “social workers have no power!” He said it as an unequivocal truth and many other students agreed with him. This came as a surprise to me and we had a discussion about it then and there in class. This podcast explores power as an idea and practice, mainly in a professional context. It identifies the various ways social...

The podcast is a response to contemporary media representations of people who are treated as less than human due to being seen as outsiders to mainstream society. A recent comment by an Australian politician that ‘there are no good Muslims’ is indicative of an us-versus-them dangerous dichotomy. The language that is full of untruths and unfounded generalisations is a key step in social processes o...

The podcast focuses on our individual experience of eco-guilt that occurs from recognising our part in the unsustainability of the planet. Guilt is defined as both an individual awareness of causing harm, usually to another person. And inter-related to this is eco-guilt which is the recognition of causing harm to Nature and as such being part of the global problem. The causes of unsustainability a...

Eco-anxiety describes the deep worry we can feel when we see very distressing things happening in the world. In particular, when so called natural disasters are wreaking havoc it is a level of anxiety that seems to have no end. Eco-anxiety gives a name to this distress and the powerlessness that often comes with it. It is caused by witnessing catastrophic events such as floods, fires, landslides,...

For some time I’ve been pondering where I stand in relation to the largely cautionary media reports and research about the use of AI, such as ChatGPT. At the same time it is apparent that no amount of caution will turn back to rising tide of people needing helping who are resorting to AI. As a social worker it is important to educate myself about this development and to explore how to contribute t...

This podcast shines some light onto the troubling issue of workplace violence which can take many forms, and for our purpose today, I call bullying. The continuing harm caused by workplace bullying suggests it is a complex phenomenon that is multi-causal, involves multiple actors and targets, can be direct or indirect and not recognised as occurring or proactively addressed in trauma organised and...

Love is an action and in professional helping, or when helping a friend or family member, it involves a range of capacities and values. This podcast focusses on the key ability of the non-judgmental attitude. In social work, a seminal text on the casework relationship by Felix Biestek (1957) was where I learnt about this professional attitude. However, lately I’ve been pondering whether I have act...

If you are a fan of BTS this podcast is for you. If you have never heard of BTS - check it out to find what a BTS scholar and social worker have in common. We trace the ways we have influenced each other and our respective understandings of love from quite different antecedents and influences. Both of us sharing a passion and enjoyment of BTS as fans has enriched our writing and social media piece...

My co-author, Dilip Karki, and I are excited to share our recent published research article with you. In many ways it distils evidence of why love matters in social work and how love is needed for justice to matter. I introduce the publication by sharing some of my backstory to how love became such a big focus of my research and teaching for more than two decades. Early on the idea of a love ethic...

The real cause of burnout in the workplace can be summarised as failures of responsibility in the human services. These failures of responsibility by many actors in positions of authority in a hierarchy of service delivery have multiple unintended, and nevertheless seriously harmful, consequences. Burnout of front line workers is the most concerning symptom of systems’ failures. A system fails whe...

There is a common misunderstanding that if you are burnt out you can’t cope, that you are weak, that you can’t do your job. Burnout needs to be re-defined so we don’t keep blaming ourselves when our workplace has betrayed us. In fact signs of burnout are not the end of your strength rather that you are needing all your resources to do your job in taxing circumstances. Burnout can be thought of as...

These last months I have had the privilege of tutoring in two counselling courses which are about the nature of helping and the kinds of experience which cause people to seek out a counsellor, social worker or psychologist … and many other professions in the human services sector. We spent a lot of time looking at theories, models, techniques and resources to help people. I had an uneasy sense for...

I’ve had the beautiful book, Atlas of the heart by Brene Brown, sitting on my bookshelf for ages. I pick it up at times and find myself reading a section in depth or a quote in big print or just looking at the thoughtful pictures and diagrams. This is an inspiring book about the importance of connection through increasing our emotional language and building bridges with each other to know love. La...

Tropical Cyclone Alfred provides an opportunity, albeit unwelcome, to make some comments on my experience and gives me a chance to also comment on a concern I think needs some attention. As one of 4 1/2 million people in the direct line of threat as the cyclone approached the south east area of Queensland, my own experience is perhaps indicative of others, even though the impact directly on me and...

I am interested in exploring the ethics and skills that should comprise a theory of love that can help us address all types of lovelessness and violence. I keep coming back to empathy as perhaps the most central skill for all of us. It was a skill I learnt about in my first year of undergraduate study as a social worker - then as now it was presented as a core communication skill in helping others...

In this podcast I want to share with you another dimension of my evolving theory of love which seeks to guide us in how to respond to peoples’ experiences of broken-heartedness. I proceed by sharing some ideas from Peter Marris’s 1974 book - Loss and change . His main argument is that the meaning we make of loss deeply affects how we negotiate bereavement. He suggests that for some of us we might...

As 2024 draws to a close I wanted to share with you my current reading as it encapsulates so much about what love is and isn’t and how everyone has a love story to tell if we would only listen. The author, Trent Dalton, creates an inviting space for passer-bys on a street corner in Brisbane city. He sits at a little table with an old fashioned type writer and a spare seat beside him, the sign prop...

You might be surprised to know that love is not part of social work as shown by its absence in official documents about social work’s values and social justice mission. This is not to say it is not integral to how some social workers practice but there is little research-based evidence of love in social work. This podcast puts the argument that love is needed for social justice to matter. Further,...

The podcast brings a focus to indications that a workplace culture may be creating conditions of unsafety and unfair behaviours. The example of scapegoating is about one worker being targeted in the team at any point in time. They will be bullied by usually the supervisor or manager, and this builds into a pattern of other workers mobbing with persistent micro-aggressions until the person is sacke...

An interest in love and nonviolence brings me to the focus in this podcast on the issue of bullying in the workplace. Whatever form bullying takes it is violence and most workplaces have policies backed up by occupational health and safety legislation that makes it unacceptable behaviour. It is about lovelessness as a power strategy to gain favors with the boss, survive in an unsafe workplace and...

This podcast is an exploration of the potential of love to assist social workers and other practitioners in understanding their own wounded hearts. Thus, the focus in on the practitioner and how we can become exhausted and depleted at work. This is typically called burnout. I suggest that while this term is popular and conveys a sense of what is happening, it does not consider the deeper causes of...

As a social work educator it is important to think deeply and carefully about the values and ethics that guide my teaching. The next generation of social workers at universities are wanting to know how to make a difference in the world. They tell me their main motivation is helping people who have experienced trauma, loss and injustice. Just what might really help people is what social work degree...

This is a second discussion of broken-heartedness and social work where more detail is provided in how to think deeply about the causes of broken-heartedness and ways to respond to it. Social work knowledge and skills, when aligned with a love ethic, can inform a wide range of love practices. In turn these love practices align with nonviolence and doing no harm. The power of love in professional p...

As a social worker, I have often worked with people who describe their experiences as being broken-hearted or heart-breaking. For many years I failed to recognise this recurring language in peoples’ stories. This is a podcast that defines broken-heartedness and explains how I regard broken-heartedness as a crucial tool for social workers to build our understanding of the depths of harm and loss th...

This is the second part of chapter 3 called ‘Eco injustice’ from my book, Broken-heartedness: Towards love in professional practice. Like some of the other chapters, it is very difficult to read for the tragedies it describes. Here my personal experiences with other animals who are used by humans required of me an ethical re-set as an adult towards non harming of all animals. As the daughter of a...