The Problem Solving Model

 This model emerged in the 1950s and is

identified with the work of Helen Harris
Perlman at the University of Chicago.

 It branched out from the psychosocial

treatment and functional approaches.

 Takes into account the individual, the

problem, and the agency from which
services are received.
 The problem solving model assumes that
the person’s inability to cope with a problem
on her/his own may be due to lack of
motivation, capacity, knowledge, or
opportunity to work on, and solve the
problem in appropriate ways.
 The client is neither “sick” nor does s/he
possess a weak ego; it just so happens
that in a specific, given situation, s/he is
unable to cope with or solve her/his
problem.

 Temporary disequilibrium occurs when

the individual’s usual problem solving
capacity or resources suffer or break down
under strain.
 Characteristics of the Model
1. Identification of the problem by the client.
2. The subjective aspects of the person-in-
situation.
3. Centrality of the person with the problem.
4. Search for solutions.
5. Decision making
6. Action.
 Purposes
1. To release, energize, and give direction
to the client’s motivation, i.e.,

a. Minimize disabling anxiety and fears.

b. Provide the support and safety that encourage
the lowering of disabling ego defenses.
c. Heighten reward expectations.
d. Free the ego energies in the task at hand.
2. To release and repeatedly exercise the
client’s mental, emotional, and action
capacities for coping with her/his
problem.

a. Help client connect with the problem.

b. Release ego functions of perception, feeling,

cognition, comprehension, selection, judgment,
choice, and action as they are required by the
problem.
3. Find and make accessible to the client
the opportunities and resources
necessary to the solution or mitigation of
the problem.

a. Mobilize client’s inner forces in the service of

satisfactory role performance.

b. Mobilize opportunities in the environment that

are essential conditions and instruments for
satisfactory role performance.
 The 4 Ps of the Problem
Solving Model

A. The Person

A man, woman, or child who find

themselves or are found to be in need of
help in some aspect of their social-
emotional living, whether the need be for
tangible provisions or counsel.
 Concepts in
Understanding the Person
1. The person’s behavior has this purpose
and meaning: to gain satisfaction, to avoid
or dissolve frustration, and to maintain
balance in movement.

2. Whether the person’s behavior is or is not

effective in promoting their well being
depends largely upon the functioning of
their personality structure.
3. The structure and functioning of
personality are the products of inherited
and constitutional equipment in
continuous interaction with the physical,
psychological, and social environment
that the person experiences.

4. The person at any stage of her/his life is

not only a product of nature and nurture,
but is also in process of being in the
present and becoming in the future.
5. The person’s being and becoming behavior
is both shaped and judged by the
expectations they and their culture have
invested in the status and major social
roles they carry.

6. The person who comes as a client is

always under stress.
B. The Problem

Some need/obstacle/accumulation of
frustrations/maladjustment, and sometimes
all of these together, that threatens or has
already attacked the adequacy of the
person’s living situation or the
effectiveness of his/her efforts to deal with
it.
Manifestations of Problems

1. The person with the problem, any member

of their family or neighborhood, display
either a disguised or expressed
dissatisfaction or ambivalence over the
client’s situation.

2. Difficulty is one which the family or

neighborhood could not help.
3. Assistance from the social worker or
agency is sought or offered.

4. Difficulty must be such that the client can

participate in the action and can use help
conspicuously.
Characteristic Ways by Which
Problems are Viewed in Casework:

1. The problems within the purview of social

casework are those which vitally affect or
are affected by a person’s social
functioning.

2. The multifaceted and dynamic nature of a

client’s problem makes it necessary to
select some part of it as the unit for work.
Characteristics of Problems

a. Manifested in various forms; most are

detected through symptoms and
disguises.

b. Multi-dimensional; intertwined with or

superimposed on other problems.

c. The solution of one problem may

reinforce or introduce new ones.
d. The nature and ramifications of a problem
presented differ according to the
personality of the client and the perceived
notions of the significant others who
influence the person’s life.

e. Problems must be systematically

classified in order to identify the core or
target problem.
Classification of Problems

a. Presenting/Immediate Problem – the

problem brought to the attention of the social
worker.

b. Underlying problem – those situations that

caused the presenting problem.

c. Working problem – those situations that

prevent the person from solving the difficulty.
Factors that Must be Considered in
Choice of Problem Focus

a. What the client wants/needs.

b. What the worker’s professional judgment

points to as possible and desirable
solutions.

c. What the agency is for and what it can

offer.
Problem Identification Process

a. Name (it) – identify problems/priorities.

b. Claim (it) – own, accept, face the problem.

c. Tame (it) – solve/overcome the problem.

Characteristic Ways by Which Problems
are Viewed in Casework (continuation)

3. Problems in any part of a human being’s

living tend to have chain reactions.

4. A problem which a person encounters has

both an objective and subjective
significance
5. Not only do the external (objective) and
internal (objective) aspects of the
problem co-exist, either one may be the
cause of the other.

6. Whatever the nature of the problem the

person brings to the social agency, it is
always accompanied and often
complicated by the problem of being a
client.
Problems in Social Functioning

1. Problems of livelihood such as inadequate

source of support, lack of food, clothing, housing,
absence of income generating activity,
malnourished children.

2. Dissatisfaction with social relations – incidents

that do not refer to the whole aspect of a role or
interpersonal relationship because the difficulty
is not experienced by the other person.
3. Difficulty of role performance, e.g.,

a. Deviation from achieved role which causes

dissatisfactions to the client;

b. Anxiety over the gap between actual and

expected/ideal role performance;

c. Conflict over how one partner performs

his/her role in relation to the other.
4. Difficulty in interpersonal relationships – arises
out of the relationship between two individuals,
where the behavior of one is not acceptable or
irritates the other, but neither one can withdraw
from the relationship readily.

e.g., conflict between spouses, parent and child,

siblings, in-laws.
5. Problem with social organizations – similar to the
problem with interpersonal relationships, except
that the client is in conflict with the organization
or collective individuals of an organization.

6. Problems of social transition brought about by

sudden changes of role as in crisis situations
and role reversals.
7. Reactive emotional distress

 expressions of feelings (anxiety, depression,

regression, etc.) resulting from stress or
emotional upset.

 feelings should be in response to an

occurrence that is specific, can be identified,
and which the client is conscious about.
8. Impact of natural calamity or social unrest.

9. Problems of borderline pathology – includes

hysterical, phobic, obsessive, and
psychosomatic reactions, acting out behavior,
neuroses, character disorder.

10. Problem of being a client.

C. The Agency and Other Resources

The physical set-up, finances, policies,

services and manpower of the agency,
as well as the resources coming from the
client, their family, and significant others,
that are used to remedy and/or prevent
the problem.
 The social service agency is set up to
deal not with social problems at large, but
with human beings who are experiencing
such problems in the management of their
own personal lives.

 The physical set up and atmosphere of

an agency can be a resource for the client
– offices and facilities should be arranged
and operated to insure the comfort and
feelings of self-worth of clients.
Factors that Determine the Classification
of Agencies

1. Source of professional authority

a. Primary – has full authority and

responsibility for social welfare function.

b. Secondary – derives its social welfare

functions or purpose from the host agency.
2. Source of support – public funds (tax
money) or private funds.

3. Special function of area of concern, e.g.,

children, youth, elderly, rural development,
etc.
Types of Resources
1. Material – refer to tangible resources (material
provision or money) that is used as a tool in
problem solving.

2. Services – a composite of strategies,

approaches, activities, and procedures which
aim at the prevention or solution of social
dysfunctioning.

3. Policy – a verbal, written or implied expression

of agency purpose that provides the guidelines
for executive action.
4. Manpower – persons who deliver the agency
services.

5. Family and community resources – family,

relatives, employer, friends, and other significant
others whom the clients consider influential to
them.

6. Client’s personal resources.

Concepts About Social Welfare Agencies

1. The social agency is an organization

fashioned to express the will of a society or
of some group in that society as to social
welfare.

2. Each social agency develops a program by

which to meet the particular areas of need
with which it sets out to deal.
3. The social agency has a structure by
which it organizes and delegates its
responsibilities and tasks, and governing
policies and procedures by which it
stabilizes and systematizes its
operations.

4. It is a living, adaptable organism

susceptible to being understood and
changed, much as other living
organisms.
5. Every staff member in an agency speaks
and acts for some part of the agency’s
function, and the social worker represents
the agency in its individualized problem-
solving help.

6. The social worker, while representing their

agency, is first and foremost a
representative of their profession.
D. The Casework Problem Solving Process

 Major Concepts

1. It is necessary to first take stock of the

kinds of blockings that occur in
people’s normal problem solving
efforts:

a. A problem cannot be solved if the

necessary tangible means and resources
are not available to the person.
b. Sometimes, people are unable to
solve their problems simply out of
ignorance or misapprehension about
the facts of the problem or the facts of
existing ways of meeting it.

c. A problem is difficult to resolve when

the person who has it is depleted or
drained of emotional or physical
energy.
d. Some problems arouse high feelings
in a person --- emotions so strong that
they overpower their reason and defy
their conscious controls.

 Sometimes these feelings are

realistically called for as in grief at death
or anxiety over sickness.
 Sometimes, these could be
overreactions caused by the
problem bringing to life old,
dormant emotions that add
their strength to the present ones.

 When problems set off a

conflagration of feelings so that the
client’s thought processes become
clouded and mixed up, the social
worker should:
(1) relieve the person’s feelings so
that s/he may begin to try to see
straight;

(2) lessen the impact of the problem

so that the client may be able to
analyze the problem and think of
alternative situations.
e. The problem may lie within the
person; that is, s/he may become
subject to or victim of emotions that
chronically, over time, have governed
his/her thinking and action.

f. Some people find problems difficult to

solve because they have never
developed a systematic habit or
orderly method of thinking and
planning.
 These persons do not readily see
cause and effect relationships, and
consider themselves acted upon
rather than potential actors in relation
to their problems.
 References
Brieland, Donald, Lela B. Costin and Charles R.
Atherton (1985). Contemporary Social Work: An
Introduction to Social Work and Social Welfare ,
NY: McGraw Hill.

De Guzman, Leonora (1992). Social Casework: An

Introduction, Q.C. New Day Publisher.

Perlman, Helen (1973). Social Casework: A Problem

Solving Process, Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Skidmore, Rex, O. William Farley and Milton
Thackeray (1997). Introduction to Social Work, 7th
ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon