DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN THE APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES
Lesson 1
SOCIAL SCIENCES
- Disciplines concerned with the systematic study of social
phenomena.
BRANCHES OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
ECONOMICS
- Studies the allocation of scarce resources and the
production and exchange of goods and services in society.
- Subfields of Economics: Environmental, Labor, Business,
and Monetary Economics.
ANTHROPOLOGY
- The scientific study of humans and their cultures in the past
and present time.
- Different Areas of Anthropology: Cultural, Physical
Anthropology, Archaeology, and Anthropological
Linguistics.
HISTORY
- The systematic study of human past events in order to
understand the meaning, dynamics, and relationship of the
cause and effects of events in the development of societies.
- Subfields of History: Political, Economic, Social,
Environmental, History of Medicine and Public Health,
Business History, and Biographies.
POLITICAL SCIENCE
- Primarily studies human behavior in relation to political
systems, governments, laws, and international relations.
- Fields of Polsci: Domestic and Comparative Politics, Intl
Relations, Public Administration, and Public Law.
PSYCHOLOGY
- Studies how the human mind works in consonance with the
body to produce thoughts that lead to individual actions.
- Subfields of Psychology: Experimental, Developmental,
Personality, Social, and Environmental Psychology.
SOCIOLOGY
- Systematic study of people’s behavior in groups.
- Subfields of Sociology: Applied, Urban, Cultural, Medical,
Rural, Sociology of Education, Political, and Military
Sociology.
GEOGRAPHY
- Study of interaction between people and their environment.
- Main Branches of Geography: Physical Geography and
Human Geography.
DEMOGRAPHY
- The scientific study of human populations across time.
- Subfields of Demography: Population Studies or Social
Demography
LINGUISTICS
- The scientific study of language and its structure, including
the study of morphology, syntax, phonetics, and semantics.
- Branches of Linguistics: Sociolinguistics, dialectology,
psycholinguistics, computational linguistics,
historical-comparative linguistics, and applied linguistics.
Lesson 2
APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES
- Integrated science cutting across and transcending various
social science disciplines in addressing a wide range of issues
in a contemporary, innovative and dynamic way.
FUNCTIONS AND EFFECTS OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
- Generate knowledge in an organic way for evidence-based
actions and solutions to social problems and issues.
- They cause social sciences to do things rather than just
remain a source of factual knowledge with little or no utility.
- The provision of knowledge by social science becomes the
moral basis of applied science to address the issues or
problems of society.
- Communication provides accessibility to information and
thereby serves the rights of an individual and the public to be
informed and to be heard by their elders and communities.
- Counselling provides accessibility to information and
thereby serves the rights of an individual and the public to be
informed and to be heard by their elders and communities. It
provides healing, courage and strength for an individual to
face his/her issues and take up the best possible option in
moments of life crises.
- Social work promotes social change,problem solving in
human relationships and the empowerment and liberation of
people to enhance their holistic well-being.
 DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN THE APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES
MAIN CAREER TRACKS
COUNSELLING
- A form of 'talk therapy'.
- Provides guidance, help, and support to individuals who are
distraught by a diverse set of problems in their lives.
- It can be done by guidance counselors, life coaches, career
counselors, and personal growth counselors.
- Life Coach: Analyzes the present condition of the client,
discovers different obstacles or challenges that a client faces
and provides a certain course of action to make the client’s
life better.
- Career Counselling: In the process of entering the job
market, searching for possible career change or those wanting
advancements.
- Personal Growth Counselling: Evaluation of the different
aspects of a client’s life.
SOCIAL WORK
- Social work practitioners help individuals, families, groups
and communities to improve their individual and collective
well-being.
- Involved in advocacy campaigns and work, counseling, issue
and conflict mediation and research.
COMMUNICATION STUDIES
- Media practitioners stress the importance of balance,
objective, truthful, and creative rendering of the news and
other important events as they actually happened.
- Entertainment Industry needs to understand the needs and
consumption patterns of the viewing public.
- Rarely, people perceive social work as “The social work
profession promotes social change, problem solving in
human relationships and the empowerment and liberation of
people to enhance well-being. Utilizing theories of human
behavior and social systems, social work intervenes at the
points where people interact with their environments.
Principles of human rights and social justice are fundamental
to social work.”
- Ex: Field of mass media.
SPECIFIC GOALS OF COUNSELING
Insight, relating with others, self-awareness, self-acceptance,
self-actualization, enlightenment, problem-solving,
psychological education, acquisition of social skills, cognitive
change, behavioral change, systematic change,
empowerment, restitution, and generativity.
Lesson 3
COUNSELING AS A DISCIPLINE
GOALS OF COUNSELING
DEVELOPMENTAL GOALS
- Advancing the client’s human growth.
- Social, personal, emotional, cognitive, and physical wellness.
PREVENTIVE GOALS
- Helps the client to avoid undesired outcomes.
ENHANCEMENT GOALS
- Enhance special skills and abilities.
REMEDIAL GOALS
- Assisting a client to overcome and treat an undesirable
development.
EXPLORATORY GOALS
- Examining options, testing skills, trying new and different
activities.
REINFORCEMENT GOALS
- Helps clients in recognizing that what they are doing,
thinking, and feeling is fine.
COGNITIVE GOALS
- Involves acquiring the basic foundation of learning and
cognitive skills.
PHYSIOLOGICAL GOALS
- Acquiring basic understanding and habits for good health.
PSYCHOLOGICAL GOALS
- Aids in developing good social interaction skills, learning
emotional control, and developing positive self-concept.
PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL CODES
ETHICAL PRINCIPLES
- Autonomy of Individuals: The right to freedom of action
and freedom of choice as the pursuit of this freedom does not
interfere with the freedom of others.
- Principle of Nonmaleficence: Instruction to all helpers or
healers that they must above all do no harm. Beneficence is
the order to promote human welfare.
- Principle of Justice: Fair distribution of resources/services.
- Principle of Fidelity: Presence of loyalty, reliability, faith.
GENERAL MORAL THEORIES
- All practitioners should possess: empathy, sincerity,
integrity, resilience, respect, humility, competence, fairness,
wisdom, and courage.
 DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN THE APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES
ACCOUNTABILITIES OF COUNSELORS
CODE OF CONDUCT
- A set of rules outlining the norms, rules, and responsibilities
or proper practices of an individual party or an organization.
CODE OF ETHICS
- Sets out an organization's ethical guidelines and best
practices to follow for honesty, integrity, and professionalism.
- 7 Sections: Counseling relationship, confidentiality,
professional responsibility, relationships with other
professionals, evaluation assessment and interpretation,
teaching training and supervision, research and publication.
COUNSELING RELATIONSHIP
CLIENT WELFARE
- Counselor’s primary responsibility is to respect the dignity
and to promote the welfare of clients.
CLIENT RIGHTS
- Shall disclose the purposes, goals, techniques, procedures,
limitations, potential risks, benefits of the services to be
performed.
CLIENTS SERVED BY OTHERS
- In cases where the client is receiving services from another
mental health professional, with client’s consent inform the
professional person already involved to develop an agreement.
MULTIPLE CLIENTS
- In cases where counselors agree to provide counseling
services to two or more persons who have a relationship.
SEXUAL INTIMACIES WITH CLIENT
- Should not have any type of sexual intimacies with clients
and do not counsel persons with whom they have sexual
relationship.
RESPECTING DIVERSITY
- Counselors do not engage in discrimination based on age,
color, culture, disability, ethnic group, gender, race, religion,
sexual orientation, marital status and socio-economic status.
PERSONAL NEEDS AND VALUES
- Maintain respect for clients and avoid actions that seek to
meet their personal needs at the expense of the clients.
DUAL RELATIONSHIPS
- Aware of their influential position over their client and
avoid exploiting the trust and dependency of the clients.
GROUP WORK
- Counselors screen prospective group counseling/therapy
participants to determine those with compatible needs.
FEES
- Clearly explain all the financial arrangements.
Lesson 4
ROLES AND FUNCTIONS OF COUNSELORS
INDIVIDUAL ASSESSMENT
- Identify the characteristics and potential of every client.
- Promotes self understanding and assisting counselors to
understand the client better.
INDIVIDUAL COUNSELING
- The core activity through which other activities become
meaningful.
GROUP COUNSELING AND GUIDANCE
- Providing organized and planned assistance to individuals
for an array of needs.
CAREER ASSISTANCE
- Provide planning and adjustment assistance to clients.
PLACEMENT AND FOLLOW-UP
- Emphasis on educational placements in courses and
programs.
REFERRAL
- Helping clients find needed expert assistance that the
referring counselor cannot provide.
CONSULTATION
- Helping a client through a third party or helping the system
improve its services to its clientele.
RESEARCH
- Can provide empirically based data relevant to the ultimate
goal of implementing effective counseling.
EVALUATION AND ACCOUNTABILITY
- Evaluation is assessing the effectiveness of a counselor's
activities.
- Accountability schools and other tax-supported institutions
are held accountable for their actions.
PREVENTION
- Promotion of mental health through primary prevention
using a social-psychological perspective.
 DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN THE APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES
COMPETENCIES OF COUNSELORS
INTERPERSONAL SKILLS
- Counselors should have the abilities to listen, communicate,
empathize; be present, aware of nonverbal communication;
sensitive to voice quality, responsive to expressions of
emotion, turn taking, structure of time and use of language.
PERSONAL BELIEFS AND ATTITUDES
- Counselors should have the capacity to accept others, belief
in potential for change, awareness of ethical and moral
choices and sensitivity to values held by client and self.
CONCEPTUAL ABILITY
- Counselors should understand and assess the client’s
problems; to anticipate future problems; to make sense of
immediate process in terms of wider conceptual scheme to
remember information about the client.
PERSONAL SOUNDNESS
- Counselors should have no irrational beliefs that are
destructive to counseling relationships, self-confidence,
capacity to tolerate strong or uncomfortable feelings in
relation to clients, secure personal boundaries, ability to be a
client; must carry no social prejudice, ethnocentrism, and
authoritarianism.
MASTERY OF TECHNIQUES
- Counselors must have a knowledge of when and how to
carry out specific interventions, ability to assess effectiveness
of interventions, understanding of rationale behind
techniques, possession of sufficiently wide repertoire of
interventions.
ABILITY TO UNDERSTAND AND WORK WITHIN
SOCIAL SYSTEMS
- Awareness of family and work relationships of the client, the
impact of agency on the clients, the capacity to use support
networks and supervision; sensitivity to clients from different
gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or age group.
OPENNESS TO LEARNING AND INQUIRY
- The capacity to be curious about clients’ backgrounds and
problems; being open to new knowledge.
CAREER OPPORTUNITIES AND AREAS OF
SPECIALIZATION OF COUNSELORS
MARRIAGE AND FAMILY COUNSELING
- Refers to the effort to establish an encouraging relationship
with a couple or family and appreciate the complications in
the family system.
CHILD AND ADOLESCENT COUNSELING
- A developing area of expertise in the counseling profession.
- Ex: Child abuse, neglect, child/adolescent depression, and
antisocial behavior.
GROUP COUNSELING
- A dynamic field in the counseling profession.
- Opportunities for members to learn from observing other
group members. Can function as helpers and helps.
CAREER COUNSELING
- Evolving and challenging counseling field.
- Vocational career services, occupational placement,
vocational guidance, career counseling, career education,
career therapy, and position coaching.
SCHOOL COUNSELING
- The process of reaching out to students with concerns on
drugs, family, peers or gang involvement.
MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELING
- Is manifested in the challenges posed by its clientele with
mental disorders.
- Ex: Depression, schizophrenia, and substance abuse.
 DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN THE APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES
Lesson 5
COUNSELING PROCESS
- Stage One: Relationship Building
- Stage Two: Assessment and Diagnosis
- Formulation of Counseling Goals
- Intervention and Problem-solving
- Termination and Follow-Up
- Research and Evaluation
METHODS OF COUNSELING
CLASSIC COUNSELING
A.) Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory
- Methods and Techniques: Free association, Dream analysis,
Confrontation and clarification, and Interpretation.
B.) Adler’s Individual Psychology
- 4 Phases of Adlerian Psychotherapy: Establishing
relationships, Performing analysis and assessment, Promoting
insight, and Reorientation.
C.) Jung’s analytic Psychology
EXPERIENTIAL THEORIES
A.) Roger’s Person-Centered Counseling
- Counselor congruence, Empathic understanding, and
Unconditional positive regard.
B.) Perls Gestalt Therapy
- Gestalt Techniques (assuming responsibility, using
personal pronouns, Now I am Aware, The Empty
Chair Technique)
COGNITIVE-BEHAVIORAL THEORIES: RATIONAL
EMOTIVE BEHAVIOR AND TRANSACTION
ANALYSIS
A.) Ellie’s Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)
- Techniques: Cognitive, Emotive, Behavioral Techniques
B.) Beck’s Cognitive Therapy
- Techniques: Decatastrophizing, Redefining, Decentering,
and Behavioral techniques
C.) Berne’s Transactional Analysis
- Techniques: Script, Structural, Transactional analysis, and
Analysis of Games.
Lesson 5
SOCIAL WORK
- A business of helping people or social institutions.
- A profession that helps people interact more effectively with
the social environment.
- Promotes change and social development.
- An applied science or helping people achieve an effective
level of psychosocial functioning and affecting societal
changes to enhance the well-being of the people. (Barker)
- 6,796 Number of Social Workers in the Philippines.
SOCIAL WORKER
- Concerned with enabling or facilitating change.
- Social workers must have handles in fortifying and securing
the necessary resources to attain the goals of the client.
- Australian Association of Social Workers (ASSW): A
practical profession designed at helping people address their
problems and matching them with the resources they need to
lead healthy and productive lives.
GOALS OF SOCIAL WORKER
THE GOAL IN CARING
- Caring refers to the heart of social work and it focuses on
the well-being or the welfare and comfort of the individuals
and community.
THE GOAL IN CURING
- Curing is the aspect of treating people with problems in
social functioning.
THE GOAL IN CHANGING
- Changing is the active participation of social work.
SCOPE OF SOCIAL WORK
SOCIAL WORK AS A PRIMARY DISCIPLINE
- Counseling, foster care, residential care, support devices,
protective services
- Family counseling, family education, and family planning.
- Income maintenance, assistance insurance.
SOCIAL WORKER SKILLS
- Empathy, communication, organization, critical thinking,
active listener, self care, cultural competence, patience,
professional commitment, and advocacy.
 DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN THE APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES

PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL WORK

- Acceptance
- Client's participation in problem-solving.
- Self-determination.
- Individualization
- Confidentiality
- Worker of awareness
- Client-worker relationship

ROLES OF SOCIAL WORK

RESOURCE BROKER
- Direct provision of material aid and other materials that will
be helpful in reducing situational deficiencies.
SOCIAL BROKER
- Process of negotiating “the service jungle” for clients.
MEDIATOR
- Acting as an intermediary between persons or in group and
the social worker engage his effort to resolve the problem
ADVOCATE
- Stepping forward on behalf of the client system
ENABLER
- Activities that social worker engages in order to help the
client cope up with his/her situation
COUNSELOR/THERAPIST
- Intends to restore and maintain the client’s capacity to
adapt to their current reality.

FUNCTIONS OF SOCIAL WORK

REHABILITATIVE FUNCTION
- Refers to restoration, curative, and remedial actions.
PREVENTIVE FUNCTION
- Detects Impending imbalance between the individuals or
groups with the environment.
DEVELOPMENTAL FUNCTION
- Ascertains and strengthens the full potential in individuals,
groups, and communities.

CORE VALUES OF SOCIAL WORK

- Right to self-fulfillment.
- Responsibility to common good.
- Responsibility of the society.
- Right to satisfy basic needs.
- Social Organization is required to facilitate an individual's
effort at self-realization.
- Self-realization and contribution to society.