Understanding And Coping With Client Resistances Social Work Essay

Understanding And Coping With Client Resistances Social Work Essay Professional social workers frequently encounter a thorny situation called client resistance. As resistance is inevitable in the intervention process and will very likely affect the intervention outcomes, study of client resistance is important to social workers and learning how to manage it will be pivotal to achieve expected goals and objectives. This paper will firstly narrate the writer ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½s personal experience so as to put the issue of client resistance on the agenda and give a brief description of involuntary clients or client resistance, then present the writer ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½s understanding of them in terms of their several distinctive features, and finally propose tentative strategies of coping with client resistance. Keywords: resistance; involuntary clients; intervention skills Introduction As potential social workers, we probably will be brought into contact with more and more  ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½involuntary clients ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ in the future, like mentally illness patients, deviant behavior adolescents, violent parents, battered children, etc.. Some of them are  ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½legally mandated to engage with service providers ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ (Rooney,1992), while others are experiencing  ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½social or non-legal pressures, for example, being coerced by family members to seek assistance for a particular behavior ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ (Rooney,1992). These kinds of clients constitute a high proportion of whole clients and display more resistant behaviors than those voluntary ones. Often, they do not seek help willingly and may demonstrate resistant behaviors such as negative evasions, pretended obedience or undisguised hostilities, threats and attacks from the very beginning of the worker ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½s intervention. Therefore, how to interact with and intervene in this type of clients has become a tremendous challenge in the field of social work practice and it is important for social workers to get a deeper understanding of involuntary clients. Case Example X once was a primary school teacher with a fine income, and her husband Y has been running a factory which creates a great deal of wealth to the whole family. Everything seemed perfect that the couple were devoted to each other and have a daughter C who was in her second year in a satisfactory university. Unfortunately, X was extensively burnt in an explosion accident three years ago. Since then, she lost self-confidence because of her disfigured face and refused to go out for the fears of being laughed at. The daughter Z tried to took her out for an airing and ease her anxieties and inferiority about the disfigurement but failed. Since a lot of people pointed at her on the street, X felt painful and tended to isolate herself. To make things worse, not too long after her accident, her husband Y began to make relationship with another woman and was spending a large sum of time and money on that woman. He went to his factory early and back home late every day and seldom had meals at home which was entirely different from what it was before. In addition to Y ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½s indifference, Z was studying at a university so far from home that she was unable to accompany her mother all the time. Consequently, X always staied alone at home with the feeling of helpless and hopeless. Although sometimes Y would come back home and cook meals for A, he had nothing to talk with X. Actually, the daughter Z here is me. I was extremely anguished, seeing my originally harmonious family rapidly disappeared. I tried to cope with such a depressing family atmosphere, but found it difficult. However, when I look back and combine the past experiences with what I have learnt in MSW, I have been realized that there were such a lot of unwise actions had been taken to resolve my family problems. Examples are showed as follows: In that period of time, I tended to communicate with my mother more than with my father and owe this difference to gender similarity and the tragic suffering of my mother. I spent much time on comforting her just because she was the only victim as in my own perception. I constantly teaching my mother how to calm herself down and change her mindsets, so as to survive in a miserable feeling. Unexpectedly, when I suggested her talking more with my father, she just sneered, saying  ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½he is so obstinate that nothing will change his mind ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½. It could be inferred that she was still pessimistic and lacked motivation to make changes in spite of my consistent encouragement. On the other hand, the stereotypes that men are always mentally stronger than women made me totally forgot that my father was suffering pains and he needed care as well. Hardly had I decided to concern for and communicate with my father when I learnt that I should take him into consideration early. The most challenging thing was that he had been greatly reluctant to talk about either his former or current relationship with my mother especially the information about his extramarital love. He even did not admit any fault he had made. I have to acknowledge that I was livid when I found out that my father had been two-timing his wife and was highly emotional and illiberally prejudiced against as a result. Only now did I understand the reasons why I failed to assist my parents in settling their contradiction. My deficient consideration of my father ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½s personality and the dignity as a man almost turned an equal dialogue into a thoughtless bickering. In fact, my father was def iant in the whole session because he was afraid that his authoritative status in the family would be ruined, however, I did not realize that kind of unwillingness at that time. No doubt, neither my mother nor my father is my client in the sense of professional, but if they are viewed as clients, it will be a classic case of client resistance. Definition of Client Resistance When doing the literature review, I found that the term involuntary is sometimes used interchangeably with resistant, however, the former refers to  ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½the status of the client ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½, while the latter refers to  ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ behaviors or characteristics that hinder the therapeutic process ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ (Chui Ho, 2006). Usually, involuntary clients show some resistant thoughts and behaviors. Freud (1914/1957) originally conceptualized resistance as  ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½the client ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½s effort to repress anxiety-provoking memories and insights in the unconscious during psychoanalytic free association ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ (Freud, 1914/1957). According to the perspective of social interaction theory, resistance is  ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½psychological forces aroused in the client that restrain acceptance of influence (acceptance of the counselors suggestion) and are generated by the way the suggestion is stated and by the characteristics of the counselor stating it ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ (Strong Matross, 1973). Simply stated, resistance has been defined as  ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½a process of avoiding or diminishing the self-disclosing communication requested by the interviewer because of its capacity to make the interviewee uncomfortable or anxious ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ (Pope, 1979). Client resistance should not be regarded as  ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½something that happens within the client, as a response to his or her inner workings, and must be overcome by the counselor ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ (Cowan Presbury, 2000). Rather, resistance should be understood as  ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½a phenomenon that emerges between client and therapist in the unfolding interaction between their differently organized subjective worlds ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ (Cowan Presbury, 2000). In a word, resistance is treated as results from the communication pattern of the counselor and the client. In other words, resistance emerges when the intervention strategies are not gear to clients ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ willingness to accept the style in which the intervention is conducted. Typical Involuntary Clients This part is a personal understanding towards client resistance. Based on an examination of the case example and the literature review, I summarized three types of involuntary clients. 1. Clients Who Have Inadequate Strength or Ability Some clients do not have the ability to take care of themselves or seek help from others, such as the disabled, the battered children and the abandoned elderly. These clients are normally forced by others to consult an agency and a social worker. 2. Clients Who Have Insufficient Motivation The clients who fall into the difficult position for a long time may feel mentally exhausted and have no extra will to seek help. Take some battered women as an example, they tend to have a despairing view of the marriage because of the learned helplessness and may find it meaningless to join in the intervention tasks. Similar to those who have inadequate strength or ability, the majority of the insufficiently motivated clients are not willingly attended the intervention tasks. 3. Clients Who Lack Introspection Although some people know that they are mired in difficulties because of their misbehaviors, they have insufficient self-contemplation, and self-examination when faced with the problems they have, which, as a result, make the problems relapse again and again. This is also the reason why most drug or alcoholic abusers find it difficult to completely overcome their additions. Skills of Coping with Client Resistance For involuntary clients, it is a common phenomenon that they will be reluctant towards self-exposure and conservative to their own experience because they worry about that not doing so would threaten their self-concept. It is necessary for a social worker to learn how to alleviate clients ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ excessive anxiety. Social workers are expected to adjust their intervention methods and the styles to the need of clients. Since most involuntary clients pay much attention to self-protection, the workers should not only avoid requesting or anticipating their self-betrayal, but also refrain from any actions that attempting to tear down clients ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ mask. 1. To Find Out the Third Party In general, social workers are required to listen carefully to clients, thus provide clients more opportunities to express their feelings and perceptions and make them feel respected and admitted. However, things are different when confronting involuntary clients. Since it is an issue of power and control that the pouring-out people are usually vulnerable whereas the listening people always have the power to make evaluation and assessment, the involuntary clients tend to crave a sense of empower through the process of resistance and rebuttal. In involuntary cases, the third party is needed in the course of the entire conversation. If I intake a client like my mother, I should not unilaterally focus on counseling the client changing herself, but on concerning several means to bring the third party into the intervention so that establishing a  ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½social work  ¿Ã‚ ½C client  ¿Ã‚ ½C the third party ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ triangular communication system. In short, the third party is ones who push clients to seek help or forced them to ask for counseling. 2. To Make the Intervention Process Clear Apart from understanding about the force that push clients into the intervention, the workers should also enquire about whether the clients have any other confusions. It aims at discovering the problems which clients want to improve. The worker as a listener should do something to give clients a feeling that they are under a clearly planned effective assistance. In addition, it is very important to make sure that clients know what will the worker do and will not do. For example, summarizing or reflecting clients ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ current situation or their main resentment can possibly promote their expectation to the counseling and enhance social workers ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ reliability as well. 3. To Alleviate Clients ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ Anxieties about Changes Resistant clients may or may not recognize that they have a problem, and/or may not want to engage in a process of change (Rooney, 1992) so that they will take resistance as an means to protect themselves from the unknown (Yalom Molyn, 2005). They might be resistant towards the therapeutic process because it involves changing their current maladaptive behavior (Chui Ho, 2006). An available method to ease clients ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ anxiety about change is to make them feel more sense of control. The less the clients can control the process and results of intervention, the more they will view social workers as the representatives of those who force them to participate in the intervention. Consequently, the degree of resistance may increase dramatically. Such situation requires social workers to discuss with clients about the reasons why they are recommended to have the counseling. If a client is compelled to accept counseling, the social worker may point it out to the client that he could reject the counseling and bear the consequences of such rejection, thus restore their sense of control. Furthermore, as cultivating new behaviors is much easier than changing old ones, it might be more reasonable and effective that social works try to train the clients to foster some new patterns of communication and behavioral habits, rather than amend their previous habits, thus establish a harmonious relationship with clients. Some more complex intervention, such as teaching clients relaxation skills, or assisting them in analyzing the irrational thoughts, may have immediate utilities to the involuntary clients. Discussion The relationship between the social worker and the client is always living no matter what happened in the process of intervention. One of the major responsibilities for social workers is paying enough attention to the quality and the health of rapport-building process. To some extent, clients ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ changes or improvements come from an appropriate and valid interaction within a harmonious relationship. As potential social workers, in addition to understanding of various theories or therapies which provide different approaches to resolve client resistance, we should also learn to  ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½determine how best to address that relational dynamic in counseling ¿Ã‚ ½Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ (Joshua, 2008).

Domestic Terrorism

Domestic Terrorism in the United States Thomas A. Salisbury HSM 305 Survey of Homeland Security and Emergency Management Professor Erick Stone January 22, 2012 Domestic Terrorism in the United States Domestic terrorism is a real threat to this country. This type of attack is nothing new to this country but until the threat of international terrorism became prominent, there was not a large focus on domestic terrorism. With a look at history, domestic terrorists are a greater threat to security than international terrorists. Some of these threats are easily preventable and others are more difficult to see coming.The Department of Homeland Security needs to focus on domestic terrorist threats with the same effort as they do for international threats. The official definition of terrorism according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation is â€Å"the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social goals†. (Smith, 1994 p6). This definition guides how the FBI takes defines possible terrorist organizations and takes action against them.Terrorists may be left or right wing, from any religious background or any race. This is what makes identifying these groups of people very difficult. While law enforcement would like to say that a typical terrorist is a young, affluent, white male, for example, it is impossible to make that distinction. There is no profile that would fit terrorists in their entirety. It is possible for a terrorist from a certain group to fit a certain profile. A white supremacist group would have a certain type of person as a member. A black militant group would have a totally different type of person.With this being the case, it is important to identify the group of people rather than the individual. Some groups focus on a single issue such as anti-nuclear power or anti-fur trade while others call for greater changes in politics or ideology. A single, lone terrorist or small cell is the most difficult to detect and stop. In the history of this country, there have been numerous cases of domestic terrorism. Most people were unfamiliar with domestic terrorism until the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995. This is because most cases of domestic terrorism do not involve such a large loss of life.In many cases, the loss was financial and casualties were low, if any at all. Animal-rights groups have targeted fur dealers by setting fires in vehicles and buildings to destroy these businesses. The Ku Klux Klan may have killed people but the tended to do so one at a time. This does not create as much of a media buzz as a bombing that kills dozens. By doing this, some of these groups may stay out of the spotlight but in reality, they are more deadly than a single bomber. When unions were forming early in the twentieth century, there were incidences of terrorism on both sides.Strikers were attacked and fac tories were sabotaged. Some of these incidents resulted in the loss of life and almost all involved financial losses. Sometimes, these conflicts are taking place today. Political change is the aim of some of these groups. Communist organizations wanted to make the United States a Marxist country. Organizations also united under a common cause such as in 1981 when the Weather Underground (WU), the Black Liberation Army (BLA) and the Black Panther party united to form the May 19th Communist Organization (M19CO). (Smith, 1994).This group robbed armored cars to fund operations that resulted in the deaths of security officers. A crime that is in the headlines may actually be a terrorist attack used to gain money. Law enforcement must investigate fully to find out why the crime took place. A look back in history may show that terrorists were active even during the Revolution. The Boston Tea Party was staged by colonists who were protesting taxes imposed by the English. (Les Benedict, 2006 ). This incident, along with others, like the burning of a revenue ship in Rhode Island, was done to effect a change in English policy towards the colonies.The English would have viewed these acts as terrorism by today’s standards. Terrorism has also taken place during the Atlanta Olympics and at an abortion clinic when Eric Rudolph planted bombs that killed and injured people. Only an alert security guard at the Olympics prevented a tragedy. A current threat of terrorism is through the use of gangs by international organizations. Al-Qaeda has been closely working with the gang Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13. MS-13 has many ways of passing security at the Mexican border and wants to make money.Al-Qaeda can use them to provide resources and people to use. (Starita, 2009). MS-13 also wishes to have an international presence and a cooperation would give them prestige. Gangs in general present a threat to homeland security and this gang is one of the largest. According to some sources , there are as many as 96,000 members and many sympathizers. (Starita, 2009). This presents a large threat with the potential of many operatives and resources in place already. As with other terrorist groups, these gangs can come together if there is a common cause that suits all of them.Responsibility for preventing terrorist incidents starts with the average citizen. Law enforcement agencies have many types of incidents to respond to and anti-terrorism is only one of them. If a person notices something suspicious such as a person buying many weapons and ammunition, looking for information on bomb-making and materials or becoming radical in their ideology, it would be extremely helpful to notify an agency for an investigation. Many times the first signs of an impending attack would be noticed by a civilian. This could be a friend, family member, coworker or a store clerk.A bystander may also notice an unattended package or suspicious person in an area. This may be just enough to wa rd off the attack if the police are notified promptly. A major difficulty facing law enforcement in the prevention of these incidents is working within the justice system of the United States. The police have to follow procedures and rule laid out in the Bill of Rights and subsequent laws. These laws restrict the rights of law enforcement and protect the rights of the citizens. The First Amendment gives the freedom of religion and speech and of the press.A person can go to a mosque or church that may be radical in their teachings. They may voice their radical opinions as long as it is not an outright threat. Even printed materials about their views are legal. According to the Second Amendment, a person can buy arms and ammunition legally. In order for police to obtain a search warrant, probable cause must be present. (Les Benedict, 2006). Just because a person goes to a radical mosque, a search for bomb-making materials cannot be obtained without probable cause that the materials ar e there. A person cannot be persecuted based on loose suspicions.Therefore, a tip has to be followed up by an investigation to see if the person is doing something illegally. Only if reliable information is present can the police obtain the warrant and execute it. The warrant can be very specific on what can be searched instead of being broad. This may hamper the police from finding evidence as well. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, President George Bush, along with Congress, passed the USA-PATRIOT Act. The Act is an acronym for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. Del Carmen, 2009). While the act was passed as a reaction to an international terrorist incident, it applies to domestic terrorism as well. This act provided new rules for electronic surveillance such as wiretaps and using technology to gain evidence. These new rules relaxed the requirements for obtaining these types of surveillance. Access to personal information was gained by using fusion centers for intelligence on suspects. The use of these centers has been criticized as being a violation of civil rights by some people. (Del Carmen, 2009).Some provisions of the act have been declared invalid by some courts and the fight against the act will continue into the future. With the provisions of the act, law enforcement has broader authority in investigating individuals and organizations that are suspected of planning terrorist acts. This authority has to be used with good police work like investigations in order to prosecute the right people. Another difficulty law enforcement has is that the process of stopping domestic terrorists is not just intelligence work and conducting a military-style operation to eliminate the threat.Criminal procedure has to be followed. Evidence must be collected in order to prosecute the offenders at a later date. This means the rules of evidence must be followed to in clude chain of custody, proper collection techniques, and documentation. Care must be taken to protect evidence during operations and after the operation is conducted. Multiple agencies may be involved and coordination is necessary between those agencies. A simple incident of a white powder coming from an envelope in the mail involves many agencies. A Hazardous Materials Team would test the powder and most likely take evidence from the scene.Not only would local police be involved but possibly state police and definitely federal law enforcement such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and United States Postal Service Inspectors. Due to many state and federal laws being involved, there has to be coordination between these agencies as to who gets control of the evidence, suspects, and is the prosecuting agency. These difficulties have to be managed in order to prosecute properly. By prosecuting properly, this may deter future incidents. Without this determent, the terrorist may fee l that they can make future attacks without penalty.Response to an incident of domestic terrorism is a multifaceted operation. In most cases, many agencies will be involved. The type of incident that takes place and its location will determine what agencies become involved. All of these agencies have to be prepared to respond and also to cooperate with other agencies on the scene of the incident. Agencies not on the scene may also have a stake in the response and they have to be included as well. The National Incident Management System was created by a Homeland Security Presidential Directive in 2004 in order to provide for a national Incident Command System. Bullock, 2013). The ICS had been used by many agencies in the past but had not been used on a national scale. ICS was created to deal with California wildfires in the nineteen-seventies and was adopted by many fire departments to manage their incidents effectively. (Bullock, 2013). The system uses a single Incident Commander or Unified Command in a leadership position to manage the whole incident. The IC can call on other functions such as command, operations, logistics and finance as the management if the incident progresses. (Bullock, 2013). Use of this system is critical to a good response and recovery.The first agencies to respond will most likely be local fire and police departments. They are the agencies with the most resources close to the scene at the outset. The fire department and emergency medical services will primarily deal with life safety and mitigating hazards that are potentially life threatening. The local police will be the first to gather witnesses and evidence. It is important for these agencies to notify other agencies when the incident requires it. Arson may turn out to be a terrorist incident even though not readily apparent at the outset.A bombing will probably be more apparent. Recognizing an incident for what it is will help an agency bring in the appropriate resources quickly. Some other agencies that may need to be involved include the National Guard, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, FBI and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. If the incident involves radioactive material or biological hazards, the Department of Energy or the Center for Disease Control may be needed. Private companies may be needed for equipment or expertise. All of these entities have to be managed by an Incident Commander.Recognizing the hazards and the incident nature quickly is important. During the 1995 bombing of the Alfred Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, first responders noticed the crater left by the bomb and immediately consulted the FBI. (Cook, 2009). Originally the incident was thought to be a natural gas explosion. By recognizing the incident as terrorism, the proper agencies were then brought in to protect and handle evidence as well as provide some protection to the first responders. In the case of a mass casualty incident, a critical incident stress team may be needed as well.It is important for first responders to protect themselves during a terrorist incident. A secondary device may be present to kill or injure them in order to hamper rescue and recovery efforts. Eric Rudolph planted a secondary device during a bombing at an abortion clinic. This device was planted where the incident command center would be set up. (Ostrow, 1998). Rudolph has observed first responders during multiple false alarms and noticed where command was set up. All Hazards Response was a system that came about after the attacks of 9/11.The Nation Response Plan was created to facilitate an efficient response to a major incident. (Bullock, 2013). This framework helps agencies responding to an incident to integrate with other agencies and pool resources to mitigate the incident. Many agencies may be responding to an incident and a plan to handle the response was necessary. By using NIMS, ICS and the National Response Plan, agencies are coordinated the same way acr oss the country. No matter where the incident takes place, agencies can know what to expect for a system in place before their arrival on the scene.Exercises like Vigilant Guard take agencies such as the National Guard, first responders, state and federal agencies and put them together to practice a response to an incident. In order to become better at responding, these exercises must be held, and agencies willing to take part, to be successful. Domestic terrorism is a real threat to the country. The history of this country shows that this is nothing new and it can be expected to be a threat in the future. Proper planning and the use of exercises are needed to practice the coordination of various agencies.Intelligence and prosecution of offenders has to be a priority to prevent future attacks. The public has to be vigilant and notify the authorities of any suspicions. Prevention of domestic terrorism is a real threat and it is the responsibility of the whole country to prevent attac ks as well as respond properly to them. References: Bullock, J. , Haddow, G. , & Coppola, D. (2013). Introduction to homeland security: Principles of all-hazards risk management (4th Ed. ). Waltham, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann. Starita, Cynthia. (2009).Mounting Threat of Domestic Terrorism: Al-Qaeda and the Salvadoran Gang MS-13. El Paso, TX: LFB Publishing. Retrieved from http://site. ebrary. com/lib/ashford Cook, Alethia. (2009). Emergency Response to Domestic Terrorism: How Bureaucracies Reacted to the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing. New York, NY: Continuum International Publishing. Retrieved from http://site. ebrary. com/lib/ashford Cordesman, A. H. (2002). Terrorism, Asymmetric Warfare, and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Defending the U. S. Homeland. Praeger. From: http://web. ebscohost. com Smith, B. L. (1994).Terrorism in America: Pipe Bombs and Pipe Dreams. State University of New York Press. From: http://web. ebscohost. com Kamien, D. (2010). The McGraw-Hill Homeland Security Handb ook. (1st Ed. ). USA: McGraw-Hill Les Benedict, M. (2006). The Blessings of Liberty. Boston, MA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning Del Carmen, R. (2009). Criminal Procedures. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning Ostrow, R. (1998, October 15). Survivalist Charged in Olympic, Other Atlanta Blasts. Los Angeles Times. p 20. Retrieved from: http://search. proquest. com. proxy/library. ashford. edu/docview/421436549? accountid=32521

Mini Essay on the Effect of Belonging Between a Person and a Place

‘In each of the texts, perceptions of belonging involve connections between people and places. Compare the portrayal of the connections between people and places in Mankind Is No Island and Gran Torino. ‘ For people to have a real sense of belonging, they need to make connections with the place they live and the people around them. If either of these connections is missing, then individuals will suffer as a result. Two films that examine this idea are the 2008 Tropfest Winner ‘Mankind Is No Island’ and the motion picture ‘Gran Torino’ directed by East Clintwood.The Tropfest film ‘Mankind is no Island’ represents the challenges of belonging to a place by exploring the irony of the misconceptions that cities, being so grand, would also create a grand sense of belonging within the individuals that populate them. However, the film shows us that many people are faced with isolation, starvation and alienation. This is shown in a scene with the quote ‘do we measure empathy by donations’, after these 6 words, the camera focuses on a homeless man kneeling in the street.The camera angle is low when you see the man appearing to be begging for money. His head is positioned downwards at the bag in front of him, with no great deal of donations. This shot also shows people on the street walking past the man without so much as glancing in his direction, as though he does not exist. This is a visual representation that reinforces the title. It is as if the people drifting past him are depicted as the water and he himself the island. In ‘Gran Torino’, the neighbourhood in which Walt Kowalski lives is shown to be full of Hmong people.At the beginning of the movie, Walt is appearing to have a racist attitude towards his neighbours as he is always calling them ‘gooks’ or ‘zipper heads’. It is evident in the scene in which Tao’s cousin and his gang try to recruit Tao in his own front yard, that Walt does not like the Hmong people. Tao resists which causes a conflict that ends up moving over to Walt’s lawn. The scene is cut to Walt pointing a gun into the gangs’ faces whilst saying ‘get off my lawn’.One of the members of the gang says to Walt ‘are you crazy, go back in the house’ where Walt replies to this ‘how about I blow a hole in your face and then I go in the house and I sleep like a baby, you can count on that’. When Walt has a barbeque in his own backyard, inviting his new found friends over, we can clearly see the contrast in attitude that he has. He went from scowling and cursing at his Asian neighbours, to having a full grin and laughing with them while sharing a friendly gathering. In this scene, Walt feels as though he belongs with this family more than he does with his own.Tao’s family accepts him for who he is and doesn’t expect anything from him. Walt and the Hmong family are able to make jokes about each other that aren’t politically correct, but they are accepted for they trust and accept that it is how Walt is, because he comes from an age where making racial comments was less criticized. In conclusion, both ‘Mankind Is No Island’ and ‘Gran Torino’ show that connections with people and places are essential in creating a sense of belonging within oneself. When someone feels as though they truly belong to someone or something, they become much happier.

Business - Customer Service Unit 2 Task 1 - 2085 Words

Unit 2 Task 1 Costumer Service Introduction In this task I will be looking at costumer service and the affects it has on businesses. I will be looking into the Morrison’s organisation who is the UK’s fourth largest food retailer with over 400 stores. There business is mainly food and grocery where costumers go for their weekly shop. Every week nine million customers pass through their doors and 132,000 colleagues across the business work hard each day to deliver great service to them. Morrison’s started in 1889 by William Morrison who started from a stall in a Bradford market came to the inspiration to innovate and lead the way in supermarket retailing. http://www.morrisons.co.uk/corporate/About-us/Company-history/ Customer†¦show more content†¦If a business didn’t have any costumers to buy there products or services then the business just wouldn’t survive. So this is why they have to give good costumer service so they can keep getting repeat business from the costumers. http://www.t oolingu.com/definition-900160-11811-external-customer.html Why is customer service important? Customer service is important because if it wasn’t put in place in any of the business out there then this will affect the businesses profit margins as well as their business image. This is why businesses need to meet the wants and needs of all their costumers as they are the ones that make your business work. If costumers didn’t buy any products or services then the business wouldn’t work as they wouldn’t make any profit. Methods that can be used to improve customer service A business can improve on customer service by training their members of staff to give good quality costumer service but the employee would have to find out the needs and wants of their costumers. An example In Morrisons for improved costumer service would be they train new employees before they start work in there new job so they will do all the relevant training to give good costumer service to their costumers so they would teach the staff to help the costumers out and this training process takes between 8-10 hours. Another exampleShow MoreRelatedNando`S Marketing Mix958 Words   |  4 PagesQuestion 1 1.1 (1) The cost varience report is a listing of allowable expenses compared with the actual expenses incurred. (2) The actual unit cost is the cost of producing a single products or unit measure of output or service. The budget unit cost is a plan or forecast, of a single unit measure of output or service. The conclusion is that the cost of goods and services is more expensive. 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