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26 J. Soc. & Soc. Welfare 21 (1999)
The Willingness to Seek Help: Its Role in Social Workers' Professional Commitment

handle is hein.journals/jrlsasw26 and id is 231 raw text is: The Willingness to Seek Help: Its Role in Social Workers' Professional Commitment BEN-ZION COHEN University of Haifa School of Social Work Providing help to persons in need is the central theme of the social work profession. The three elements essential to this process are the person offering the assistance, the assistance itself, and the person receiving it. The focus here is on the person offering the help and to what degree that person is willing to request help when he or she needs it. Social workers differ with regard to their willingness to seek help, and this study employs a variety of research tools to explore the relevance of these differences to their commitment to the profession and to their professional advancement. The research, carried out in Israel with a sample of 180 professional social workers, found greater willingness to seek help to be directly associated with greater professional commitment and indirectly associated with enhanced upward career mobility. INTRODUCTION An opinion often expressed by members of the helping pro- fessions holds that persons who have themselves experienced the need for help, and undergone the process of requesting and receiving (or not receiving) it, are likely to be better helpers. Having stood on that other end of the helping relationship, they have had the opportunity to develop a greater capacity for sensi- tivity and empathy towards their clients. During the initial phase of professional contact, this enhanced sensitivity can exercise a decisive influence on the relationship. The social work literature has most often concerned itself with ways of giving assistance, devoting little attention to the prereq- uisites for seeking it. Historically, the group within the profession Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, June, 1999, Volume XXVI, Number 2

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