Rev. Dr. Steve Nolan on the roles we take on

Am I a Male Social Worker?

There was a message on my voicemail: "Daniel in room 8 has asked to see a male social worker, and we all agreed that you should see him. Can you try and see him today?"

The hospice has a strong social work department. There are several full-time staff members with extensive experience. They offer general social work support and specialist bereavement care and counsel. But with all of this experience not one had what I had to offer, because not one of them is male!

So, as I went to see Daniel, I wondered how I might introduce myself. I settled on something like, ‘The social work department said you’d like me to call.’ He invited me in. Daniel had been expecting me. He began to speak, hesitantly, but directly; I began to wonder who I was and who I was with him. In a professional world dominated by female colleagues, it’s reassuring (to me at least) that there are still times when only a man will do!

As far as I knew, I wasn’t exactly what I thought he thought I was. He’d asked for a male social worker. I might, by accident of birth, be male, but by choice I’m no social worker. I choose to be a chaplain, but that was not the choice Daniel had made. Was I being dishonest with him? Or – which might be worse – was I being professionally unethical? Would he send me away if he knew I was a chaplain in social work clothing? But if it wasn’t me, who would be there?

Daniel continued to speak to me. He voiced anxieties he had not shared with his family: about his gnawing sense that treatment wasn’t working; about the advisability of continuing with treatment; about his deepening realisation that, as a young man, he was facing his premature end.

As he spoke, my own realisations deepened about my unease at the basis of our relationship: who was I with this young man? Who should I be? Whoever I was, I seemed now to be his counsellor, and I wondered if his request for a male social worker had been a coded request for a male counsellor?

I fantasized about how I might be if I were a male social worker. I would use people skills developed over years of practise to enable Daniel to say what he felt he needed to say, but had so far been unable to say. I would have accepted him where he was, as he was, and I would have listened, actively and empathically.

I fantasized about how I might be if I were a male counsellor. I would use people skills developed over years of practise to enable Daniel to say what he felt he needed to say, but had so far been unable to say. I would have accepted him where he was, as he was, and I would have listened, actively and empathically.

And I fantasized about how he might be if he knew I was a male chaplain. He might not have wanted my people skills developed over years of practise, which might enable him to say what he felt he needed to say, but had so far been unable to say. He might have thought I would not have accepted him where he was, as he was, and that I would not so much have listened, actively and empathically, as spoken about … well, who knows what it is that chaplains are supposed speak about.

As my realisations deepened that I was uncomfortable not knowing who I was, and as I fantasized about who and how I might be, something about this young man drew me into his world in a way I had not expected or experienced before. He told me that he felt the drugs weren’t working. Without saying it, he knew he was dying. Something touched me with the presence of the dying he was living.

Daniel was awakening to the realisation that there was only one way through his situation. His awakening to his truth awoke something in me to the truth of who I was with him in the moments we had together.

I wasn’t a male social worker – how could I be? But nor was I a male chaplain – although I was both. Least of all was I a male counsellor. I was one of two scared people alone in a room. I’d gone in scared that I might not be what Daniel needed or wanted; scared that he might see through me and send me away. But while I was with him, I began to touch some of his scared-ness. The longer we were together the more he allowed me to feel his scared-ness with him. Towards the end of our brief time Daniel even let me hold a little of it, and for a fragile breath I became mindfully present to the intensity of a life lived towards death, and the overwhelming sadnesses of its premature losses.

It wore me out.

After I left I learned that Daniel had known all along that I was a chaplain, and actually he didn’t care.

Do you have thoughts about professional practice you’d like to share with your colleagues? Send an e-mail info@PlainViews.org.