History & Growth of Psychiatric Social

Work as a Profession in India/UK/USA

Prof. Chittaranjan Subudhi
Department of Social Work
Central University of Tamil Nadu
Thiruvarur -610 005
Outline
▪ Historical development of psychiatric social work as a profession
▪ Historical development of PSW in USA
▪ Historical Development of PSW in UK
▪ Historical development of PSW in India

7/8/2023 2
Historical development of psychiatric social work as a profession

Early World War II

Development World War I

Contribution of Social Child Guidance Clinics &

Psychiatry and Social Casework Services

National Committee for Mental American Association of

Hygiene Psychiatric Social Workers

7/8/2023 3
 Early Development

▪ In 1874, at a meeting of the National Conference of Social Work, a paper was

read titled “The Duty of the States toward Their Insane Poor.”
Terminology Events
Social Service Worker • To collect the details of the family backgrounds
• Engaged in different psychiatric hospitals, clinics, and communities like
Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, and New York.
• Act as an intermediary between the patients, their family members, and doctors
After Care Agents • 1905, the Neurological Clinic of Massachusetts general hospital appointed a
social worker to the hospital & 1906 the New York Charities Aid Association
• to supervise the discharged patient with mental illness.
Friendly Supervision • 1880, the Society for the After Care of the Insane was established in England.
Members gave ‘friendly supervision’ to patients discharged from mental
hospitals
Hospital Social Work • In 1905, Massachusetts General Hospital established its Social Service
Department, initiating the new specialization of hospital social work

7/8/2023 4
World War I

▪ During this period, social workers came in close contact with the individual’s
psychiatric illness and started work with them (French, 1940).
▪ In government hospitals: the first trained psychiatric social worker (Mrs.
Marguerita R. Stowe began her work September 1, 1918, at the United States
Army General Hospital No. 30) was appointed.
▪ Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Massachusetts, started a
special training program with the National Committee for Mental Hygiene
venture.
▪ An eight-month experimental training school for psychiatric social work was
started under the direction of Dr. Southard and Miss Mary C. Jarrett. This
begins a professional psychiatric social work training program (Stroup, 1948;
Swift, 1934).
7/8/2023 5
World War I

▪ Miss Jarrett herself, in 1920, engaged in developing the second year of the
Smith College training program for psychiatric social workers.
▪ During 1918-1919, the training program was made a permanent one, and the
course length had increased to fourteen months, with nine months of full-time
fieldwork preceded and followed by a summer session at the college.
▪ Training for psychiatric social work was discussed at the National Conference
of Social Work held at Atlantic City in the spring of 1919.
▪ In the same year (1918), the New York School of Social Work introduced a new
course, i.e., mental hygiene, with papers on social psychiatry and psychological
measurement (Lee & Kenworthy, 1929).

7/8/2023 6
Contribution of social psychiatry and social casework
▪ The illness’s etiology does not always depend solely on biological or genetic factors;
most of the time, it is the consequences of social factors.
▪ Social psychiatry as an “art now in the course of development by which the
psychiatrist deals with social problems. Social psychiatry is a branch of psychiatry and
a special kind of medical art”.
▪ in 1917, the first comprehensive presentation of the practice of social casework book
titled ‘Social Diagnosis’ was published by Mary E. Richmond. She emphasized the
client’s personality, his relationship with others, and the need to understand the
motives behind the behavior and record the facts of that behavior. In her next book,
‘What is social case work?’ she clearly describes the importance of psychological
factors on the social maladjustment of the human being
▪ Book The Kingdom of Evils (1922). This book used the term ‘psychiatric social work’
for the first time (Verma, 1991). The book spelled out the scope and importance of
social work for the patient with mental illness (by Southard and Jarrett).

7/8/2023 7
World War II
▪ Recognition in 1943 of the personal category S.S.N 263 by the armed forces,
creating military psychiatric social workers and the establishment in 1945 of
the classification of M.O.S. 3605, giving officer status those the qualified
military psychiatric social work.
▪ Federal funds were available for instituting training programs for psychiatric
social workers.
▪ Gradually, social workers started being employed in psychiatric hospitals and
clinics.
▪ The social worker’s role has changed from history collection to diagnosis
formulation.
▪ In addition, slowly, they began to provide psychotherapy under the medico-
legal sanction of psychiatrists.

7/8/2023 8
Child Guidance Clinic & Services

▪ The C.G.C. was the fieldwork training center for students in psychiatric social
work from the New York School of Social Work.

▪ The C.G.C. gave more opportunities to the students for practical knowledge,
experience, and demonstration in pedagogical problems of field supervision
(Swift, 1934; Lee & Kenworthy, 1929).

▪ Psychiatric social workers play an increasingly important role in dealing with

both child and their parents, including their environmental modification so-
called “changing of the environment.”

7/8/2023 9
American association of psychiatric social workers (AAPSW)
▪ The American Association of Hospital Social Workers (AAHSW) was formed
on May 20, 1918 (in 1934 it became the American Association of Medical
Social Workers, a name it retained until its merger, in 1955 to become the
National Association of Social Workers).
▪ July (1920), Psychiatric Social Workers Club was organized, with seventeen
charter members, to “promote association among psychiatric social workers
and maintain standards of psychiatric social work.” In 1922, a section on
Psychiatric Social Work was formed under AAHSW.
▪ May 26, 1926, and a new independent organization, the American Association
of Psychiatric Social Workers came into being as a separate organization.
▪ Mrs. Maida H. Solomon of Boston was president, and Kathleen Ormsby,
National Committee for Mental Hygiene, New York, was secretary and
treasurer (American Journal of Nursing, 1926).

7/8/2023 10
Members in AAPSW

7/8/2023 11
At a Glance
Year Major Milestone
1874 In the National Conference of Social Work, a paper was read titled ‘The Duty of the States toward Their Insane Poor.’

1905 The first time a social worker was employed in the Neurological Clinic of Massachusetts General Hospital

1905 Massachusetts General Hospital, Bellevue Hospital, and Cornell Clinic in New York City established its Social Service Department, initiating the
new specialization of hospital social work
1907 Psychiatric social work began in the United States in 1907 when Massachusetts General Hospital initiated social work services in its neurological
clinic
1907 Massachusetts General Hospital assigned a social worker, Edith Burleigh, to the neurological clinic.

1913 The first social worker was appointed in the New York State hospitals
1913 Boston Psychopathic Hospital established a full fledge department called the ‘social service department’ under the leadership of Dr. Southard
and Miss Mary C. Jarrett.
1917 Social casework book titled ‘Social Diagnosis’ has been published by Mary E. Richmond.

1918 Mental hygiene courses were included in the New York School of social work curriculum.

1918 A training course for psychiatric social workers was introduced at Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts.

1924 The term ‘Psychiatric Social Work’ was used for the first time in the book The Kingdom of Evils (1924)

1922 The American Association of Psychiatric Social Workers (AAPSW) came into existence

1944 The University of Edinburgh established a certificate course in Psychiatric Social Work

1946 Specialist training for PSWs was later established at Manchester University
1954 Started training program in PSW at Liverpool University
 Historical Development of PSW
in India

7/8/2023 13
Historical development of PSW in India

▪ Like the social work profession, the model of psychiatric social work is also
borrowed from the West.
▪ Gauri Rani Banerjee (1961) has mentioned that psychiatric social work is also a
method of social work like other methods of casework, group work, and
community organization.
▪ She was the pioneer of establishing and promoting PSW in India.

▪ She mentioned that psychiatric social work is also a method of social work like
other methods of casework, group work, and community organization.

7/8/2023 14
Child guidance clinic (C.G.C.) and psychiatric social worker
▪ In India, Dr. Uttam Singh Ghaba, a private psychiatric practitioner, set up the first
Child Guidance Clinic (C.G.C.) in 1935 in New Delhi.
▪ Dr. Ghaba also introduced special classes for children with mental retardation and
training classes for health professionals. In the later part, the C.G.C. worked in close
collaboration with the Children’s Aids Society, New Delhi (Verma, 1991).
▪ The comprehensive picture of C.G.C. came into existence in 1937. Dr. K. R. Masani,
an eminent psychiatrist and a teaching faculty of TISS, set up a C.G.C. in Bombay.
▪ The main objective of establishing this C.G.C. was to “provide training facilities to
postgraduate social work students.”
▪ In 1939, the Tuberculosis Association sent a group of its volunteers for training to
TISS, which is marked as the beginning of medical social work in India (Verma,
1991).

7/8/2023 15
C.G.C. at TISS

▪ The main objective of establishing this C.G.C. was to “provide training

facilities to postgraduate social work students.”
▪ The functions of social workers were relatively clearly identifiable, and there
was a slight expansion in the field of psychiatric social work.
▪ In 1939, the Tuberculosis Association sent a group of its volunteers for training
to TISS, which is marked as the beginning of medical social work in India
(Verma, 1991).

7/8/2023 16
Recognition of psychiatric social workers in hospital settings

▪ Yervada mental hospital in Pune in 1949 was the first milestone of developing
psychiatric social work in India.
▪ Malati Ranade (a Marathi-speaking candidate) joined Yervada mental hospital
as the first social worker employed in the field of adult psychiatry in a mental
hospital.
▪ J. J. employed a social worker in the psychiatric department in 1950.
▪ A specialized course in psychiatric social work was introduced in 1952 to equip
the social worker in psychiatry. This course was combined with medical social
work, known as ‘medical and psychiatric social work.’ by Dr. Banerjee.
▪ Bhore Committee report (1946) recommended the appointment of medical
social workers and psychiatric social work in the hospital.

7/8/2023 17
Academic Courses
▪ A diploma in Psychiatric Social Work was initiated at the NIMHANS in 1968, which
was later 1978 upgraded to an MPhil in Psychiatric Social Work. Subsequently, Ph.D.
in Psychiatric Social Work was also introduced.
▪ In 1970, the C.I.P. Ranchi started Diploma in Psychiatric Social Work, and in 1985 the
course was upgraded to MPhil.
▪ B. M. Institute of Mental Health, Ahmedabad, also started the Diploma in Psychiatric
Social Work in 1970.
▪ In 2000, the Ranchi Institute of Neuro-Psychiatry and Sciences also started MPhil and
Ph.D. courses in psychiatric social work. The University of Kerala started a psychiatric
social work specialization in Kerala in 1975.
▪ To fill the literature gap in psychiatric social work, Dr. Ratna Verma (1991) researched
and published a book Psychiatric Social Work in India (by SAGE publication)

7/8/2023 18
 Any queries/suggestions

Please ask…….

Or

text me

@ [email protected] /
+ 91- 9658639979

7/8/2023 19