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This file from Adra, http://www.mhada.info.
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A few years ago I listened to a planner talking about who he would want on a team preparing a settlement in space. "I'd want a psychiatrist," he said. "That would take care of the psychological health issues in space." He said more, but I was already thinking about the serious error I heard in those words.
Choosing a psychiatrist to support people dealing with personal and cultural issues of life in space, is like assigning a military general with a strong academic record in military history to manage an active combat front. His education and training make him the wrong kind of worker for the task in hand. For settlements and life in space, the issues are typically human: broad, complex, and difficult. Multi-dimensional. The usual "professional" worker, trained to a deep but narrow focus in his work, isn't appropriate here. Professionals of another kind are needed here.
Needed here are a small team of social workers who are interested in human life issues in space. Recent grads for their freshness and their lively knowledge of the field; older workers, late in their careers, for their wisdom.
Social workers are not very popular in American society. Whoever experiences instant complete certainty they aren't needed in space, probably doesn't know what social workers do, why and how they do it, nor anything of the field's large knowledge base. A few hours of time spent reading in the 'Encyclopedia of Social Work' from the NASW could provide needed background. (The 20th edition appeared this Spring.) And the bimonthly 'Psychotherapy Networker' usefully complements the Encyclopedia.
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