social work and creativity

truly, social work and creativity are not enemies. as a profession, social work often employs ingenuity and creativity in order to meet increasing needs in a society with dwindling resources (cause all those rich guys need to have bigger bank accounts). it's a very left brained creativity though. atleast, i cant really think of a better way to describe it. i have heard writing called a left brain act as well, and all i can think is that the more cerebral, the more left brained, the more artsy, the more right brained. i don't adhere to this opinion, but it is something i have definitly heard, and i think it can provide a vocabulary for my post.

i bring this up because at work today, for all my ingenuity and creativity (and there sure is plenty), i found myself becoming slightly frustrated in response to my inability to meet a clients need. ..ok, a little frustrated is an underwhelming description of my little series of cloud bursts. my right brained creativity is highly tuned into the world right now though, and if pretty words could provide me a case manager, psychiatrist, medicaid number and clozaril, i could have won the nobel prize for creativity...is there one, by the way? but alas, that is the wrong kind of creativity for this profession, atleast in my role as inpatient psychiatric social worker.

i wonder if there is something about working with people, and in some instances their lives, that leads to my inability to think at work. i mentioned perfectionism in my muse post, and i know this is playing a part in experiences such as what happened today, and it is not helping. but think about it, sometimes, a person's actual and literal life is in my care. there is nothing between us in those moments. i have to be present, and aware, and real... not the easiest things for me to be.

working with poems, there is paper between me and a person, flowery verbosity, tricks of a trade.



song of the day: yes i will-michael frenti