The Power of Language

Abstract

Abstract Clinicians across healthcare settings make word choices that have attributed meaning and unintended consequences. We often respond with silence, reluctant to question or explore for want of time, for want of a way to respond respectfully, or for fear of wandering further into lands of uncertainty or suffering. Language, the words we choose and the words we hear, as well as the silence we observe, is an essential and basic instrument for social work. How we speak about our work informs the shared experience across disciplines, cultures, and hierarchy. This chapter is intended to raise consciousness, to consider judgments and biases often expressed by our words, and to highlight the unintended consequences of written and spoken words.