A comparison of family-of-origin perception of undergraduates: Social work students and students in other fields

Abstract

• Summary: In order to better understand the principal influences that cause social work professionals to choose their profession, an empirical research using the circumplex model for family evaluation was conducted, measuring perceived aspects of cohesion and change in the families-of-origin of social work students versus students from other disciplines. A total of 306 undergraduate students from social work, education, biotechnology, computer science, and economics participated. Students filled in questionnaires measuring their perception of families-of-origin, and their influential figure in choosing their profession. • Findings: Social work students were found to perceive significantly more extreme views of their families-of-origin, compared to students from other disciplines, while the latter scored higher in the category of ‘balanced family’. Finally, students of therapeutic disciplines, both males and females, rated a stronger influence of their mothers on their choice of profession, compared to students from non-therapeutic professions. • Applications: The findings indicate that students who train for therapeutic professions have presumably experienced more hardships in their families-of-origin compared to students who choose non-therapeutic studies. On the one hand, this may equip them with higher helping skills; on the other hand, being raised in a troubled family may render the future therapist more vulnerable to potential pitfalls in the helping relationship or impair the therapeutic process. Social work training institutions should therefore pay attention to their students’ perception of families-of-origin and allow for a conscious and structured processing of past experiences during the years of training.