DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN THE APPLIED SOCIAL SCIENCES

Definition of Social Sciences

•Social Science is a field of knowledge which aims in predicting and explaining human
behavior.

•Social sciences are disciplines concerned with the systematic study of social phenomena.

•Basically, the term ‘social sciences’ is defined as the study of human society; that
particular area of study that relates to human behavior and society in a broader sense, it is a
branch of science that deals with the institutions, the functioning of human society, and with
the interpersonal relationships of individuals as members of society.

•Social Sciences explore the historical, cultural, sociological, psychological, and the political
forces that shape the actions of individuals and their impact on society.

•Humanities seeks to understand human reactions to events and the meanings impose on
experience as a function of culture, historical era and Life History.

•Natural Sciences aims to predict natural phenomena and its studies are based on
experimentally controlled existence.

•The disciplines of social science taken together provide a substantive insight to the
understanding of society and of the relationship of individual members and groups within
the society.

•The disciplines also study all areas related to human behavior and society, the institutions
and functioning of human society, and the interpersonal relationships of individuals as
members of society as well as dealing with a particular phase or aspect of human society.

Definition of Applied Science

•Consequently, applied science is a vast field that draws from various social ideas and
viewpoints and combines theory and practice from several social disciplines to highlight the
complexity of social issues.

•The goal of applied social sciences is to better understand people and society, including the
various concerns and problems it faces, by the use and application of various concepts,
theoretical models, and theories from pure social sciences.

•Applied social scientists can apply their education in many professional contexts and make
use of various theories to analyze and address social issues.

•History, psychology political science, démography, and other fields of social science were
perceived as being extremely segmented or split in the late 1990s, which led to the
beginning of applied social sciences. These disciplines, according to academics, ought to
collaborate to address societal issues.

•The applied social sciences have focused on this collaborative approach or merging the
various disciplines to address various societal problems. The idea that it is preferable for
these various social scientific domains to work together in order to produce more beneficial
and convincing insights on societal concerns under one applied science umbrella has been
advanced by this viewpoint.

•Applied social science has a less fixed emphasis and encourages perspectives from
specialties in other fields. It’s crucial to realize that applied social science is not a synthesis
of many specialized social science fields. It transcends the boundaries of individual,
specialized social science and discovers its true nature via active participation in the
functioning of a broader community.

•This is praxis. The three applied social sciences of counseling, social work, and
communication are highlighted in this worktext to show how ideas and concepts from other
disciplines can be applied to one profession.

Relationship between Social Sciences and Applied Social Sciences

•As discussed above, social sciences are more specific and focused on a distinct facet of a
social phenomenon while applied social science attempts to focus on a distinct issue but use
insights arising from various social science disciplines.

•While social science may explore broadly their distinct disciplines, some of their input may
easily become applied while others may remain theoretical. When social science theories,
concepts, methods, and findings gain application to problems identified in the wider society,
then applied social science is achieved.

Functions and Effects of Applied Social Sciences

•They generate knowledge in an organic way for evidence-based actions and solutions to
social problems and issues. They provide learning feedback by simultaneously engaging
experts and the stakeholders that form a social world.

•They cause social sciences to do things rather than just remain a source of factual
knowledge with little or no utility at all.

•They generate practical solutions to complex social problems.

The provision of knowledge by social science becomes moral basis for applied science to
address the issues or problems of society.

Three main career tracks for applied social scientist:

Counseling – is one of the fields of applied social sciences as an application of the social
sciences, counseling provides guidance, help, and support to individuals who are distraught
by a diverse set of problems in their lives. In this discipline you can learn about how
important it is to listen to some problems of other people and provide guidance to them to
help them solve their own problems.

Social work – practitioner help individuals, families, and groups, communities to improve
their individual and collective well-being.
Communication Studies – Communication Studies provide adequate training for careers in
the field of journalism and mass communication. If it happened you see news in TV those
people who work to provide us information through any media or means fall in this
discipline. Good communication skills are also important in counseling as well as in social
work.

DISCIPLINES OF COUNSELING

•the process of guiding the person during a stage of life when reassessment or decisions
have to be made about himself or herself and his or her life course.

•Counseling Nystu (2003) define counseling basically an art and science wherein you
endeavor to weigh the objective and subjective facets of the counseling process.

•Counselling profession is a helping relationship. A process in which the counselor assists

the counselee to cope with his/her emotions and feelings and to help him/her makes positive
choices and decisions. It is a learning- oriented process, which occurs usually in an
interactive relationship, with the aim of helping a person learn more about the self, and to
use such understanding to enable the person to become an effective

•Counselling is a process by means of which the helper expresses care and concern towards
the person with a problem, and facilitates that person’s personal growth and brings about
change through self-knowledge.

Counseling Goals for Counselors

Insight

•Understanding the origins and development of emotional difficulties, leading to an

increased capacity to take rational control over feelings and actions

Relating with others

•Becoming better able to form and maintain meaningful and satisfying relationships with
other people: example within the family or workplace.

Self- awareness

•Becoming more aware of thoughts and feelings that had been blocked off or denied or
developing a more accurate sense of how self is perceived by others.

Self- Acceptance

•The development of a positive attitude toward self, marked by an ability to acknowledge

areas of experience that had been the subject of self-criticism and rejection.

Problem solving

•Finding a solution to a specific problem that the client had not been enabling to serve
alone. Acquiring a general competence in problem- solving.

Psychological Education
•Enabling the client to acquire ideas and techniques with which to understand and control
behavior.

Acquisition of Social Skills

•Learning and mastering a social and interpersonal skills such as maintenance of eye
contact, turn-taking in conversations, assertiveness or anger control.

Cognitive Change

•The modification or replacement of irrational beliefs or maladaptive thought patterns

associated with self-destructive patterns of behavior.

Behavior Change

•The modification or replacement of maladaptive or self- destructive patterns of behavior.

Systematic Change

•Introducing change into the way in that social systems operate

Empowerment

•Working on skills, awareness, and knowledge that will enable the client to take control of
his or her own life.

Restitution

•Helping the client to make amends for previous destructive behavior.

Generativity

•Inspiring in the person a desire and capacity to care for others and pass on knowledge and
to contribute to the collective good through political engagement and community work.

TYPES OF COUNSELING

INDIVIDUAL COUNSELING

•Individual counseling is a personal opportunity to receive support and experience growth

during challenging times in life. Individual counseling can help one deal with many personal
topics in life such as

•Adolescent identity, concerns, teen-parent relationships, peer relationships

•Anxiety

•Anger management Children’s concerns within the family unit, sibling relationships, school
experiences, peer

•Depression

•Family of origin dynamics and issues

•Gender: identity, sexuality, homosexuality

•Grief and bereavement

•Relationships: personal and interpersonal dynamics

•Sexual abuse recovery

•Seniors: challenges, limitations, transitions

•Singles: single, newly single, single through divorce or being widowed

•Spirituality

Stress management

•Workplace stress and relationships

COUPLES COUNSELING

•Every couple experiences ups and downs in their levels of closeness and harmony over
time. This can range from basic concerns of stagnation to serious expressions of aggressive
behavior. Marriage counseling or couples counseling can help resolve conflicts and heal
wounds. Overall, couples counseling can help couples slow down their spiral and reestablish
realistic expectations and goals.

• Marital and Pre- marital Counseling

• Marital and relational dynamics

• Extended family relationships

• Fertility issues

FAMILY COUNSELING

•Family counseling is often sought due to a life change or stress negatively affecting one or
all areas of family closeness, family structure (rules and roles) or communication style. This
mode of counseling can take a variety of forms. Sometimes it is best to see an entire family
together for several sessions. Common issues addressed in family counseling are concerns
around parenting, sibling conflict, and loss of family members, new members entering the
family, dealing with a major move or a general change affecting the family system.

•Adolescent and child behaviors within family dynamics

•Adult children

•Divorce and separation issues and adjustment

•Family dynamics.

Estrangement, conflict, communication

Family of origin / extended family issues

Life stages and transitions

•Parenting patterns:

Blended, single, co-parenting families

Remarriage relationship counseling

GROUP COUNSELING

•Group counseling allows one to find out that they are not alone in their type of life
challenge. To be involved in a group of peers who are in a similar place not only increases
one understands of the struggles around the topic but also the variety in the possible
solutions available. Typically, groups have up to eight participants, one or two group leaders,
and revolve around a common topic like: anger management, self-esteem, divorce, and
domestic violence, recovery from abuse and trauma, and substance abuse and recovery

Principles of Counseling

Advice

•Counseling may involve advice- giving as one of the several functions that counselors
perform.

Reassurance

•Reassurance is a valuable principle because it can bring about a sense of relief that may
empower a client to function normally again.

Release of emotional tension

•Counseling provides clients the opportunity to get emotional release from their pent-up
frustrations and other personal issues.

Clarified thinking

•Clarified thinking tends to take place while the counselor and counselee are talking and
therefore becomes a logical emotional release. Clarified thinking encourages a client to
accept responsibility for problems and to be more realistic in solving them.

Reorientation

•Reorientation involves a change in the client’s emotional self through a change in basic
goals and aspirations. The counselor’s job is to recognize those in need of reorientation and
facilitate appropriate interventions.

Listening skills

•Counselors do not make interpretations of the client’s problems or offer any premature
suggestions as to how to deal with them, or solve the issues presented. Good listening helps
counselors to understand the concerns being presented

Respect

•In all circumstances, clients must be treated with respect, no matter how peculiar, strange,
disturbed, weird, or utterly different from the counselor.

Empathy and positive regard

•Empathy requires the counselor to listen and understand the feelings and perspective of
the client and positive regard is an aspect of respect. For Rogers, clients have to be given
both “unconditional positive regard” and be treated with respect

Clarification, confrontation, and interpretation

•Clarification is an attempt by the counselor to restate what the client is either saying or
feeling, so the client may learn something or understand the issue better. Confrontation and
interpretation are other more advanced principles used by counselors in their interventions.

Transference and counter- transference

•When clients are helped to understand transference reactions, they are empowered to gain
understanding of important aspects of their emotional life. Countertransference helps both
clients and counselors to understand the emotional and perceptional reactions and how to
effectively manage them.

••Lesyeuxdeluna:)••