INTEGRATING CONCEPTS

Integrating Concepts

Integrating Concepts

Introduction

Relational Cultural Theory has paved a way for understanding the reason behind a person's behavior and the way his personality has been formed. It investigates the impact of relations on the way the person acts and behaves. This theory is a very important theory as it incorporates all the reasons behind the framing of person and his personality. There are theories that have helped in building a better nation and have paved way for social work. The theories that help social work in doing a good job and in making people feel better are discussed in this paper (Miller, 1987). This paper will discuss two important theories of people in this regard. It will then integrate the concept of the Relational Cultural Theory in the theories and will then explain how these two approached helps in understanding the meaning of the relationship with clients while doing social work.

Discussion

The theories which led to the formulation of the relational cultural theory were the concepts of Somaly Mam and Paulo Freire. These two people are known as the pioneers of the theories that are related to humanity. They made sure that people do not suffer in this world and do not become a victim of any cruel act. The two theories and their relation to the relational cultural theory and application in the social work are discussed below:

Somaly Mam

Somaly Mam is a human rights advocate. She is a Cambodian author and her main focus are the victims of sex trafficking. Somaly Mam was born in Cambodia to a very poor family. The record of her parents is unknown and Mam does not remember her correct year of birth. Somaly Mam, herself was a victim of sex trafficking, but somehow managed to escape and today works for the anti-sexual trafficking groups (Mam, 2009).

Somaly Mam was abused by her grandfather and was sold when she was 14. She was forced into prostitution and men raped her day and night. She had 4 or 5 clients per day and when she refused to have sex with them, she was left with snakes and scorpions as punishment. When she could handle this sex slavery no more, she successfully fled away and went to Paris. She got married there and to her surprise found that there are many other women who are involved in sex slavery. From there onwards started her movement against sex trafficking. Now she has founded a Somaly Mam Foundation where she helps victims of sex trafficking.

Relationship and Alliances with Clients

Somaly Mam's works has helped us in understating the relational cultural theory in more detail. It tells us that how the past experiences frame a person's personality and how it influences the behavior of people. Relational Cultural Theory tells us about how the relationship with clients should be. This is more evident from the theory of Somaly Mam. She has founded a not-for-profit organization for helping people who have been victims of sex trafficking and have been used as sex slaves (Kara, ...