Self-Empowerment

Abstract

It could be argued that before empowering other people, workers need to become empowered themselves. Whether or not empowerment-in-practice begins with the self, there is certainly a place for considering one’s own thoughts, feelings and situation in any work with other people. Importantly though, this does not imply a psychologised, rather than a social, vision of empowerment-in-practice. Adequately theorised, empowerment-in-practice must be realised in all domains self, individual, group, organisation and community. Also, self-empowerment, and hence this chapter, applies equally to workers and service users. So, the purpose of this chapter is not to suggest that self-empowerment is the key to all other aspects, but to argue that the person who feels and is empowered, is more likely to have the motivation and capacity to empower other people, and to be empowered by them. Also, it is important to emphasise that a re-vision of empowerment is required, which recognises its impact on the self, before engaging with service users and other people’s movement towards their own self-realisation. This chapter considers how to achieve this goal.