Mastery through exposure: From the MSW to the DSW, an intellectual journey by: Danna Bodenheimer, MSW, DSW

When I finished my MSW at Smith College it was with the clear knowledge that my education had just begun. I was thrilled by the exposure to clinical theory and felt like I was only in the embryonic stages of linking this theory with practice, with case conceptualization and with the profound values of social work. I would leave many sessions with clients, as a new graduate, feeling excited that something was working but wasn’t exactly clear on what. I needed language around my interventions, a space dedicated specifically to the task of intellectual integration.

There are multiple opportunities available for social workers to deepen their education. There is the possibility of post-graduate training, certificate programs, analytic institutes or group supervision that is led by a seasoned clinician. While I was open to all of these possibilities, they required a type of specific theoretical identification that felt narrowing to me. I wasn’t ready to go in the clear direction of Gestalt training or object relations work. In fact, making a clearly directional choice rang hollow to me, as if it would solidify a false sense of self. In the face of new professionalism, for me, insecurity could clearly be morphed into a performative confidence that would like have stunted my growth. I didn’t want that. I wanted to be open about where I was, excited about a lot of theories, still unsure of what was most clearly me.

It is really only in an academic setting that the central commitment is to honor this type of openness, to continue to expose possibilities rather than narrowing in on one way of being. Because of that, I knew that my post-graduate education would remain academic in nature. Simply put, my phase of inquiry was not over. Almost simultaneous to this personal awareness, the brochure for the newly developed DSW arrived in my mailbox. In some ways I thought it was a joke. It was literally exactly what I was looking for in a city that gives significant meaning to the practice of social work. I went to the first open house and it immediately became clear to me that I was in a room of people that I was meant to meet. That is a rare feeling and not one that I imagine comes along often. The clear symbiosis between my intellectual needs and the construction of the DSW program was astonishing.

I quickly found myself as the young applicant running to her mailbox every day to find a letter of acceptance or rejection. Interestingly, though, my answer didn’t come in the mail. Instead, I received a welcome phone call from Mary Mazzola, an Associate Dean. I remark on this because it was a harbinger of my DSW experience. What may have typically arrived in the form of an impersonal communication was replaced by warmth, connection and humanity. This warmth and connection followed me from my acceptance to my graduation. And in the middle it was all theory, presented by true experts. Not only was I exposed to the best in the field, I was exposed to a way of internalizing social work knowledge that seemed to define the overall functioning of many of my professors. They weren’t just people practicing social work, instead I was met with professors whose identities were infused by their dedication to social work ethics. To be in the presence of these leaders is to be transformed as a professional and as a person. What had felt embryonic to me as an MSW became strongly developed, confident, nuanced. I started to experience a sense of texture in relation to my social work knowledge, able to hold multiple competing ideas at any one time. This new holding, became available to me as a practitioner, a writer and a professor. My time in the DSW program exposed me to multiple teaching opportunities that gave me a true sense of how the field and the classroom should interact with one another. This is a sense that I practice and teach with every day now. This is a sense that was instilled by relationship, by exposure to true mastery and was ultimately fertilized by the solid breeding ground that the academic vibrancy of SP2 provided me with.

By:  Danna Bodenheimer, MSW, DSW
Penn's School of Social Policy & Practice DSW Alumnus, Class of 2010