Professional relationships in health- and social work; a psycho-social perspective (DHV370)

Content

The course addresses researchers within the health- and social sciences broadly, in the sense that it focuses on professional relationships. Professional relationships are understood as crucial to the health and wellbeing for patients/users as well as the professionals. However, relationships are infused by "the inner world" of emotions and personal experiences, as well as being influenced by "the external world", which include professional traditions, institutional culture and structures and national and international policies. Thus, in this course we apply a psycho-social perspective on professional relationships in order to attend to the dialectic between personal experience and social conditions for relational work. The PhD candidate will be equipped with an understanding of challenges in professional relational work, through in-depth knowledge of the interrelationships between intra- and interpersonal-, institutional- and societal dimensions of experience. This includes learning about analytic strategies for conducting psycho-social research. Care ethics is a key aspect of every professional relationship and the literature will therefore also encompass this perspective.

Learning outcome

The following learning outcomes will be achieved after completion of the course:

Knowledge

The PhD candidate will:

• Possess advanced knowledge of professional relationships in health- and social work as a psychosocial research field.
• Possess advanced knowledge of relevant methods for psychosocial research.

Skills

The PhD candidate can:

• Critically analyze and reflect upon the relationship between intra-and interpersonal-, institutional- and societal dimensions of experience, and their consequences for the development and sustainment of professional relationships in health- and social work.
• Apply psychosocial perspectives and methods to study concrete professional relational experiences.

General competence

The PhD candidate can:

• Organize and present selected research literature with a psycho-social approach to professional relationships in health- or social work and lead discussions in open seminars/groups.
• Search for and apply psycho-social research literature to analyze a self-selected research problem connected to relationally intensive work that can further be developed into a scientific article.

Required prerequisite knowledge

Master level within medicine, health sciences, societal safety, social science, or similar educations.

Exam

Coursework requirements

• To present scientific literature in open seminars/discussion groups.
• To prepare a short abstract (approx 250 words) on the self-selected research topic to be addressed in the individual paper. The abstract should include background, topic, research problem/question, and plan for relevant literature searches. The abstract is to be approved by the course coordinator.
• To produce a list of self-selected literature of approx 500 pages relevant for the individual paper.

Course teacher(s)

Course coordinator:

Birgitta Haga Gripsrud

Course coordinator:

Ellen Ramvi

Method of work

The working methods of the course may vary depending on the number of participants. Methods include supervision, scientific paper writing, presentation of scientific material, critique and defense. The course will be based on open seminars/discussion groups where candidates present and lead discussions related to the curriculum contents.

Course assessment

There must be an early dialogue between the course coordinator, the student representative and the students. The purpose is feedback from the students for changes and adjustments in the course for the current semester.In addition, a digital course evaluation must be carried out at least every three years. Its purpose is to gather the students experiences with the course.

Literature