The Impaired Social Worker

Abstract

IN RECENT YEARS, various pro fessions have begun to pay increased attention to the problem of impaired practitioners. In 1972, for example, the Council on Mental Health of the Ameri can Medical Association released a statement that physicians have an ethi cal responsibility to recognize and re port impairment among colleagues. In 1976, a group of attorneys recovering from alcoholism started Lawyers Con cerned for Lawyers to address chemi cal dependence in the profession, and in 1980 a group of recovering psycholo gists inaugurated a similar group, Psy chologists Helping Psychologists (Kilburg, Nathan, & Thoreson, 1986; Knutsen, 1977; Laliotis & Grayson, 1985; McCrady, 1989). In 1981 the American Psychological Association held its first open forum on impair ment at its annual meeting (Stadler, Willing, Eberhage, & Ward, 1988). Social work's first national acknowl