Critical & Theoretical Frameworks

When we talk about critical frameworks in social work, "theory" isn't an abstract academic term. Theory is the word we use as shorthand for the 'lived experience of'. For those of you who are into science, you may remember the term 'theory' as a broad, well-substantiated explanation supported by a vast body of evidence that is considered to be true in our current understanding of the world. 

I think it is fun to talk about epistemics, which is a philosophy term for 'how do we know what is real'. You have probably heard of the brain in a jar, or dipped into Nihilism and Absurdism. Knowledge is always situated. I choose to center the lived experiences of humans. Knowledge starts as perception and is felt deeply within the body. We do not know anything except that which we have encountered and been directly impacted by. 

Centering situated human experience means rejecting top-down institutional authority and professionalized posturing. Medical models love to isolate suffering inside a person's head, but when you look at what people actually encounter, distress is deeply impacted by physical pain, economic precarity, legal pressure, and unaccommodating systems. This view is remarkably close to theory of Social Diagnosis now that I think about it, which, true social work nerds are going to hear and think Mary Richmond. Drawing from Stirnerian egoism and Crip Theory, I reject wage and fixed rules that demand you comply with someone else's idea of productivity.

Dependency is the universal human reality. We all rely on webs of food, roads, and care to survive. This points to another foundational social work teaching: Social Determinants of Health. Disability is not an individual defect, but a failure of systems to accommodate human bodies and energy limits. This shapes my work with Physical Disabilities, Chronic Illness, Pain, and Neurodivergence including ADHD and Autism, where demand avoidance and sensory overstimulation are understood as direct somatic responses to an intense world. 

This work also extends to the 'insane' in Schizoanalysis.

Because all knowledge is born from what we encounter, addiction and suicidal despair are not character flaws; they are the material impact of severe relational isolation and starvation for intimacy. Grounded in the social model of addiction and Joiner's Interpersonal Theory of Suicide, I offer an anti-carceral, non-policing space for folks dealing with legal scrutiny and Probation Involvement*. I offer calm support through Legal & Institutional Systems via Case Management and System Navigation/Advocacy.

To put my situated knowledge into practice, I use collaborative tools that center your authority over your own life. I combine ACT Acceptance & Commitment Therapy to help navigate choice points and deeply chosen values with MI Motivational Interviewing to explore ambivalence without pushiness, alongside SFBT Solutions Focused Brief Therapy for immediate, practical goals. Embodiment starts at Being in Relationship. Critical theory gives us a way to understand the impact of social systems on out every day lives. 

Narrative Therapy (externalizing authority, rejecting diagnostic labeling, and reframing survival strategies as acts of resistance)

Schizoanalysis (dismantling the mental health industrial complex, rejecting privatized family drama, and honoring intense ways of perceiving reality)

Crip Theory (rejecting compulsory able-bodiedness, reclaiming crip time, and dismantling capitalist productivity demands)

Queer Theory (deconstructing institutional binaries, rejecting normative timelines, and honoring physical, non-sanitized desire)

Embodiment & Feminist Theory (grounding healing in Audre Lorde's erotic power, validating rational anger, and dismantling performative institutional distress)

Human Development (rejecting Kohlberg's detached logic, honoring Gilligan's ethic of care, and validating young people's survival strategies against bad authority)

Social Model of Disability (shifting harm away from the individual body-mind and onto unaccommodating, engineered environments)

Anti-Racist Theory (ecological racism, redlining, and state violence while honoring Black survival and somatic wisdom)