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1. Systematic Body of Knowledge
2. Professional Authority
The authority is basically derived from the knowledge dependence of the community which relies on the knowledge and skills possessed by the professionals who have undergone a length period of training.
Greenwood pointed out that :
a) the professional dictates what is good or evil for the client who has to accede to professional judgement. [I strongly disagree with this view. "Good" and "evil" are value judgements. The professional can assess the pros and cons of a particular action or alternative actions, but the client will have to weigh such pros and cons according to his/her own valuation system and subsequently makes a decision or chooses a particular alternative.]
b) the client is not able to evaluate the calibre of the professional service (s)he receives. (Every client will "evaluate" the work of a professional. However, (s)he may not be able to evaluate such service "validly".)
c) a profession will refrain from advertising because it will impute to the potential client the discriminating capacity to select from competing forms of service. [I, again, strongly disagree with this view. It is because of (b) above, we believe that the potential client is unable to tell the truthfulness of the information contained in the advertisement of a professional service, therefore, any such advertisement will have the potential of giving misleading information to potential clients. Therefore, professionals should refrain from advertising.)
d) the client derives a sense of security from the professional's assumption of authority. (It is odd in taking such a view. The client will derive a sense of security when (s)he trusts the professional and the profession assumes appropriate authority. A client will have little sense of security if (s)he does not trust the professional. On the other hand, if a client trusts a professional and the professional refuses to assume authority, the client will generally feel a bit uneasy.)
e) extra-professional intercourse could be used by both client and professional in a manner such as to impair professional authority, with a consequent diminution of the professional's effectiveness. (This is a rather old fashioned view of how informal relationship will undermine formal authoritative relationship. Bosses should not build up informal relationship with subordinates and likewise social workers should not build up informal relationship with clients. I would say social workers should refrain from building informal relationship with clients but not for this reason. There are issues of abuse of relationship, transference and counter-transference, and impossibility of maintaining continuous informal relationship with clients when a professional has to meet with numerous clients in his/her work life, etc.)
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3. Sanction of the Community
[Note : the term sanction has two distinctively different meaning :
The first meaning is used more commonly, but Greenwood was using the second meaning of the term sanction.
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The community conferred to the profession the following powers :
a) control over training - accreditation
b) control over the use of title - registration
c) control over the entry into the profession - licensing
d) privileged communication/information - protects the professional legally from encroachments upon confidentiality of client's information.
e) policing and making judgement on what constitutes malpractice.
4. Code of Ethics
It is the regulating rules that a professional should keep in their professional practice (not necessarily in their daily life). It is by keeping with such code of practice that the profession maintains the confidence of the community.
(Note : Emotional neutrality does not mean that the professional should not have any emotion with respect to his/her client. It means that the professional should not allow his/her feelings towards the clients affecting his/her professional work. Disinterestedness in the professional-client relationship does not mean that the professional is not interested in the well being of the client. It means that the professional should not have any self interest in the relationship as contrast to client's own interest or other altruistic interest of the profession.)
5. Professional Culture : Values, norms and symbols
a) lack of demarcation between work life and after-work life
b) work is a career instead of just wage earning activities
c) the new comer to the profession has to be acculturated
d) the professional encourages innovation in theory and technique, yet discourages deviation from its values and norms.