{"id":1636,"date":"2018-02-04T08:11:06","date_gmt":"2018-02-04T00:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/darylchow.com\/frontiers\/?p=1636"},"modified":"2018-11-13T16:09:25","modified_gmt":"2018-11-13T08:09:25","slug":"the-future-of-our-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/darylchow.com\/frontiers\/the-future-of-our-work\/","title":{"rendered":"The Future of Our Work Isn’t Robots. It’s Caring Humans."},"content":{"rendered":"

The future of our work as a caring profession isn’t going to be subjugated or outsourced to artificial intelligence or driverless cars.<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead, our work is going to matter even more in the future of work. We will make an impact is how we are going to weave the use of <\/span>personalised data<\/span><\/a>, and how we are going to care for each other.<\/span><\/p>\n

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If we were to get better at our work as therapists and mental health professionals, it isn’t going to be about getting smarter or faster; there will be many shiny new things that will vie for our attention that derails us from the path of care.<\/span><\/p>\n

With regards to the mastery of our craft, many therapists say our work is “different” from other domain of expertise, so we can’t compare deliberate practice to chess, sports, music or medicine. Yet, I’d argue that the discipline<\/em> is similar; it requires devotion. By devotion, I mean, an ongoing dedication to keeping our eyes focused on growing, feed ourselves the appropriate nourishment, so that we stretch our sensibilities of how we care, translating to better individualised results.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what Atul Gawande has to say about why ineptitude is a bigger problem than ignorance:<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201c<\/span> …the knowledge exists but an individual or group of individuals fails to apply that knowledge correctly. What\u2019s really interesting to me about living in our time and in our generation is that that is a remarkable change of living now: that ineptitude is as much or a bigger force in our lives than ignorance.”<\/span><\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/em>[1]<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

While our field has progressed tremendously on the scientific front, we need to compliment this is on how we evolve our care. Thomas Moore famously calls this the \u201ccare of the soul.\u201d [2]<\/span><\/p>\n

What really matters in our field is how we are going to co-construct the experience of care, affection, and dignity for others who experience the shadows of our psyche. It matters a great deal how we relate with those who are on the margins of society, the voiceless, the ones that are outcast from being useful to the cogwheel, the young and the old.<\/span><\/p>\n

I don’t mean care “for the less fortunate.” When we refer to others in this manner, it implies that the less fortunate should strive to be where you are, and that they are “behind” and should catch up. Instead, we should treat each other as equals; everyone will experience the storms of life, and everyone has something to give.<\/span><\/p>\n

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If we agree on the importance of caregiving, not cure-finding[3], we would focus less on<\/span><\/p>\n