Socialinis darbas

Aggressive behaviour is one of the most frequent human responses to circumstances causing threat or tension, or response to unsatisfied needs, obstacles that are met while striving for some goal. Since aggression is related to unsatisfied needs, aggressive behaviour is common among such people who feel not getting something they want most. Being aware of these significant factors influencing aggressive behaviour of clients it is important to be able to recognize them as well as to know management possibilities of this phenomenon within the social work process. This paper analyses methods helping to achieve that the communication with aggressively behaving clients within the social work process turns into the cooperation between the social worker and client, instead of conflict relations, when striving for personal wellbeing and socially accepted behaviour of customers.
Objective of this paper is to reveal the phenomenon of clients' aggressive behaviour and its management possibilities in social work. Using descriptive quantitative survey 76 social workers were polled. Survey "Perception of aggression within the social work practice among social workers and students having completed social work practice" proved the hypotheses brought up in the beginning of the survey. The obtained survey data has demonstrated the following:
• The most frequent type of aggression is verbal aggressive behaviour of clients; sexually aggressive behaviour of clients is less frequent, and physically aggressive behaviour of clients is the least frequent.
• A strong positive relation was discovered between an encounter with clients' aggressive behaviour and a psychological model of avoidance of problematic situations.
• Ability to control a conflict situation with a client greatly depends on the social worker's level of inner harmony. Blocks of psychological avoidance of a conflict situation demonstrate that most often workers avoid conflict situations, when the social worker's level of inner harmony is lower.