ABSTRACT
Thinking is, of course, an activity that forms part of everyday life, but the level of competence and proficiency required in applying thinking as a skill in a professional setting is often difficult to appreciate and to practice. The skill of thinking in social work counselling operates at a level of conscious competence. Processing is a thinking/cognitive and thoughtful skill applied in all cases to ensure that the service given to the service user is the most appropriate for their needs at that time. The skill of thinking seeks to enhance social workers’ awareness of all the factors that impinge on that decision-making; in essence, it is the opposite of the unconscious competence referred to earlier. Thinking in social work may be usefully described in three stages. The three stages are: thinking, processing and reflecting. The skill of self-reflection is one that is hard to recognise in terms of social communication skills.
