Beginnings, Middles, & Ends
Sideways Stories on the Art & Soul of Social Work
Contents
Acknowledgments 7
Preface (No seriously, please read this) 9
1. Beginnings
Introductions 15
Content, Process, and Boundary 16
The Welcome Lecture 17
Latent Consequences 24
Politeness Counts 25
PigPigMotherf***er 26
2 a.m. 32
My Father’s Tales 33
Proper Noun 35
A Leg Up 36
The Advice of Captain Don 37
E.R. # 662343472 38
Going With the Defense 40
Day-At-a-Glance (age 19) 41
Day One 44
A Damn Good Question 45
Angry? 46
3 a.m. SEPpH 50
2 a.m. SEPpH 51
Addiction 53
Accommodation of a Paradigm Shift 55
Why not Why 57
Experience of the Other: The Case of Taboo
and Metaphor 59
The Sharp Edge of Theory 63
Allison and the Role Theory 66
On Wearing My Tie 68
Stuck in a Loop. Reboot With Hope and Chaos. 71
Building Wall 74
2. Middles
In the Middle of a Middle 81
In the E.R. 85
Sweetening for Frankie 95
Dancing in the Midst (2005) 97
Detoxing Wealth 101
Occupational Therapy Tool Number 7 102
Day-At-a-Glance (age 30) 106
Halfway Down the Red Line 109
It’s a Black and White Thing 111
Paging Jesus 114
Mistaken Identity 116
The Principle of Self-Determination 117
Everybody’s Gotta Boss 120
Mid-Life Crisis 123
Practice Informed Research 124
Idle Hands 127
Happy Birthday, Eleanor 132
Principle of Opposites 135
On the Beach 136
Java Time 138
Coffee, Tea, or Systems Theory 139
Per Aquam in Verbo 142
A Slice of P-I-E on the Ward 145
Stigma 146
Malfeasance, Maldicta 149
Leaving Laundry in the Dryer: The Middles of Ends 152
3. The Dialogs of Hanna
A Dog’s Bark 157
Strengths Perspective 158
The Tao versus the Art of War 159
First, Kill All the Lawyers 160
F***ing Swiss Cheese 163
Hanna’s Rule 164
Force Continuum 165
Alphabits 167
Teleology and Deontology? 169
In the Middle of a Football Game 170
Supervisory Ruling 171
The Difference Between Smart and Right 172
The Philosophy of Science 173
Literary Criticism 174
Yet More Literary Criticism 175
Changing the Rules 176
Hiccups 179
A Halloween Story 183
4. Ends
The 9th Inning 187
Single-Subject Design 189
In Memory of Louise 190
9/11 Zen (2001) 198
Post-Modern Regret 199
The Speed of Decision: SEPpH 200
The Looking-Glass Self 201
Killing Brendan (I go, Ego, We go) 202
DNKA (Did Not Keep Appointment) 204
Chestnuts 205
The Hard Good-bye 208
The Dead Man 210
Decathexis 212
Becoming Full 213
Olfaction 217
A Scary Story 218
County Fair: The End of Summer 221
Nice Work, If You Can Get It 224
Post-Traumatic Raison d’etre 225
The Tipping Point (or, “there she goes again...”) 227
A Dog’s Life 230
Private Troubles, Public Concerns 232
The Listener’s Tale 233
Luncheons in May 234
Between Bright Lines, Beliefs, and Bell Curves:
The Burden of the Middleweight 236
Letting Go 239
A Silver Dollar Thank You—A Coda 241
Beginnings, Middles, and EndNotes 244
About the Author 249
