The Life Of Dorothea Dix's Social Work

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Throughout history, there has been many individuals who have changed and helped the Social Work profession progress to where it is today. One individual that stands out to me the most is Dorothea Dix. I have always been interested with Dorothea Dix because of the things that she reformed for the population of people who are mentally ill. I believe that without her it might have taken a lot longer for the conditions to be changed. Without Dorothea Dix I believe that the conditions of the mentally ill people would still be ignored, she was the start of a drive that revolutionized the way individuals looked at people who were mentally insane. Because of Dorothea Dix, mentally ill people were finally looked at as individuals. She was born on April 4, 1802, and she was also the oldest of three children. When she was younger her father was not home very often and her mother was not very involved with them. This forced Dorothea Dix to pretty much be the person to raise her and her siblings. When Dix was twelve, she left home to live with her grandmother in Boston. Dix later moved in with her aunt who lived in Worcester, Massachusetts. …show more content…

With dignity and worth of a person being one of the core values of Social work I feel like this relates a lot to Dorothea Dix’s story. Even though mentally ill people were treated the way they were, Dorothea Dix could have ignored these conditions like others did. Dix wanted to change this because she saw the mentally ill as human beings, as in this time most people did not see them as people. Dorothea Dix saw the worth of a person and knew that something needed to be done to change the way people saw mentally ill individuals. With her dedication Dix made sure that this was going to change. This is how she helped the Social Work profession, because she saw the worth in a person, when no one else

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